Monday, December 13, 2021
Because of a double UEFA mistake
Champions League draw will be repeated
Needed by David
UEFA messes with the draw for the round of 16 of the Football Champions League several times. Fans rage online, the media criticized the controversial drawing. Now the draw will actually be repeated.
The draw for the round of 16 of the Champions League at noon shows that Bayern Munich will meet Atlético Madrid with the eccentric coach Diego Simeone. But after the ceremony, an outcry plows through the football world, especially the English. The reason: UEFA messes up twice with the Loskugel from Manchester United. The draw for the round of 16 will now be repeated at 3 p.m. When the lots were drawn, there were “several technical breakdowns”, announced the European Football Union UEFA. What happened?
At first, Giorgio Marchetti, UEFA’s deputy general secretary who chaired the draw ceremony, made a simple mistake. He said after Villarreal was pulled out of pot two that the Spaniards could face all of the teams in pot one. Teams from the same national associations and group opponents from the preliminary round are not allowed to meet in the round of 16 of the Champions League. Villarreal and United have already played against each other in Group F, with the Manchester team winning 2-1 at Old Trafford and a 2-0 win at El Madrigal.
Ralf Rangnick’s new team qualified as Group F winners for the knockout phase – and after Marchetti’s mistake, they were actually drawn as Villarreal’s opponents. The general secretary recognized his faux pas and let another lot be drawn for the Spaniards. It became Manchester City. So far so good.
But then it got trickier. When Atlético Madrid was pulled out of pot two, Marchetti made a momentous gaffe. He announced the teams that Atlético would not be able to play against in the round of 16 and listed Liverpool FC, who had prevailed in Group B over Madrid, and Manchester United because the team “has already been drawn”. This means that the Red Devils’ ball was not included in the lottery pot for the draw for Atlético’s opponents. There Bayern was finally drawn, United later got the super team Paris Saint-Germain from Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar.
UEFA absolved Marchetti of his guilt and announced: “After a technical problem with the software of an external service provider, which tells the match officials which teams can play against each other,” the errors occurred.