La Remontada: Football has always been known to us as the most beautiful sport on planet Earth and rightly so, as football has taught millions around the world the meaning of passion, composure, respect, humility, determination, strive for greatness, magic, and most importantly..., football has taught the world why sports unites every one and abolishes racism.
Football has seen it all, and it includes some great comebacks, but there have been innumerable good comebacks, quite a lot great comebacks, some iconic and legendary comebacks, but above all of that, the greatest comeback has been the one made by FC Barcelona against Paris St Germain (PSG) in UEFA Champions League 2016/17, where the Blaugrana did the unthinkable.
🤯 pic.twitter.com/yP17MHrYoc
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) March 8, 2024
Today marks 7 years since the greatest comeback in the history of comebacks! pic.twitter.com/lgGMAzBMlT
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) March 8, 2024
FC Barcelona were drawn against PSG in the UEFA Champions League 2016/17 season's Round of 16 and it was a marquee fixture on-paper, as both sides were stacked with world class players. Given the goalscoring menace of MSN (Messi, Neymar, Suarez), the experts weighed in for Barcelona to qualfiy with ease against the Parisiens.
However, on February 15, 2017, in the first leg at Parc Des Princes, the footballing gods wrote a completely different script, as goals from Angel Di Maria (2), Julian Draxler, and Edinson Cavani guided PSG to a 4-0, as Unai Emery's men mauled the reputation and hopes of Culers, and the qualification hopes of the Blaugrana took a big bashing.
However, fans have always been known as the backbone of any club and when Barcelona needed their Culers the most, they were there, ever-present, and in huge numbers. No team in the history had ever come back and qualified from a four-goal deficit in the UEFA Champions League, but such was the aura of that FC Barcelona side and the most iconic attacking trio in the history, MSN, that even experts like Rio Ferdinand and Gary Linekar believed and said that if there's only one team that's capable of pulling this miracle off is FC Barcelona.
The streets of Catalonia and Barcelona were filled with the banners of "YES WE CAN", "MES QUE UN CLUB" and jam-packed sold-out Camp Nou awaited the most anxious and defining 90 minutes of their season on March 8, 2017. PSG came with a mission to survive and such was intimidation of the build-up to the fixture that even a four-goal lead seemed like a slender one.
FC Barcelona walked down on the pitch with 100,000 Culers in full voice, and the world was finally witnessing the mouth-watering fixture. The ref blew the whistle and both the sides started the proceedings. It didn't take even 180 seconds for FC Barcelona to break the deadlock, as Luis Suarez headed in an awkwardly bounced ball into the danger area and Barcelona were 1-0 up in no time.
Minutes before halftime, Andres Iniesta's backheel flick was rebounded into the net for an own goal by Lavyin Kurzawa, and minutes into the second half, Neymar was fouled inside the box and Barcelona were awarded the penalty, which legendary Lionel Messi converted past Kevin Trapp into the top left corner, and PSG and Emery were in deep deep trouble, as they looked completely out of sorts.
The major heartbreak for FC Barcelona came in the 62nd minute, when Edinson Cavani scored a half-volley into the top corner past Marc Andre Ter Stegen and the whole Camp Nou lost its voice, but Barcelona continued to pile on extreme pressure and then came the most iconic 7 minutes of FC Barcelona's history.
Till 87 minutes, the scoreline read 3-1 in favour of FC Barcelona and the aggregate of 3-5 in favour of PSG. At that time, the away goal rule existed and because of that, FC Barcelona were actually in need of 3 goals to qualify. The qualification hopes were down to merely 0.1% for Luis Enrique's men, but they never gave up.
Neymar was fouled just outside the box and free kick on the left edge of the box was converted in for a top corner finish by the Brazilian. Then, in the 90th minute, Luis Suarez was fouled while making a run into the box and the ref pointed to the spot, and Neymar calmly finished the penalty in the 90+1' minute to make it 5-5 on aggregate. Merely 4 minutes left and FC Barcelona pushed everyone up.
In the last minute of the game, Marc Andre Ter Segen too came up and Lionel Messi's free kick on the left side was dealt by the defense of the Parisiens and with an open goal and out of possession, Ter Stegen made a beautiful recovery and was fouled. Neymar took the free kick and it came back to the Brazilian and he faked it to his left and delivered in the cross and then came one of the most iconic goals in the history of football, as Sergi Roberto stretched out his right leg to meet the cross and finish it into the net and the crowd went berserk.
Messi celebrating with fans to give us an all-time iconic photo, Ter Stegen running around the pitch, fans cheering, shouting and crying, Unai Emery hiding his face, Luis Enrique jumping on the sidelines with the FC Barcelona dugout, and Roberto....... living his childhood dream of being the MAIN GUY for his boyhood club, and that is how, FC Barcelona accomplished the impossible, and gave the world, the all-iconic..... LA REMONTADA!
