The last-16 draw for the Champions League will go down in history.The initial draw contained a number of mistakes with UEFA claiming the software that determines which balls were eligible wasn’t working.It meant that Manchester United were inadvertently drawn out to play Villarreal - who faced each other in the group.
ENTER GIVEAWAYUnited's ball wasn't then selected to play Atletico Madrid, while Liverpool were picked instead.UEFA tweeted: “Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League Round of 16.”
A couple of hours later, Andriy Arshavin was back picking balls out of bowls once again in a complete redraw.Instead of Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo which were drawn originally, we got Sergio Ramos and Lionel Messi vs Real Madrid as Paris Saint-Germain were paired with the Spanish champions.Check out the Champions League draw in full below:
- Salzburg vs Bayern Munich
- Sporting Lisbon vs Manchester City
- Benfica vs Ajax
- Chelsea vs Lille
- Atletico Madrid vs Manchester United
- Villarreal vs Juventus
- Inter Milan vs Liverpool
- PSG vs Real Madrid
Fortunately, there were no mistakes this time around.
However, Michael Owen in the BT Sport studio was convinced there was.
UEFA had said that Villarreal couldn’t face Liverpool and had to be drawn against Juventus.
Owen was convinced this was a mistake.
Presenter Lindsay Hipgrave said that Owen was “convinced he’s spotted something” and revealed that he thought “it’s wrong again.”
“I think it’s wrong,” Owen said. “I can’t think of a reason why, at the end, Liverpool could only play one team.”
After a few minutes of panic, it was later revealed that Liverpool couldnt play Villarreal because it meant Inter couldn’t play Real Madrid (same group) and Juventus (same country).
VIDEO: Michael Owen thought UEFA messed up again
Check out the moment below (from 30:00 in the video):
And breathe…