At that point, the ball with United’s name in it should have been put back in the bowl. That did not appear to happen, so United did not have a chance to be drawn against the next team, Atlético Madrid. The rest of the names were pulled, and the draw appeared to be concluded.
But as a result of the slip-up, UEFA, the European governing body, decided the fairest course was to pull all 16 teams again.
UEFA was happy to try to shift the blame for the goof, saying: “Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League round of 16.”
After the redraw, Chelsea wound up drawn against Lille, just as they had in the first draw. The other seven matchups were different however: Salzberg-Bayern, Sporting Lisbon-Manchester City, Benfica-Ajax, Atlético Madrid-Manchester United, Villarreal-Juventus, Inter Milan-Liverpool, and P.S.G.-Real Madrid.
The team that might be unhappiest with the new draw is Real Madrid, which started with a very winnable match against Benfica, and wound up playing the star-studded lineup of P.S.G. Still, Real leads the Spanish league comfortably and would seem to have every chance to come away with a win.