Donetsk task in Champions League last sixteen

Bayern have been handed a tough but manageable first knockout round tie in this season’s Champions League as the 2013 winners and current Bundesliga league leaders were paired with Shakhtar Donetsk in Monday lunchtime’s draw for the last sixteen. The pairing is a ground-breaker, as despite Bayern’s long and illustrious history in European competition they have never previously met the Ukrainian giants.

“Shakhtar Donetsk is a good draw and we’ll certainly be favourites, but we’ll show great respect in both matches. Shakhtar played some very good games in the group stages. It’s definitely going to be a new experience for us,” FCB chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said after the draw.

“We must in no way underestimate this team,” commented board director Andreas Jung, who attended the ceremony in Nyon. “They have the Champions League top scorer Luiz Adriano in their ranks and a few other Brazilians as well.” The Ukrainian winter break has already begun, with Shakhtar only due to resume domestic league competition at the end of February.

First leg in February, return in March

The draw ceremony was held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland from midday CET on Monday and was conducted by UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino, UEFA director of competitions Giorgio Marchetti, and former Germany star Karl-Heinz Riedle as the official ambassador for final venue Berlin. The 16-team line-up featured seven former winners of Europe's elite club competition and 11 of last year's knockout contenders, with a total of four teams from Germany, three from Spain and England, and one each from Italy, Switzerland, France, Ukraine, and Portugal.

As group winners, Bayern play the first leg of the Round of 16 tie away from home. The match would normally be staged at the 52,187 capacity Donbass Arena in Donetsk, although Shakhtar are currently playing their home matches some 1,000 km to the west at the 34,915 capacity Arena Lviv due to security concerns in their home city. The first leg will be played on 17 February, with the return at the Allianz Arena in Munich on 11 March. This year’s final takes place at the Olympic Stadium stadium in Berlin on 6 June 2015.

Champions League first knockout round draw in full:

Paris St Germain v Chelsea

Manchester City v Barcelona

Bayer Leverkusen v Atletico Madrid

Juventus v Borussia Dortmund

Schalke v Real Madrid

Shakhtar Donetsk v Bayern Munich

Arsenal v AS Monaco

Basel v FC Porto

Bayern aim "to avoid defeat at all costs"

FC Bayern are back on English soil. On Tuesday afternoon, exactly 129 days after the Champions League triumph at Wembley, the treble winners landed in Manchester, some 300 kilometres north-west of London. The current Kings of Europe play their first away match of this season’s Champions League on Wednesday evening (Live in Astro Channel 810 & 833HD Thursday 2.45am, Malaysian time), and it will be potentially the toughest of the Champions League group stage.

“The away match in England will be a hard one for us, and very important for our goal of finishing top of the group,” Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said. “It’s going to be a difficult match, maybe even a first-place decider. We cannot lose this game.”

Bayern travel to Manchester riding a wave of confidence after winning their last five competitive matches, including the 3-0 opening day victory in the Champions League against CSKA Moscow. The German giants feel prepared for a “hard, hard fight” (Dante) against last season’s Premier League runners-up.