It can't be that hard picking balls out of a bucket… can it?
Well, football never ceases to amaze fans around the planet, even away from matchdays. Fingers crossed there are no cock-ups in the mouth-watering draws this weekend!
Premier League and Championship clubs enter the FA Cup draw for the first time this season as the third round draw awaits on Sunday around 1pm – while England, Scotland and potentially Wales find out their Euro 2024 groups and tournament path today (Saturday) after 5pm.
The Three Lions will learn their fate from Pot 1, with Scotland in Pot 3 and Wales included in Pot 4 as potential Path A winners should they beat Finland in the semi-final and either Poland or Estonia in the final.
The FA Cup draw is considerably more straightforward – but that hasn’t stopped simple mistakes and gaffes occurring before! Here, Daily Star Sport looks at eight of the worst football draw blunders in history.
Manchester United’s Champions League mess
The Champions League round of 16 for the 2021/22 season was thrown into chaos after several errors occurred during the draw in December. In the initial draw, Manchester United were first drawn to play Villarreal, who they were supposed to be blocked from playing as they had been in the same group during the previous stage.
The error was corrected with United drawn to face Paris Saint-Germain, before it was revealed United had been left out of the pool of sides to play Atletico Madrid earlier in the ceremony. Fan backlash led to the draw being re-done several hours later, with the Red Devils finally paired with Atletico at the third time of asking.
Rod Stewart
Scottish music legend and Celtic fan Rod Stewart caused chaos in one of the most bonkers draw ceremonies ever back in 2017. Stewart was a special guest for the Scottish Cup fifth round draw but appeared perhaps a bit merry on camera as he flamboyantly picked balls out of the hat.
Footage of the draw has become infamous amongst football fans. Stewart's highlights include cheering when Celtic were drawn before confusing the number six and number nine. Here’s to him returning one day.
Lynsey Hipgrave’s FA Cup blunder
TNT Sport presenter Lynsey Hipgrave was forced to apologise to viewers following the draw for the semi-finals of the 2017/18 FA Cup. Hipgrave had wrongly claimed that Manchester United would be taking on Chelsea for a place in the final, when in fact they had been drawn against Tottenham Hotspur instead.
She was quick to address her gaffe in good humour, tweeting: "That's live tv, not my first mistake and certainly won't be my last. Really sorry. Just checking you were all listening."
'Drunk' Tony Adams
According to the autobiography of Arsenal legend Ray Parlour, former Gunners captain Tony Adams once conducted an FA Cup draw whilst drunk. Parlour recalled in his book how he watched Adams complete the draw alongside Terry Venables whilst "swaying – shirt hanging out, trainers, a right scruff."
Adams also mistakenly called out the number 31 after drawing ball number 13. He was quickly told to take a closer look at the ball with the number 31 not actually included.
Carabao Cup
Since the League Cup was rebranded the Carabao Cup in 2017, there have been repeated issues during the draws
These problems have included teams being picked more than once during a single draw and technical issues disrupting the viewing experience of fans at home. One draw in 2019 was bizarrely hosted by a Morrisons supermarket in London, leaving fans bemused.
Carabao's chief marketing officer defended the decision by explaining: “We sell lots of our great tasting low sugar energy drinks in supermarkets, so we thought why not let football fans watch the draw whilst stocking up on Carabao?”
Newcastle’s wrong numbered ball
Another Carabao Cup mishap during the draw for this season’s third round. As usual, every team left in the draw had their numbers confirmed with those playing on Wednesday being given later numbers.
The ball numbers were released ahead of the draw with the qualified teams put in alphabetical order. However, Newcastle United were put after Norwich City and given the No.20 instead of 19.
Newcastle went on to draw Manchester City, while Norwich travelled to Fulham. Eddie Howe’s side had the last laugh in the end as Alexander Isak scored the game’s only goal.
Andy Cole’s number nightmare
Another from this season’s Carabao Cup saw Andy Cole failing to be as sharp as he once was in the penalty box.
Cole, alongside former Chelsea star Izzy Christiansen, was drawing the balls for the quarter-final ties when Cole got stuck on whether the ball was No.6 or No.9. He hilariously paused before turning the ball the other way round to confirm it as the No.6 – despite their only being eight balls in the draw
Who knew Carabao Cup draws could be so exciting?
Spanish schoolboys
The most bizarre of all time came ahead of the 1982 World Cup in Spain as a change of the traditional ‘balls in a hat’ format was swapped. Instead, balls containing the names of qualifiers were placed in cages that would release them for Spanish schoolboys to hand to FIFA officials.
However, almost everything that could go wrong, did. Some of the cages failed to open to release the balls at the right time, and one official was unable to unscrew the balls to reveal a team's name. Several nations also had to be redrawn after a mistake was spotted by then FIFA boss Sepp Blatter when Scotland were drawn to take on Argentina.
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