Barcelona completes epic comeback vs PSG
Three late goals help produce record 6-5 aggregate victory for Catalans Dortmund downs Benfica
Barcelona completed one of the most extraordinary comebacks in European soccer history to knock Paris Saint Germain out of the Champions League on Wednesday night with a 6-1 victory that rewrote the record books.
No team had ever overturned a fourgoal deficit in a knockout tie, but Sergi Roberto’s stoppage-time goal completed a 6-5 aggregate win that sparked delirious scenes of celebration inside the Nou Camp and sent Barca through to the quarterfinals.
Edinson Cavani looked to have wrecked Barcelona’s dreams by volleying in an away goal to make the score 3-1, but two late strikes from Neymar set up a thrilling finale before Roberto sealed the Spanish side’s unlikely triumph.
“This is a crazy, unique sport. Children and adults here tonight will never forget what happened,” Barca coach Luis Enrique told reporters.
“I dedicate this win to all Barca fans who kept faith in us. We were massively criticized after the first leg.”
“I would like to thank everyone who kept their faith after we lost 4-0. This is dedicated to them because this isn’t the Harlem Globetrotters, this is football,” he said, referring to the famous American exhibition basketball team.
“I don’t think anyone stopped believing. We risked everything and it paid off. You get finales like this very occasionally in football and this time it was our turn,” Luis Enrique said.
“It was an explosion of sentiment, I’m not an emotional person but I enjoyed this just as much as those that were moved to tears.”
Barcelona began to believe in the impossible dream of clawing back the shock 4-0 loss from the first leg when Luis Suarez headed over the line in the third minute and a Layvin Kurzawa own goal gave it further hope before the break.
Lionel Messi’s penalty five minutes into the second period had the Nou Camp on its feet, but Cavani’s strike in the 62nd was a sucker punch to Barca’s ambitions from which Luis Enrique’s side took a while to recover.
A curled free kick from Neymar in the 88th minute gave Barca hope and the Brazilian converted a penalty before substitute Roberto slid in to knock the ball beyond Kevin Trapp from a chipped free kick and send the Catalans through.
PSG coach Unai Emery, who had been brought to the club in the close season with the express purpose of adding nous to the vast resources of the Qatariowned outfit and propelling them to success in Europe, cut a dejected figure.
“Barcelona is capable of doing that. It was all or nothing for them in the final minutes,” he said.
“It’s a negative experience for me and for the club. We need to learn from it.”
An electric atmosphere gripped the Nou Camp before kickoff after Suarez and Luis Enrique had said they truly believed a comeback was on, and the players caught the wave of optimism by swarming all over PSG from the first whistle.
Trapp struggled to cope with the early pressure and flapped at a high ball, allowing Suarez to jump ahead of him and force the ball over the line.
PSG had a penalty appeal turned down when Julian Draxler’s low cross struck Javier Mascherano’s arm but it was one of few forays forward from PSG in the first half as Barca did all the attacking.
The Catalans owed their second to another piece of slack defending, however, as Iniesta nudged his way past Marquinhos in the area to knock the ball back into the danger zone and it bounced off the swinging leg of Kurzawa and into the far corner.
PSG riled Barca supporters by coming back on to the pitch after the break a few minutes late, but the Nou Camp was soon celebrating a third as Messi powered a penalty past Trapp after Neymar had been tripped by Thomas Meunier.
Cavani hit the post, but made amends by smashing a loose ball home, although he should have added another but was denied by the feet of Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
At the time it did not look to be a crucial miss, but Barca had other ideas, scoring three times in six minutes to complete an incredible comeback.
Meanwhile, in Wednesday’s other match, forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang delivered when it mattered most as he scored a hat-trick in Borussia Dortmund’s 4-0 victory over Benfica that secured its last-eight spot, banishing his dreadful first leg performance.
The Gabon international had spectacularly squandered a penalty and half-adozen scoring chances in the 1-0 first leg defeat in Portugal last month, but he was in stellar form on Wednesday as Dortmund eased into the quarterfinals for the third time in a decade with a 4-1 aggregate victory.
The Bundesliga top scorer has now grabbed seven goals in his three matches since the first leg, having scored twice in his previous two Bundesliga games.
He canceled out Benfica’s first leg lead with a fourth minute goal and struck twice more in the second half to take his competition tally to seven goals in seven games.
“Auba had to do the job and he did it,” said Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel. “It was extremely important that he scored twice in the last two league matches.
“You do not need to be scientific about it. You have to score as a forward and then you have a game like in Lisbon where you miss everything there is to miss.
“So it is up to your team mates to help you get out of it and they delivered as well.”
Dortmund failed to maintain the intense pressure it had initially piled on after Aubameyang drew it level with a disciplined Benfica, which had won its seven previous matches.
“After our early goal we sort of eased off a bit. Like we lost the plot a bit, too static,” said Tuchel, who added he would prefer to avoid German rivals Bayern Munich in the last eight.
Dortmund pulled itself together and scored twice in three minutes early in the second half to kill off Benfica’s hopes of a comeback.
“It was important that we started really well and scored early. We were aggressive but then we seemed to think it would just happen by itself,” said Aubameyang.
“At halftime we talked about it and said we need to do more. Three goals and this ball goals to my kids,” he said holding the game ball. (Reuters)