UEFA.com's reporting team bring you all the latest from tonight's games and the build-up to Wednesday's matches direct from the venues while you can have your say on the action.
Have your say on all this week's games in the comments section below.
Tuesday 13.06, Wayne Harrison in London Colney
Samir Nasri has just emerged for training on a wet and windy day at Arsenal's London Colney training ground. The playmaker is recovering from a hamstring injury suffered while on domestic cup duty a little over a fortnight ago but is expected to be in the squad for the visit of Barcelona tomorrow. Arsène Wenger will address what is expected to be a packed press conference from 14.00, followed by defender Johan Djourou.
Tuesday 12.48, London
We are about to hear from the first press conference of the day, with Claudio Ranieri and Philippe Mexès speaking ahead of Roma's meeting with Shakhtar tomorrow. Shakhtar full-backs Darijo Srna and Răzvan Raţ are both in the current UEFA Champions League Fantasy Football dream team, and you can change your side or make a first selection ahead of kick-off tonight for a chance to win a PlayStation®3.
Tuesday 11.49, Graham Hunter, in transit
The extraordinary pull of the UEFA Champions League is demonstrated on the train from Barcelona to Valencia. Ahead of tonight's game, UEFA.com's Valencia correspondent is joined by seven German fans who have travelled from Switzerland to attend the match at Mestalla – and not one of them is a Schalke fan!
Armin, an advertising agency creative director who works in Zurich but who comes from Dusseldorf explains: "We are ground-hoppers, most of us will support Schalke but ... not all of us! We just want to see a great Champions League game. I think 1-1 would be the best Schalke can hope for and Manuel Neuer will be their most important player tonight."
Tuesday 11.32, Milan
Gazzetta dello Sport's front page has a big picture of Zlatan Ibrahimović with the headline: "Ibra is hungry". The famed pink newspaper tries to anticipate Massimiliano Allegri's attacking selection against Tottenham, making Pato favourite ahead of Robinho to link up with Ibrahimović. "I don't have any kind of problem playing with Pato up front," the Swedish striker said. "This stuff is just made up."
Meanwhile, according to Corriere dello Sport, the decision between Robinho and Pato is Allegri's "huge doubt" ahead of tonight's encounter.
Tuesday 11.27, Munich
Features on Raúl are very common in today's papers in Germany, but while the Rheinische Post trumpets the striker's "great record against Valencia" (12 goals in 24 meetings in the Liga), it fears that Schalke's previous away matches "have not served as proof of Royal Blues' prowess on the road" and writes that keeping a clean sheet will be "the hardest task" for the Gelsenkirchen side.
Tuesday 11.01, Madrid
AS newspaper unsurprisingly is excited by Raúl González's return to Spain with his Schalke side in action at Valencia. "The media noise in the build-up has been monopolised by Raúl González Blanco, who is the focus for more cameras than when he played for Real Madrid (...) Today's match will only have one star, but for the Valencia fans this matters little because it has taken years of waiting for them to shine again in the Champions League. This first knockout round tie, winnable on paper, is a too historic opportunity to waste too much time thinking about anything else."
Valencia newspaper Superdeporte builds on that latter theme. "Tonight's match started a long time ago in Unai Emery's mind. The Valencia coach has worked from the first to last detail, thoroughly and with care. The players also know how important it is to go to Germany with a good lead. Lose today and it will be like saying goodbye to sleep."
Tuesday 10.23, London
In England, the Guardian are considering how Spurs will play with Gareth Bale out, Luka Modrić unlikely to start and Rafael van der Vaart only just back from injury, writing: "[Harry Redknapp] has vowed he will not dispense with the cavalier approach that swept his team into the knockout stages on the back of an avalanche of goals yet the changes he has been forced to make are hardly like for like."
Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror quote Van der Vaart as pointing to the Netherlands' FIFA World Cup final run as inspiration. "When you don't believe, you can't win anything," he said. "With the national team last summer at the World Cup, our trainer Bert van Marwijk said: 'We believe or we stay at home.'"
Tuesday 9.00, London
The knockouts start at 20.45 with AC Milan playing Tottenham Hotspur FC and Valencia CF against FC Schalke 04. Ahead of the games we spoke to Peter Crouch, Gary Lineker and Christoph Metzelder, and also heard from Zlatan Ibrahimović, Roberto Soldado and Raúl González. You can follow the games and discuss them live in our MatchCentre this evening and we will have reports, reaction and video highlights from both fixtures.
Meanwhile the build-up to Wednesday's games continues. We will be at today's four press conferences: in the Italian capital, AS Roma will give theirs at 12.30 followed by FC Shakhtar Donetsk at 19.00 while in London, we hear from Arsenal FC at 14.00 and FC Barcelona at 20.45. We also have an interview with Mircea Lucescu, while our Barcelona correspondent Graham Hunter considers how Arsenal can stop the tournament favourites.
There is still time update your UEFA Champions League Fantasy Football selection as the competition enters a new phase and our Predictor competition gives you the chance to forecast this week's scores – and win semi-final tickets. During tonight's matches, tickets are on offer in our Player Rater feature and there are also prizes to be won after the games when you can vote for your Play of the Day. We are also reliving great matches from the past in our Classics section, with a quiz and even more goodies to pick up.
Monday 21.30, London
Some late injury news as Kyriakos Papadopoulos and Christoph Moritz are out for Schalke.
We will continue to bring you the latest news from this week's ties on Tuesday including the build-up to Arsenal v Barcelona and Roma v Shakhtar, and there is full coverage of Milan v Spurs and Valencia v Schalke in the UEFA.com MatchCentre and after the games we will have reports, reaction and video highlights.
Monday 19.06, Santi Solsona in Valencia
Raúl has been speaking ahead of Schalke's game at Valencia. "Tomorrow is a special game because it is the first time I have returned to Spain for a long time, since when I played there. I received a very warm and affectionate welcome here; it was very much appreciated. This is going to be a UEFA Champions League game in which I really want to feature, against a great team like Valencia with great supporters."
Monday 18.32, Roberta Radaelli in Milan
William Gallas seemed to be in a very good mood when he turned up at the press conference at San Siro. Some 30 English journalists were there and the former Chelsea FC defender repeated more than one time that his team-mates "have to be very careful tomorrow".
Gareth Bale has not recovered from his back injury and is not in Milan, but Gallas is not too worried and joked with a journalist who put his question in French - "I don't understand French, I'm sorry," and then laughed, answering in English.
"We want to win, we want to be a great club," added the defender. "I will be 100%, when I'm on the pitch I don't think about my ankle, I think about my job and tomorrow I have to do it really well. Ibrahimović is one of the best, I have already played against him with Arsenal, we have to close him down really well." He then concluded with a smile: "I didn't know Antonio Cassano cannot play. Well, sorry, I don't follow football!"
Monday 18.20, Viktor Sharafudinov in Donetsk
Shakhtar Donetsk arrived in the Italian capital on Saturday and the players watched AS Roma lose 2-0 at home to SSC Napoli. Olexiy Gai does not believe that league defeat will make a difference: "We'll face another Roma team," he said. "After watching this match I still consider that our task on Wednesday will be tough."
Taras Stepanenko was amazed by the Stadio Olimpico atmosphere. "Roma have excellent supporters," the midfielder said. "We have to withstand their pressure to achieve a good result."
Monday 17.27, London
Eren Zahavi's superb overhead kick for Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC against Olympique Lyonnais was overwhelmingly voted the Matchday 6 Play of the Day by UEFA.com users. After this week's games you will have the chance to vote for the next Play of the Day and win UEFA Champions League final tickets – while you can have your say now as to whether Zahavi's goal was better than Wayne Rooney's on Saturday.
Monday 16.58, Paolo Menicucci in Milan
AS Roma president Rosella Sensi spoke to her side in the dressing room at their Trigoria training camp for half an hour in the wake of Saturday's 2-0 home defeat against SSC Napoli, which left the Giallorossi eighth in Serie A, 13 points behind leaders AC Milan. Forward Mirko Vučinić missed the following training session with flu, while goalkeeper Júlio Sérgio was forced pull out 15 minutes into the session with a calf injury and is a doubt for the game against FC Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday.
Monday 16.42, London
Zlatan Ibrahimović spoke of his own journey to footballing maturity as he looked ahead to Milan's game against Tottenham. "I get along with my team-mates now, you know," he said. "I'm not 20 years old any more; I don't feel like punching the wall or messing things up now."
Read Roberta Radaelli's blog as she asks whether the Swede is ready to shine at the very highest level.
Monday 15.06, Santi Solsona in Valencia
Valencia coach Unai Emery has hinted that Juan Mata could overcome an ankle injury to face Schalke. "He has a little discomfort but he is a player who always wants to play and give his best."
The club have sold 42,000 tickets already, with 2,700 fans expected from Germany, with most media attention focused on Raúl González's return to Spain.
Monday 14.12, Roberta Radaelli at Milanello
The news that Tottenham's Gareth Bale will not be playing at San Siro came as a relief for Milan. Coach Massimiliano Allegri, however, is sure that Spurs have other trump cards to play, saying: "It doesn't matter if Bale doesn't play this game, because Tottenham have done well recently without him. They are a tough side. They are very well organised, with a good team spirit. Some of their players have real quality."
After the weekend victory over Parma FC, the Rossoneri's morale is high, especially with arch-rivals Internazionale losing at Juventus. Yet, having scored one goal and set up two more in Saturday's 4-0 win, Antonio Cassano will miss out against Tottenham as he has already played in this season's competition with UC Sampdoria. The hosts at least take comfort in having Alessandro Nesta, Gennaro Gattuso and Clarence Seedorf available after injuries.
See what Tottenham striker Peter Crouch makes of his side's campaign so far.
Monday 13.55, London
Arsène Wenger hinted that he may not risk Samir Nasri for Arsenal's round of 16 opener against Barcelona on Wednesday. The 23-year-old is recovering from a hamstring injury, and the Arsenal manager told the club's website: "He has worked very hard in the last week. Physically he is ready, just there is a risk to have a setback. I will not take a crazy gamble." Read Graham Hunter's blog and have your say on the game.
Monday 12.30, London
Reports in England suggest Gareth Bale has not travelled to Milan due to a back injury. That will be a big blow for Tottenham given how well he performed in his last game at San Siro; the Welsh international scored a hat-trick in a 4-3 defeat by FC Internazionale Milano, before masterminding a 3-1 win against the European champions in the reverse fixture.
Why not check out one of UEFA.com's pre-match talking points? Read how the London clubs have a point to prove. Have your say on how Arsenal FC will fare against FC Barcelona. Is this the year Zlatan Ibrahimović finally silences his detractors in Europe?
Monday 11.00, London
The first of the press conferences for the midweek matches is Valencia CF's meeting with the media at their Paterna training base from 13.15; Roberto Soldado is the player accompanying coach Unai Emery. AC Milan will conduct their conference at their Milanello facility at 13.30. Valencia's opponents on Tuesday, FC Schalke 04, hold their conference at Mestalla from 17.15, with Tottenham Hotspur FC facing the press at San Siro an hour later.
In the meantime, this is an ideal time to update your UEFA Champions League Fantasy Football selection and to check out other great interactive UEFA.com features: Predictor, Player Rater, Play of the Day and Classics. There are super prizes on offer, so seize the day.
Source : http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/blogs/blog=blog_liveblog/postid=1594011.html
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