FOOTBALL DAILY: UEFA’s ERROR LEADS TO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE REDRAW

Football Daily is back again with top football news and unbiased analysis. Today, we will be looking at the UEFA Champions League Round-of-16 draw and redraw.

This Monday, the UEFA held the Champions League draw for the Round-of-16 draw of the competition. The teams were drawn for this round, only for it to be declared void because of a mistake. During the draw, all teams that topped their groups are seeded into one pot and the runners-up are referred to as unseeded and put into another pot. The Seeded teams are drawn against the unseeded teams but they are drawn with rules. These rules are;

• Teams from the same leagues or associations are not allowed to face each other.
• Teams from the same group cannot be drawn against each other.

On this occasion, Manchester United topped their group but was not seeded, instead, they were placed with the unseeded. This was noticed at the very end of the draw. After several complaints and discussions, UEFA decided that the draw would have to be redone. This is what the Round-of-16 looked after the first draw;

• Benfica vs Real Madrid
• Atletico Madrid vs Bayern Munich
• Inter Milan vs Ajax
• Villareal vs Manchester City
• Red Bull Salzburg vs Liverpool
• Paris Saint Germain vs Manchester United
• Chelsea vs Lille
• Sporting CP vs Juventus

These matches are really enticing, and the whole world would have liked to see them. Matches like PSG vs Manchester United would have seen Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo face each other one more time. I know everyone would have liked to see it because even I would have. After redoing the draw, the fixtures were not too bad either. This is what the new Round-of-16 fixtures look like: