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In what has been a truly unprecedented turn of events, UEFA were forced to repeat the Champions League draw on Monday. Several clubs were left frustrated after the initial draw due to mistakes that surfaced during the process.
It was quickly observed that Manchester United were included in the same pot as potential opponents for Villarreal. That should have never really happened since both the teams progressed from the same group and are not supposed to face each other again.
The same happened with Atletico Madrid and Liverpool, with Manchester United missing out on the pot consisting of potential opponents for the La Liga club. As soon as the mistakes were brought to light, the teams approached UEFA.
It was soon announced the Champions League draw would be repeated. UEFA stated there was a software issue that led to the botched draw and apologized to the fans before starting again.
Red Bull Salzburg were the first team to be out of the pot in the repeated draw and they were drawn against Bayern Munich. Sporting Lisbon of Portugal were then pitted against English champions Manchester City.
Andrey Arshavin then revealed Ajax as opponents for Benfica, while reigning European champions Chelsea were drawn against Lille. Atletico Madrid were handed a fixture against Manchester United and Villarreal were deemed as opponents of Juventus.
The draw culminated with Inter drawing Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain being pitted against Real Madrid. Notably, the first leg of all these fixtures will be held in February, with the return leg scheduled for March.
Lionel Messi versus Cristiano Ronaldo will not happen in the Champions League round of 16 as anticipated earlier. However, the Argentine is set for a return to Spain as he prepares to take on Real Madrid with PSG.
Following the repeated Champions League draw, several fans took to Twitter to explain their opinions. On that note, here are the best tweets after what proved to be a very controversial evening:
