Snatching victory from jaws of defeat
THIS WEEK marks the fifteenth anniversary of the greatest comeback since Johnny Logan claimed Eurovision glory in 1987 with ‘Hold Me Now’, when Liverpool snatched victory from the jaws of defeat to edge out AC Milan in a titanic Champions League final.
Seemingly it’s not just dodgy white suits that the king of Eurovision and the Anfield crew have in common. For those of you not in the know, Liverpool infamously wore eye-aching cream Armani attire to the 1996 FA Cup final, which they lost to Manchester United after also scoring an own goal in the fashion stakes.
Liverpool are also responsible for another Lazarus-like comeback in the Champions League, as last year they overcame Barcelona in an epic two-legged semi-final.
It looked like their goose was well and truly cooked as they trailed 3-0 to Messi and co. after the first leg in the Camp Nou, but doubles from Divock Origi and Georginio Wijnaldum saw the reds complete the unlikeliest of turnarounds to reach the final.
The Catalans themselves rose from the dead in the same competition against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017, winning 6-5 on aggregate after losing the away leg 4-0, scoring twice in injury time to break Parisian hearts.
Another noteworthy footballing recovery was produced by tenman Manchester City in the FA Cup fourth round in 2004 at White Hart Lane.
Spurs led 3-0 at half-time and Man City had to play the whole of the second-half a man short after Joey Barton was sent-off.
However, Sylvain Distin got a goal back for City and Paul Bosvelt gave them hope with a deflected shot. Shaun Wright-Phillips then levelled before Jonathan Macken headed a late winner to complete an unbelievable turnaround.
City’s local rivals, Manchester United, are fond of a fightback themselves and they showed that never-say-die attitude in abundance when scoring two injury time goals to see off Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final to complete the treble.
However, their league title triumph in 1996 may be an even better example of their refusal to throw in the towel.
Pundit Alan Hansen famously claimed that Manchester United ‘can’t win anything with kids’ after they lost 3-1 to Aston Villa on the opening day of the season.
Well, the former Liverpool centre-half was proved wrong as the kids well and truly came of age to overhaul Newcastle’s seemingly insurmountable twelve-point lead to claim the crown.
Switching sports, Wexford’s rousing revival against Meath in the 2008 Leinster Senior football championship would be hard to beat.
An amazing second-half resurgence saw the Model county stun their opponents to advance to the Leinster semi-final.
The Royals led by ten points at half-time and by the same margin with 20 minutes remaining, but somehow the Slaneysiders summoned up the courage to win by a point, 2-14 to 2-13.
In hurling, Offaly’s ‘five-minute final’ win over Limerick in the 1994 All-Ireland decider will live long in the memory. The Treaty men looked to be about to end their drought as they held a five-point advantage late on, but the midlanders scored 2-5 in the last five minutes to remarkably win by six and break Limerick hearts.
In rugby, Leinster’s memorable second-half turnaround against Northampton in the 2011 Heineken Cup final has to be up there among the finest sporting fightbacks
Trailing 22-6 at half-time, they were really up against it but, with Johnny Sexton pulling the strings, they showed great skill and heart to pull the game out of the fire.
Leinster scored 27 unanswered points after the interval to win 3322, with Sexton getting all but five of those points in an outstanding individual performance.
In the up and down world of golf, there’s several examples of players chasing down front-runners to emerge victorious, none more so that Nick Faldo in the US Masters in 1996 and Paul Lawrie in the British Open in 1999.
Faldo went into the final round trailing Greg Norman by six strokes, and the golf world was prematurely declaring the popular Australian as the winner. Faldo had other ideas, however, and produced a flawless round of 67 to completely turn the tables and defeat Norman, who struggled badly on his way to a round of 78.
The 1999 Open at Carnoustie will always be remembered for Jean Van de Velde hitting the self-destruct button, but Lawrie’s achievement of coming back after starting the day ten shots behind the leader shouldn’t be overlooked. His final round of 67 in a tournament where the winning total was six over par was remarkable.
Dennis Taylor was another who did it the hard way as he edged out the mighty Steve Davis in a nail-biting World Snooker Championship final in 1985.
The Tyrone man looked like he was going to be on the receiving end of a hiding when he lost the first seven frames of the final.
When Taylor won the eighth frame, few could have believed it was the beginning of one of sport’s greatest comebacks, going on to seal a remarkable 18-17 victory, winning the deciding frame on a re-spotted black.
All of the above are wonderful examples of not allowing heads to drop and showing an unwavering will to win in the face of adversity, but in my mind, Liverpool’s achievement 15 years ago in Istanbul is still top of the pile, given the circumstances and what was at stake.
The English side were completely outplayed in the first-half and, trailing 3-0, there looked to be no way back.
However, Liverpool turned the game on its head, scoring three goals in six minutes through Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso.
They went on to win on penalties, with Jerzy Dudek saving from Andrea Pirlo and Andriy Shevchenko in the shoot-out, completing possibly the most miraculous turnaround ever seen in a sporting arena.
Momentum is a potent weapon in sport, and when the pendulum swings your way and you come back against the odds and emerge victorious, it’s the stuff of dreams.
Sadly, it might be a while before we see any classic fightbacks that send the crowd into a fervour, but as the bould Johnny Logan might say, what’s another year?