Nightmare at the Nou Camp
THE Miracle at the Nou Camp counts Marco Verratti as one its victims.
A Champions League clash between Barcelona and PSG last season when football found a way to cut through the hype, the money, the cynicism, the commercialism and delivered scarcely believable drama.
The Italian’s recall of that evening back in March when Luis Enrique’s side recovered from a 4-0 last-16 first leg in Paris is only of pain and a resolve to never forget the nightmare.
Where to start with a game that had everything?
Barca fans had unfurled a massive banner that read: “Tots Amb L’Equip” - Everyone With The Team – and three goals gave them hope until Edinson Cavani netted to seemingly bury any chance of making the impossible possible.
History will look back at those three goals in the final eight minutes, seven minutes and 17 seconds to be exact, as the greatest comeback the game has ever seen with an aggregate 6-5 win.
But for Verratti this was the match where the seeds were sown for the French champions to plot their own way towards better days ahead and strengthen their own ambitions of claiming the European crown.
PSG’s return to the Champions League for the first time since the most famous collapse in football will be against a Celtic side tomorrow who will look for a chink in their expensively-assembled armour.
But Verratti is adamant the mental scars have healed and admitted the days after being on the wrong end of a result that had for the first time seen a side progress from a fourgoal deficit were tough to endure.
He said: “It’s a match I’ll never forget. I hope it will serve as a lesson for everyone.
“The days following Barcelona’s match were almost a nightmare. I was struggling to understand what had happened to me.
“But from that day on I became more determined to win. Moreover, football, like life, is made of ups and downs.
“And sometimes it takes some disappointments to make you understand and learn.
“Barca deserved to qualify. It was difficult to play, to make passes. They pressed too much in the first half.
“In the second half we managed to play better. But we conceded the third goal and we understood that we had to play.
“We couldn’t wait for it to finish like that.
Then After Edi Cavani’s goal we were calmer. I spoke to the Barca players and they told me it was over.
“I don’t find any explanation for conceding three goals in the final minutes. That’s football.” A massive part of PSG’s rehabilitation has involved some serious and controversial shopping therapy with a £700million budget being used to bring in their Nou Camp nemesis Neymar at a cost of £200m and further £166m for Monaco’s loan star Kylian Mbappe. Those additions combined with the attacking brilliance of Cavani and German Julian Draxler who were already in place show Brendan Rodgers and his players face a daunting