Barcelona’s 6-1 win over Paris St. Germain that sent it into the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League is the greatest comeback in Champions League history.

Barcelona-Paris SG: Highlights

No team has ever come back from 4-0 down to win a UEFA series. Three teams came backfrom four goals down but two had scored away goals that aided their comeback cause, the most recent being Real Madrid’s 4-0 win over Borussia Moenchengladbach in the 1985 UEFA Cup after a 5-1 defeatin the first leg.

But Wednesday’s game will be remembered more for PSG’s epic collapse than Barcelona’s great turnaround. It wasn’t just that PSG blew a 4-0 lead from the first leg.Worse, it lost the series to Barca after conceding three goals after the 87th minute.

After PSG pulled back from 3-0 down, the 3-1 deficit meant that Barca no longer needed one goal totie. It needed three to win. And PSG coach Unai Emery and its president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, bemoaned a couple of non-calls on plays that could have given PSG penalty kicks.

What will be remembered is how the PSG defense fell apart, committing fouls that led to the last three goals — Neymar free kick, Neymar penalty kick and Sergi Roberto volley off aNeymar pass that followed a free kick in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

Edinson Cavani and sub Angel Di Maria were the only players who showed up for PSG but theyboth missed chances that could have definitively finished off Barca.

Emery’s has not been well received since joining PSG from Sevilla — last year’s runaway champion has trailed firstNice and now Monaco in the Ligue 1 race — but he was hailed a genius after the first leg. Now?

It’s hard to imagine Emery surviving if PSG doesn’t come back to win the league title andeven then? His tactics in the first half, which allowed Barca to get back in the series, and choice of second-half subs immediately came in for heavy criticism in the French press.

PSGplayers also came in for criticism, in particular Brazilian captain Thiago Silva, the senior leader of the defense. As L’Equipe noted, the PSG players will have to wear the defeat for the restof their lives.

This was shaping up to be a great spring, the renaissance for French soccer. PSG in the quarterfinals. Monaco with a shot at the quarterfinals next week even though itblew a lead twice at Manchester City and lost the first leg, 5-3.

More than that, French soccer is oozing with young talent: the 21-year PSG midfielder Adrien Rabiot, 18-year-oldKylian Mbappe at Monaco, 19-year-old Ousmane Dembele at Borussia Dortmund, through to the quarterfinals after a 4-0 win over Benfica in the second leg, to name just three players.

But that will all be overshadowed by the night of the biggest choke job in European soccer history.

Here’sthe moment everyone’s talking about.

Sergi Roberto’s goal completes the greatest comeback in #UCL history. https://t.co/OAcpUEufgL

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) March 8, 2017

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2 Comments

  1. I don’t know how you score six goals against a top quality team (on paper) without it being some sort of a collapse. Barca played very much like the Barca of old (we knew and loved), pressing, getting the ball back, etc.It wasn’t very “pretty” and “clever” Barca because it is virtually impossible to play like that in the face of a high quality individuals on defense.Lucio seems to have abandoned his idea of inviting pressure within their own 30 yard line, which I suppose assumed that beating the resulting press gives the midfield and forwards more room to roam and score Problem was they gave the ball away in dangerous places a lot; that had to be disheartening to the Barca stars up front.Everyone seems to have a good time, pressing and running circles around PSG, even Lucio. I think Emeri used the wrongtactics of closing ranks on defense; it probably sowed the seeds of doubt in the players. Heavy loss; I assume he’ll be out of a job soon.

  2. I beg to differ that it wasn’t a choke by PSG. It was a terrible tactical game plan of bunkering and not pressing as PSG did in the first game. IMHO, Barca did not play a great game, they played a do or die game and lady luck was on its side.

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