Clamorous mistake in the draw for the knockout round of the Champions League which is canceled and repeated after a few hours. What happened? The former player Andrej Arshavin, chosen to extract the match balls, after Villarreal picked up Manchester United as an opponent of the Spanish team: an obvious mistake, given that the two teams have already faced each other in the group stage and by regulation no they can face each other again in the first round of direct elimination. The Uefa delegates intervened and pulled another ball: Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City came out in place of United. Same city but different opponent.
Everything solved? Not at all. At the end of the procedure, the formal protest from Atletico Madrid came, which disputed the match with Manchester United. In a cumbersome statement, Uefa explained that “technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs officials on which teams are eligible to play against each other” caused the material error. Draw canceled, encore in the afternoon.