Soccer/ Champions' League:Barcelona and Liverpool, the last two winners of the Champions League, will face each other in the first knock-out round of the this season's competition following the draw made yesterday.
The first leg will be at the Nou Camp where Barcelona have never beaten, or even scored against Liverpool in three European matches going back to 1976.
"We are the last two European champions and it will be an extraordinary tie between the two teams," Barca president Joan Laporta said.
"They will be very tough rivals and play a physical style of football. They also have players that we know very well like Luis Garcia, who played with us, and Xabi Alonso. But we are the team to beat."
Liverpool's Spanish manager Rafael Benitez was happy to agree with Barcelona's billing as favourites, describing the outcome as "probably the most difficult draw".
"People are talking about Barcelona being the best team in the world at the moment. The positive thing is we have nothing to lose because people will expect them to win," he said.
"The (Liverpool) players will be excited because when we won the Champions League we had to beat teams like Milan, Juventus and Chelsea, so it could be an omen."
Another intriguing tie pits Porto, who won the competition under coach Jose Mourinho in 2004, against Chelsea, where Mourinho is now in charge.
The sides met in the competition shortly after Mourinho went to Chelsea in the summer of 2004, with Chelsea winning 3-1 at home in a group match in September 2004 and Porto winning the return 2-1 three months later.
Arsenal, runners-up to Barcelona in last season's final, travel to PSV Eindhoven, where Gilberto scored the fastest goal in Champions League history after 20.07 seconds in Arsenal's 4-0 win in a group match in September 2002.
Scottish champions and 1967 European Cup winners Celtic were relishing an attractive draw against Italian six-time European champions AC Milan.
Celtic manager Gordon Strachan said he was delighted with the draw for personal reasons.
"It's thrilling, absolutely thrilling," he said. "I've never been to the San Siro before. And, selfishly, I was hoping to avoid playing an English team. We played Chelsea in a friendly and we have been to Manchester United a lot, so I wanted something different."
In other ties, Lille face Manchester United; old rivals Real Madrid will play Bayern Munich for the 17th time in European competition; Inter Milan are up against Valencia; and AS Roma will meet Olympique Lyon.
Bayern, the only German side remaining in the competition, will be looking to avenge two Champions League exits in the past five years at the hands of their Spanish opponents.
"We have a score to settle with Real Madrid," said Dutch striker Roy Makaay, who played in the Bayern team that lost to Real at the same stage of the Champions League in 2004.
The first legs will be staged on February 20th-21st next with the return legs on March 6th-7th. The final is in Athens in May.
