Today’s UEFA Champions League draw in Nyon at midday is arguably the most exciting of recent years,  as the first time all the clubs come from the top leagues.

While the Premier League caused fear in the last round with five representatives, it is the Spanish league that now has the most number of clubs involved with three.

Real Madrid, who have won the past two trophies are in the hat along with the actual leaders of the four top leagues:

Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. There are no restrictions and so any tie can take place which will take place on April 3/4 and 10/11.

There are many coaches and players that could face their former clubs to add to the emotion with for example Bayern’s Jupp Heynckes having been in charge of Real Madrid and saw them win their seventh European Cup in 1998.

Guardiola could face Barcelona where he won 14 of a possible 19 trophies, or Monchi could return to Sevilla with Roma.

Barcelona is the side that is most effective in recent years at this stage of the competition as they have gone 11 consecutive times to the quarterfinals with their last failure to reach this stage coming in the 2006/07 season.

Real are at this stage for an eighth consecutive time, having overcome a dour era when they were knocked out of the last 16 for six consecutive seasons. Now though they have reached the semi-finals for seven consecutive years.

As for the non-Spanish clubs, Bayern have been in the quarterfinals in nine of the past 11 years and Juventus four from the last ten editions.