On the evening of March 17 (Hanoi time), UEFA conducted a draw to divide the Champions League quarter-finals. Accordingly, the Lucky Draw brought Man City to face the most difficult team, Bayern Munich. Real Madrid will reunite with Chelsea for the third consecutive season.
Fans will also witness the Serie A civil war between AC Milan and Napoli in the quarterfinals, while Inter will meet opponents from Portugal, which is Benfica.
Inter’s schedule will be reversed from the original plan.
Notably, the draw results showed that AC Milan and Inter Milan both played at home in the first leg. Both Milan clubs are scheduled to play at home despite sharing the San Siro stadium.
In that context, UEFA was forced to reverse the schedule of one of the two matches. This is inherent in the enacted legislation. But how does UEFA adjust the schedule? And why was Inter’s game forced to change?
If two teams in the same city are scheduled to play on the same day, one of the matches will have to be changed according to UEFA regulations. When this is the case, UEFA will attempt to organize matches on consecutive days.
However, Inter and Milan are not allowed to play their home matches 24 hours apart due to regulations of the Milan local government. Therefore, the solution is One match will go ahead as scheduled and the other will be reversed.
In this case, Milan’s match is kept, otherwise Inter must play the first leg in Portugal. This is because the team ranked higher in the Champions League will play on a fixed schedule, while the lower ranked team will have the match reversed.
Because Milan are the reigning Serie A champions, they have priority. Stefano Pioli’s army was 2 points ahead of their city rivals last season.
The draw results show that Inter and Milan both play at home in the first leg.
UEFA’s regulations on priority are ranked in the following order:
1. The defending champion of the Champions League
2. The reigning Europa League champions
3. Domestic Champion
4. Runner-up in the domestic league
5. The next best ranked team in the domestic championship
Thus, the first leg, which was originally scheduled to be played at home by Inter, will now march to Portugal to face Benfica on April 11. In the return leg, they are allowed to use the San Siro stadium to welcome Benfica on April 18.
In other words, Inter was forced to suffer and change from home to play away in the first leg of the quarter-final against Benfica.
In 2019, Manchester City and Manchester United both won the draw to be played at home in the quarter-final second leg of the Champions League. Man United face Barcelona, ​​while Man City face Tottenham.
Due to regulations when two teams in the same city have a home match on the same day and cannot be rescheduled (one team plays one day apart from the other), UEFA is forced to make a change even though Man City and Man Utd use Use 2 separate yards.
The Red Devils finished last season in a lower position than Man City in the Premier League, so their schedule was reversed. That means Man Utd play the first leg at home and the second leg in Barcelona.
Xiao Lam | 19:52 17/03/2023
