If you don't see it with your own eyes, no one can imagine that such a top sporting event as the Champions League will one day make an embarrassing farce of having to be re-drawn because of the declaration of the lottery due to the violation of the rules of the draw. This kind of thing can be called a sensation even at school-level sports events, which is unprecedented in world sports events. But it happened in Nyon, Switzerland on the evening of December 13, 2021 Beijing time.
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The original draw results were actually very interesting, especially Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United drew together, so that Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, a pair of peerless heroes in the final year of their careers, faced each other on the highest stage, so that many people were satisfied, so that several violations before and after this were also laughed at by the fans.
These irregularities include, but are not limited to, drawing on La Liga side Villarreal's opponents, and the first draw draw for Draw guest Alshavin is Premier League side Manchester United, but the two teams have already met in the group stage. The result clearly violated the rules of the Champions League round of sixteen draw rules for the avoidance of opponents in the same group, and Arshavin immediately re-drew the lottery, dividing Manchester City to Villarreal.
Subsequently, when drawing Atletico Madrid's opponents, Manchester United, which had been mistakenly drawn before, was still considered by the lottery system to have been drawn, so there was no Manchester United in Atletico's opponent pool. This is also the most fatal link: The mistake of Manchester United being drawn to Villarreal can actually be regarded as corrected, but at atletico Madrid's draw is equivalent to excluding the result of drawing Manchester United, and this error is not corrected on the spot, but continues to be executed, resulting in all subsequent draw results being invalidated.
Although the staff did not find out at the first time, many team representatives at the draw site found this problem, and Atletico directly asked UEFA for an explanation. In fact, many fans who watched the live broadcast also found this problem, so that various "draw internal determination" terriers flew around on the Internet - fans are basically spitting and funny, after all, according to this wrong result, it is possible to see the last generation of the final duel of the absolute double.
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But UEFA can't do that. After a brief discussion, UEFA publicly acknowledged "Oolong": "Due to technical problems with the software of external service providers, the software prompted field officials that some teams could play against each other, resulting in a major mistake in the draw process." Previous draw results are invalid. ”
The result of the subsequent re-draw is actually quite interesting. Chelsea drew the super-draw in the first draw, considered one of the worst opponents in Ligue 1 side Lille, and in the second draw Lille. This result was jokingly called "a back-to-back lotto" by the British media.
But other teams have mixed feelings of joy and sorrow. The first time he drew Bayern's most unhappy Atletico, and the second time he drew manchester United, who had not been in good shape. Then there's Villarreal, whose opponents switched from big favourites Manchester City to Juventus. More tragic is the Portuguese sports, their strength is almost at the bottom, before the draw to Juventus can also be said to fight for it, but to change to Manchester City is almost desperate.
Of course, the most tragic thing is not the fans who missed the showdown with Mero, nor the teams whose fate has gone up and down, but the core of the whirlpool, UEFA. Almost a year ago, UEFA just "suppressed" the "rebellion attempt" of 12 European giants led by Real Madrid to form the European Super League, and the criticism of UEFA's monopoly of European football has been endless, and the result is such a big wave of low-level mistakes on such a major occasion, which is definitely a serious "image crisis".
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Coincidentally, just the day before this draw, the FIA's F1 Grand Prix also caused a big storm. At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which was the final battle of the 2021 season, Hamilton, who originally had the same points, fought fiercely with Verstappen. But just when Hamilton was leading by 7 seconds, there was an accident on the track to dispatch the safety car, and the basic situation was decided, race director Massey suddenly changed the previous decision of "the snare car must not overtake" in the penultimate lap, issuing a new instruction: "The snare car between Hamilton and Verstappen can surpass the safety car".
The decision seemed to create a fair duel between the two title contenders, but in fact, by this time Hamilton and his Mercedes-Benz team had already developed a strategy based on the previous decision, including replacing the tires that had been almost worn out without pit stops when the safety car came out. F1's decision was tantamount to a "fair duel" between a gunman who had already run out of bullets and an opponent who had just been loaded with bullets, and the result was, of course, not surprisingly, Verstappen, who had replaced the new tire, successfully reversed the championship, and Hamilton left a sentence on the team radio "This is manipulated".
Text/Hubei Daily reporter Guo Xiaoming
Photo/ Weibo, Xinhua News Agency