A Draw so Nice They Drew it Twice

There will be a change to today’s blog as a Covid outbreak in the Manchester United camp has led to their visit to Brentford being postponed until the new year. I hope to be able to make the re-arranged game, but in the meantime I thought I’d be left without a blog this week. Having taken away one blog though Manchester United then inadvertently provided me with another with the help of UEFA and the Champions League round of 16 draw.

The teams for the draw are divided into two groups, one with the group stage Winners and one with the Runners up. Teams are then drawn from these groups into their knockout ties, runners up first so that the winners of the group stage have the home advantage in the second legs. This advantage was negated slightly in previous seasons with the away goals rule, but since that has now been removed the advantage should now be a genuine one.

For the round of 16 draw there are 2 very simple rules.
1. A team cannot be drawn against another team from their own national Association
2. A team cannot be drawn against a team from their own group stage group.

The first of these rules was not a problem, but in the original draw there was a major hiccough with the second rule.

The draw was progressing normally until Villarreal were drawn from the pots and it was time to pick out their opponents for this round. The ball that was picked out to face Villarreal was that of their group stage opponents Manchester United. Luckily the officials making the draw realised instantly that this was a forbidden draw and moved swiftly to remove it from the board. They chose to simply redraw the opponents for Villarreal at this point and once again the Spanish side ended up with opposition from Manchester but this time in the form of Manchester City, a much tougher proposition on current form

This mix up should never have happened as once the first team has been chosen UEFA has a system in place to ensure the teams that they cannot play are not in place to be chosen for that round. This system clearly failed for this draw as not only were Manchester United in the draw when they shouldn’t have been, it also transpired that they were not in the draw for Atletico Madrid’s opponents when they should have been in it. Atletico thus had a far greater chance of drawing the remaining teams than they should have done and were drawn against Bayern Munich, who had won every game in the group stage.

The full original and now null and void draw for the Champions League round of 16 was as follows:
RB Salzburg vs Liverpool
Inter Milan vs Ajax
Sporting Lisbon vs Juventus
Benfica vs Real Madrid
Chelsea vs Lille
Villarreal vs Manchester City
Atletico Madrid vs Bayern Munich
and PSG vs Manchester United

This was an excellent draw for many of the traditional European powerhouses and would have left us with 2 particularly juicy ties in both Atletico Madrid vs Bayern Munich and PSG vs Manchester United. The latter of these 2 ties was a highly anticipated possibility in the run-up to the draw as it would have seen an on pitch battle between the two men considered by many to be the greatest footballers of all time. It would have been Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo.
This is a truly mouth-watering clash, it was all the pundits could talk about leading up to the draw and now it appeared they had got their wish.

Not so fast however, as the procedural error in the draw was then spotted by UEFA and flagged up to the teams. It appeared UEFA originally wished to take the result of the draw forward as it was, despite the flaws in execution, but it clearly became clear that this was not going to be the case. Villarreal and Atletico Madrid were the teams most effected by the mix-up and both spoke to UEFA to ask for the first draw to be considered null and void and for the draw to be conducted once more, this time with all the correct balls in play at the right times. It is obvious why they did this because, as previously mentioned, neither team had received favourable ties in the original draw.

UEFA decided to agree with the teams in question that due to the fault in the original draw it would be declared null and void and a new draw would take place 2 hours after this decision was made, 14:00 GMT. Technical issues with third party equipment used in the draw process was given as the reason for the mistakes in the original draw.

This decision was absolutely the right call to make and I am impressed with how speedily UEFA came to the decision and was then able to reset everything in time for the rescheduled draw. Sure the original draw had been a mess, but credit must be given to UEFA for owning up to the mistake and taking the correct steps to fix it.

The second draw went off without a hitch, but there were some definite winners and losers from this rescheduled draw. The winners will be very happy that the draw was redone, but I’m sure the losers will be wishing the original draw as allowed to stand.

The results of the second draw and the ties that will actually take place in the new year are as follows:
RB Salzburg vs Bayern Munich
Inter Milan vs Liverpool
Sporting Lisbon vs Manchester City
Benfica vs Ajax
Chelsea vs Lille
Villarreal vs Juventus
Atletico Madrid vs Manchester United
and PSG vs Real Madrid

Winners from the draw include both Villarreal and Atletico Madrid, who called for the re-draw, among others.

Villarreal went from a tie with a Manchester City team who finished above Messi’s PSG in the group stage and who have been on electric form in the Premier League, to a tie with Juventus. Juventus have a track record of choking in the Champions League which dates back to when it was known as the European Cup. They have reached as many finals as both Liverpool and AC Milan, with only Bayern Munich and Real Madrid reaching more, but have only 2 titles to their name. Their ability to reach the final is impressive, but Villarreal will still see them as an easier tie than City. Juventus’ last appearance in the final was in 2017, whilst City were last year’s losing finalists. Furthermore, Juventus’ league form this season has not been spectacular. Their most recent result at time of writing being a 1-1 draw with newly promoted Venezia. I still suspect Juventus to progress against Villarreal, but there is no doubting this re-draw has given Villarreal a far better chance than they would’ve had with their original draw.

Atletico Madrid have perhaps done even better that Villarreal in this re-draw. They have gone from a dreadful draw against an unbeaten Bayern Munich side that is currently 6 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga to a draw against Manchester United, the very team whose ball was not in their pot originally. Manchester United are currently in a transitional phase with their new manager and whilst they will surely be settled into Rangnick’s style of play by the time these ties are played in February Atletico will still fancy their chances of progression, despite their own questionable form of late. The second leg home advantage may just give United the edge, but Simeone is an excellent manager and I wouldn’t put it past him to find a way to win this one. He’ll certainly believe his team has a much better chance of progression against United than they would have had against Bayern.

Speaking of Bayern Munich, they are another huge winner from the re-draw. Going from an awkward tie against Atletico which would have taken great effort to win to an easy tie against Austrian side RB Salzburg which they are virtually guaranteed to win. It is also a shorter journey for their fans to make in the first leg, which can only be a good thing with the Covid situation as it is in Europe. Bayern should make it through to the Quarter finals without breaking sweat.

Those 3 are the major winners from the redraw, now for the losers.

The biggest losers from the redraw would appear to be Real Madrid. They had originally been given an extremely winnable tie against their Iberian neighbours Benfica which they could’ve won at a canter. Instead they will now have to face PSG and Lionel Messi who will undoubtedly cause them far more problems. Whilst PSG do not have the greatest record in knockout Champions League games the presence of Messi in their team and the bad memories that Madrid players and fans have of facing him in his Barcelona days may just tip the scales in PSG’s favour. For myself I still see Real Madrid progressing from this one, but there is no denying that the hurdle in the way of that progression has increased massively as a result of the re-draw.

The other clear loser from the re-draw is Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool. They had originally drawn the simplest of ties against RB Salzburg, who would have been easy prey for whichever team Liverpool selected given the attacking prowess they possess. After the re-draw they were instead left with the task of taking on Internationale Milano, a far harder assignment. It will at least give a little more familiarity to this round for the travelling reds fans though as Liverpool have already played at the San Siro in the group stages against Inter’s city rivals AC Milan. Liverpool won both of their group games against the first Milan side and I would back them to progress here too, but it would certainly have been easier for them to do so against Salzburg.

There were a few other things to note about the two draws. Firstly that Chelsea vs Lille was the only tie that remained the same across both draws. The only tie that was destined to happen no matter what perhaps?

Secondly, Sporting Lisbon and Villarreal swapped opponents with each other from the first draw to the second. Villarreal going from facing Manchester City to facing Juventus, with Sporting having the far less fortunate luck of going the other way.

Finally, I just wish to acknowledge that this is the first knockout stage draw of the Champions League since 2004 that Barcelona have not been a part of. I hope they are part of this draw next season as the Champions League round of 16 without Barcelona is like toast without honey, incomplete. For this season though I wish them all the best against Napoli in the new Europa League play offs.

Good luck to all the British teams in European knockout action in the new year.

As I am in London now till for the rest of the year any remaining blogs in that time will focus on games that take place in London. There will be at least one more blog out before Christmas as this weekend I’m off to Borehamwood to sample a little more Women’s football as Arsenal take on Brighton and Hove Albion in the WSL.