Barcelona will play Napoli in the knockout round play-off of the Europa League, marking a face-off between two of the late Diego Maradona’s former clubs.
Barcelona, who crashed out of the Champions League after finishing third in their group, will host Napoli in the first leg on 17 February before playing away a week later. Napoli, winners of the Uefa Cup in 1989 with Maradona as captain, were runners-up in a Europa League group which included Leicester.
The eight play-off ties pit teams who finished second in the Europa League groups against clubs who were third in the Champions League groups. The winners will join the eight Europa League group winners in the last 16, the draw for which will be held on 12 February.
Rangers will take on a Borussia Dortmund squad including Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham and Giovanni Reyna, whose father, Claudio, played for Rangers from 1999-2001. The Scottish champions were a distant second behind Lyon in their Europa League group and Dortmund finished behind Ajax and Sporting in their Champions League group.
The remaining play-off ties drawn were: Sevilla v Dinamo Zagreb, RB Leipzig v Real Sociedad, Zenit St Petersburg v Real Betis, Sheriff Tiraspol v Sporting Braga, Atalanta v Olympiakos and Porto v Lazio.
In the third-tier Europa Conference League, Leicester City will face the Danish side Randers while Celtic will take on the Norwegian champions Bodø/Glimt in the knockout play-off round. Rapid Vienna will face either Tottenham or Vitesse, depending on Uefa’s verdict on Spurs’ postponed game against Rennes.
Uefa’s control, ethics and disciplinary body is to meet, possibly this week, to rule on what should happen after Spurs and Rennes were unable to find a date to replay the game. The most likely outcome is that Spurs, who were unable to fulfil the fixture due to Covid-19 cases, will forfeit the game 3-0 and be eliminated – although there is an outside chance the match could still be played in January.
Other ties in the Conference League play-off round, which follows the same format as the Europa League, include: Marseille v Qarabag, PSV Eindhoven v Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Fenerbahce v Slavia Prague, Midtylland v PAOK and Sparta Prague v Partizan.