Add Category
Updated
It must surely have been a bid to lift morale rather than real belief when Barcelona manager Luis Enrique — his team down 4-0 going into the second leg of a Champions League round-of-16 tie with Paris Saint-Germain — came out on the afternoon before the match and said this:
"If they can score four goals against us, we can score six."
Twenty four hours later, he was looking like Nostradamus, as his team came out and took it right to PSG, rolling over the French Ligue 1 champions 6-1 (for a 6-5 win on aggregate) to the soundtrack of the roar of the fans at Barca's Nou Camp stadium.
It was a record-breaking, gob-smacking performance by the Catalan side, who did what no side had done in Champions League history, in coming from four goals down to win a tie.
A scrambled goal from Luis Suarez inside three minutes gave the home side just the boost it needed, and when Lionel Messi's early second-half penalty put the team 3-0 up, there was real hope in the stadium.
With time ticking down, however, it looked like Barcelona was going out.
The home side had not scored in nearly 40 minutes, there was just 150 seconds remaining in the match plus stoppage time, and Barca needed three goals to turn a 5-3 aggregate deficit into a ticket to the quarter-finals.
Enter Neymar, who lined up a free kick from the left side just outside the box.
A flummoxed PSG keeper Kevin Trapp then watched, motionless, as the Brazilian bent one over the wall and into the top corner. The crowd roared, but it was the kind of roar acknowledging a piece of brilliance rather than one that said "we're going to win the game".
Then with the 90 minutes almost up, the final member in Barcelona's striking trio, Luis Suarez, earned a penalty amid suggestions he dived in the box.
The referee thought otherwise, and Neymar stepped up to sidefoot the ball home.
That made it 5-1 on the night, 5-5 on aggregate, but PSG still led on the away goals rule because of Edison Cavani's half-volleyed strike on 62 minutes.
The stunned roar from the stands, however, gave Barcelona a last burst of energy for five minutes of added time.
The Catalans could not do anything with the first four minutes, 30 seconds, so it came down to one final, desperate attack.
Neymar swung a cross in over the massed ranks of players at the edge of the PSG box, substitute Sergi Roberto snuck in and stretched his foot out to volley the ball past a hapless Trapp with the outside of his boot for the winner.
The comeback for the ages was complete. Total pandemonium ensued.
Photo:
The Champions League comeback win came as sweet relief for Luis Enrique. (AP: Manu Fernandez)
It has been a mixed year for Barcelona, despite the club now being back to top of the league and in the final of the Copa del Rey.
The team has struggled throughout the season with an early home loss to lowly Alaves followed by a series of draws to teams they would have expected to beat easily.
In mid-February, the pressure rose to boiling point when only a stoppage time Lionel Messi penalty gave his team a 2-1 win over 17th-placed Leganes.
Enrique — one of the few men who can claim to have played for both La Liga giants Barca and Real Madrid — never won the Champions League as a player although he did win the old Cup Winners' Cup with the Catalan side in 1996/97.
The 4-0 demolition in Paris meant it looked like there was no chance of him adding it to his trophy cabinet this season, either.
A week ago, Enrique came out after his team beat Sporting Gijon 6-1 to go top of La Liga, telling reporters he would stand down as Barca manager when his contract expires at the end of the season.
So the omens were not good when the Catalans came home to the Nou Camp to face PSG in what most people saw as mission impossible.
Now, after a phenomenal 90-odd minutes of football, suddenly anything is possible.
"Any child in the Nou Camp tonight will never forget this and neither will the adults. This is a unique sport for crazy people," Enrique said after the match.
"This is a night which is difficult to explain in words, it had the script of a horror film with a spectacular start with an atmosphere which I have never seen in the Nou Camp, with tension I have never seen before."
One thing is certain — no one will be questioning any more whether Barcelona is still capable of winning the biggest prize in European club football for a sixth time.
Topics: sport, soccer, champions-league, spain
First posted