Champions League preview: Liverpool have a difficult battle against RB Leipzig while Mauricio Pochettino’s PSG face Barcelona

European football returns this week with the first part of the Champions League round of 16 getting underway, with plenty of exciting fixtures set to be played.

Liverpool are the first English side to play, facing RB Leipzig on Tuesday night with the hopes of reaching the final in Istanbul.

The Reds have been poor since the start of the year but are hard to beat when it comes to European competition and will be targeting the Champions League after Jurgen Klopp admitted that they have conceded their Premier League title.

Leipzig made it to the semi-finals of the competition last year where they were knocked out by PSG and will be wanting to go one better this year and reach the final.

Also, on Tuesday, PSG will be without their star man Neymar (who is the competition’s joint top scorer with six goals) when they play European giants Barcelona.

It will be Mauricio Pochettino’s first Champions League game in charge of the French side since taking over in January, and he will be hoping to avoid a repeat of the events from the two clubs’ last encounter.

The sides haven’t met since 2017 when Barcelona completed a famous comeback to win 6-5 on aggregate, and the Parisians will be looking for revenge this time out.

On Wednesday night, the two other top scorers in the competition are in action.

Erling Haaland and his Borussia Dortmund teammates travel to Sevilla in the hopes of taking the attention away from their poor domestic form.

The German club topped Group F ahead of Lazio, Club Brugge and Zenit whilst Sevilla finished second in Group E behind Chelsea.

Juventus and Porto play in the other Wednesday night game, with Alvaro Morata looking to add to the six European goals he already has.

The Italian champions topped their group over Barcelona and shouldn’t have much trouble getting a result against the Portuguese side who were second in Group C to Manchester City.