Champions League draw: Manchester United quarter final tie could be 'reversed'

Four English Premier League clubs will be in the Champions League quarter-final draw on Friday for the first time in a decade.

Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City will join Ajax, Porto, Juventus and Barcelona in the pot.

That both Manchester clubs have reached the last eight has provided an organizational headache for Champions League organizers UEFA and a small bragging rights victory for City, a club former United manager Alex Ferguson once Old Trafford's "noisy neighbors."

Local authorities in Manchester have made it clear that both teams cannot play on the same night in the city nor on consecutive nights during the knockout stages.

So UEFA has said that should both teams be "drawn within the same sequence" (either both at home first or away first) then United will have its tie reversed due to the fact it finished behind City in the league last year.

There is also the possibility, however, that United and City could be drawn against each other for the first time ever in European competition -- a mouthwatering prospect given United's recent uptick in form.

Manchester United players celebrate after their last 16 victory over PSG.

Champions League knockout matches are played over two legs with many managers and players preferring to play the first leg away and the second leg at home.

A 2007 paper published in the Journal of Sport Sciences found the "second leg home advantage" phenomenon was "real" with the teams who play the second leg at their own stadium historically having a greater than 50% chance of progressing to the next round.

However, the study also found that the extent to which having the second leg home at home was advantageous had decreased significantly in modern times.

A 2017 paper from academics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, also found a "slight second-leg home advantage" remained evident.

Ronaldo scored three times as Juventus qualified for the Champions League quarter-finals.

United qualified after a dramatic second leg comeback saw them overturn a 2-0 deficit away to Paris Saint Germain.

City, meanwhile, strolled through with a 10-2 aggregate thrashing of German club Schalke.

No English team has won the Champions League since Chelsea did so in 2012.

Only two other English teams, Liverpool in 2006 and Manchester United in 2008, have been crowned European champions this century.

That pales compared to Spain which has produced 10 Champions League winning teams in the same period.

Real Madrid alone has won four out of the last five Champions League titles, but will not do so this year after being ousted by Ajax last week.