AC Milan booked their place in the Europa League quarter-final draw last night by beating Slavia Praha 3-1 away from home to secure a 7-3 aggregate win overall.
It was deja vu from the first leg as a sending off for Slavia inside the opening half an hour heavily conditioned the outcome, with Holes given his marching orders after a VAR review following a stamp on Davide Calabria’s ankle.
Just like back in Italy, Milan then scored three goals before half-time. The first came from Christian Pulisic after Rafael Leao’s set-up, then Ruben Loftus-Cheek tapped home a Theo Hernandez cross and finally Leao got his own goal which was the pick of the bunch.
Jurasék did get one back for the home side late on, but the Rossoneri made it quite a routine evening in the end which is all that they really could have hoped for. It means, of course, that Stefano Pioli’s side are in the hat for the next round.
Below is everything you need to know ahead of the draw today.
Date and time
The Europa League quarter-final, semi-final and final draws take place at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, on Friday 15 March.
The draw ceremony begins at 13:00 CET and it will be streamed on the UEFA website, with the first ball likely to be picked out around ten-past or quarter-past due to the lengthy introductions.
The possible opponents
Below are the eight teams that progressed through the Europa League round of 16:
Atalanta (ITA)
Roma (ITA)
Leverkusen (GER)
Liverpool (ENG)
Benfica (POR)
Milan (ITA)
Marseille (FRA)
West Ham (ENG)
At this stage, anyone can draw anyone because there is no seeding system as there was for the play-offs and quarter-finals, and there is no country protection so clubs can face opposition from the same league.
🗳️ #ACMilan’s possible opponents in the #UEL quarter-finals
🤔 Who do you want to draw? pic.twitter.com/Jpeqcu3lB8
— SempreMilan (@SempreMilanCom) March 14, 2024
How the draws work
The first bit is rather straightforward. The eight balls containing the names of the quarter-finalists are placed in a large bowl then drawn out one by one.
The first team drawn plays its first match at home, against the second team drawn. The procedure is repeated with the remaining balls in the bowl until everyone has an opponent.
For the semi-final draw, four balls containing slips of paper marked ‘Winners of quarter-final 1’ to ‘Winners of quarter-final 4’ are placed in a large bowl and shuffled then drawn out.
Essentially, Milan will then know their full path to the final in Dublin. Speaking of which, a third draw is then held to determine the ‘home’ side in the final.
When are the quarter-final and semi-final games played?
Quarter-final first legs: 11 April
Quarter-final second legs: 18 April
Semi-final first legs: 2 May
Semi-final second legs: 9 May
Final: 22 May
Just avoid Bayer and Liverpool. I’ll be content with any other draw.
We’re good against anyone, Bayer is not spectacular at this stage they narrowly escaped Qarabag both legs, so we can face them and eliminate them.
Roma is quite dangerous after Mou’s out and Atalanta’s always difficult to beat. Benfica’s the same. Maybe only olympique de marseille and WHU are easier 😀
Yeah there are some tough teams, including a reinvigorated Roma and Atalanta.
I’m with you, I’d take Marseille
Fun Fact: marseille and west ham are both at 7th place in the their league.
It’s a good last 8!
But we’re in with a shout!
Leverkusen seem to have some sort of cheat code.. Let’s all pray to avoid them, it almost seems a harder matchup than Liverpool..
I will like A S ROMA for now,they’re the beatable team.
Give me one of these teams atalanta, roma, west ham or marseille and then let some of the other teams battle it out in between them. In the end though i think all the teams can be beaten by us but liverpool will most likely still win 80% of them as things currently stands they can nevertheless also be beaten.
I hope Marseille or west ham. Will be great matches. Roma and Atalanta would be boring. Leverkusen would be intersting. I’ve heard they are hard to beat but have never seen them play.
Liverpool would be the worst of course…
Even though i agree meeting atalanta or roma might be a bit boring fixture considering that we often meet them ill prefer us going as far in the tournament as possible than being entertained 😀 Ive always liked west ham but think they are beatable and marseille as well.
I saw the leverkusen vs quarabag match last night and leverkusen was lucvky to directly go through as their last goal was scored in 97 minute or something while the match should have been stopped at the 96th minute. quarabag was also in front with two goals as they also were in the first match. Leverkusen can definitely be hit but my worries is that they ride a wave and hasnt lost a match in the bundesliga and as things are going it kinda reinforces that belief they must have in themselves that they currently cant be beaten so i would consider it a rather tricky fixture. Hope they meet Liverpool and then the tournament is bound to have one favorite less in the next round.
Even ac milan is a tough opponent, bring on anyone, play the 2 games, and see what will happen, we need to win games to win the trophy, against whoever, no need to talk about avoiding anyone, its not a lucky game, we can play against anyone, thats why we are there, even marseille and west ham, they deserve to be there, they wont be easy, no easy games now
It seems they listened to my conversation and gave us Roma.👌🤣