Benfica faces Marseille in the Europa League | International football

After Toulouse and Rangers, Marseille. Benfica will have to take a step forward in the Europa League, after this Friday the draw for the quarter-finals of the European competition determined that the “reds” will face the French team in the next European round. If they advance in the competition, Benfica will face, in the semis, the winner of the duel between Liverpool and Atalanta.

Strictly speaking, any of the possible opponents in these “quarters” (Atalanta, Milan, Roma, Liverpool, West Ham, Bayer Leverkusen and Marseille) would always be a challenge of greater difficulty than the previous qualifiers, but there were some more accessible than others. To that extent, the Portuguese team can consider that they had a lot of luck in this pairing, since Marseille is, on a theoretical level, the least equipped team of the possible opponents.

The draw made in Nyon also dictated an interesting duel between Milan and Roma, teams from the same country, and a Liverpool-Atalanta with potentially rich tactical precepts.

As in the Champions League draw, the drawing of balls for the Europa League fulfilled the precepts of what should be called a draw: without conditions and with free pairing.

The quarter-finals will be played on the 11th and 18th of April, with the semi-finals scheduled for the 2nd and 9th of May and the final, in Dublin, scheduled for the 22nd of May.

Check out the quarter-final games:
AC Milan – AS Roma
Bayer Leverkusen – West Ham
Liverpool – Atalanta
Benfica – Marseille