Barca-PSG: What Happened?

Was this the greatest match or the greatest comeback? Did PSG choke or Barcelona rise to the occasion? We need some answers!

It’s been almost a week and I still can’t believe what we witnessed Wednesday night. When Sergio Roberto (of all the people in the world) flicked in the Neymar cross, the 90,000 people had a collective sportsorgasm, the freaking sky blew off and the earth trembled? It was a moment for the ages, tears were shed all across Camp Nou and it made us realize what a beautiful sport this is.
Once the dust settled questions started popping up in my mind — Did it really happen? Or was there something in my drink? Did PSG suddenly forget how to play football? Did we just witness the greatest holy crap Moment in footballing history?

So I decided to tackle the five most pressing questions about the most incredible night in this century’s footballing history:

1. Was this the greatest football match in the Champions League history?

(Note: It’s impossible to rank the greatest football matches of all time as there are too many leagues and tournaments to keep track of. So we’ll limit our search to the Champions League era)

No. For all the generational talent springing across the field, it wasn’t the most spectacular game (in technical aspects) in the competition’s history. Watch that game again; there’s no offensive wizardry to drool. PSG basically parked the bus and Barcelona like an angry, irrational bull kept ramming against till it broke down.

The best six games in the modern era of the biggest competition of Europe are:

1. The AC Milan — Liverpool 2004–05 Final (the greatest cup final in history).
2. Bayern Munich– Manchester United 1998–99 Final (when Alex Ferguson morphed into a quote machine).
3. ManUtd coming from 2 goals down to win the second leg of ’98–99 semifinals in Turin against Juventus.
4. The eight goals, quarterfinal thriller at Stanford Bridge in 2009, between Liverpool and Chelsea which ended in a 4–4 draw, before Chelsea was screwed over by UEFA. OMG THAT WASN’T A HANDBALL BY PIQUE??!!
5. A 4–2 victory in the second leg of the ’05 edition for the Londoners over Barca which served as a prequel for the ’08–09 semifinals clash.
6. The almost giant-killing of Bayern at the hands of Dynamo Kiev (!!) in the ’98–99 season (that edition of the UCL was so much fun).

Honorable mentions go to: Man Utd 4–3 Real Madrid (2003 quarter-final second leg), Barcelona 6–1 PSG, Barcelona 5–1 (extra time) Chelsea (2000 quarter-final second leg), Real Madrid 1–3 Monaco (2004 quarter-final second leg) and Deportivo La Coruna 4–3 PSG (2001 group stage) and Milan 4–0 Barcelona (1994 final)

2. But was this the greatest comeback in the Champions League history?

Now this is something worth exploring. The most spectacular comebacks in the competition’s history are:

1. 2005 Istanbul Final — We all know the story about the greatest night in the Champions League history and if you want to live it once again, here you go:

Quick thoughts on the game: Milan should’ve won that game. They outplayed, outclassed, outpassed, out-shot and out-everything Liverpool. The Merseyside Club generated goals out of nothing and even after they tied thing up, Milan could’ve and should’ve wrapped up the game. What’s surprising is not that Liverpool managed to turn that deficit around, but the fact that they did it against a team which had 10 of the 13 best players on the field. With the exception of Jaap Stam (who was last seen on the sidelines of Reading FC), the Milan side had one of the top five players (arguably) in all the other positions. The only Liverpool players with the same credibility were Gerrard, Xabi Alonso and Carragher.

Liverpool were 38 points, let me say that again — 38 POINTS (!) adrift of the league leaders Chelsea that season in the Premier League and in the next UCL season they bowed out meekly in the round-of-16 against Benfica. Liverpool were one of the most surprising (fortunate?) winners in the Cup history and that’s why this upset is the most memorable.

2. Deportivo La Coruna vs. AC Milan, 2004 quarterfinals —
Here are the things that were working against Deportivo before their second leg quarterfinal clash against AC Milan:

a. Milan were arguably the best side in the world during that time span and the reigning champions of Europe.

b. Andriy Shevchenko was one of the three best players on the planet.

c. Deportivo’s best player was… Juan Carlos Valerón?

d. Milan spanked the club from Galicia 4–1 in the first leg.

(To get a sense of how dominant Milan were, between 2003 and 2007, they featured in three UCL finals winning two, while exiting at the semi-final stage in one of them)

But when the tie resumed in Estadio Riazor, Deportivo stripped the pants off the more talented Milan side, as they thumped them 4–0 to complete a historic turnaround.

3. Manchester United vs. Bayern Munich, 1999 final –

Ask any United fan what their favorite moment on a football field has been and if they were old enough to witness the 1999 final, they will spit out “Beckham … in to Sheringham … and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has won it! Manchester United have reached the promised land … and the two substitutes have scored the two goals in stoppage time and the treble looms large … History is made, Manchester United are the champions of Europe again, and nobody will ever win a European Cup final more dramatically than this” faster than Alex Ferguson could say “Football, bloody hell.”

This is our holy trinity of Champions League comebacks. So where does Barca’s comeback rank?

Let me put it this way, what we saw Wednesday night will never be repeated in the history of football. Never effing ever. If the ordeal of scoring four goals against a PSG side, which was undefeated in 2017 wasn’t daunting enough, they scored six past them, after Cavani effectively (as most of us thought) ended the tie. On top of that, they scored three of those after the 86 minutes mark. Double on top of that, they scored the last goal in the dying moments of the match.

Had that been the script of a sports movie, you would’ve outright rejected it stating that it’s too ludicrous to happen or you would’ve changed the genre from sports to fantasy. In context with basketball, it’s the equivalent of T-Mac scoring 13 points in 35 seconds but doing it in Game 7 of a playoff series instead of a regular season game.

In terms of tennis, that would be a player coming from 2 sets and 0–40 down while his opponent is on the serve, and then coming back to win a grand slam quarter-final. If you are a cricket fan, Barca’s comeback is on par with a batsman scoring 36 runs in the final over of a World Cup match. Sure, all of these sounds possible but your team better be hooked up with Tyche, for them to pull it off.

Barca’s improbable rise from the ashes gave us the second (but the best) “Holy Crap Moment!” of football this decade. The first of course was City’s last minute thriller for the Premier League title against QPR.

(It’s amazing how great commentators rise for the biggest of occasions. Martin Tyler’s “Manchester City are still alive here…Balotelli…Agueroooooooo…I swear you will never see anything like this ever again, so watch it, drink it in.” will be in the Hall of Fame of greatest sports commentary moment of all time)

These are mad times we live in.

3. But was the comeback more about Barcelona pummeling their opponent or PSG giving the game away?

(Note: Bring out the mops PSG fans, it’s going to be a bloodbath)

Before we get any further, props to Barcelona for completing the most historic turnaround in the history of football and also giving us one of the most cherished memories of all times. That night will be retold by anyone who witnessed it, for generations to come.

But the thing is, PSG didn’t have to win the second leg to qualify. They could’ve lost the game 3–0 and they would’ve been through. Heck, even a 5–1 throttling would’ve given them a ticket to the quarterfinals. All that they had to do was lose less humiliatingly. Is that too much to ask?!

Now let’s take a look at this random video clip that I found on YouTube:

If I was Unai Emery, that clip never exists in my world. Because that clip is the proof that your players were aware of what cost them games in the previous editions of the competition, as Draxler so fondly points out how Madrid overturned a 2–0 deficit in 20 minutes into the second leg. So either Emery is so incompetent that he didn’t realize that sitting back will play directly into Barca’s hand or ignorant enough not to pay it enough attention, and truth be told, I don’t know which one is worse.

Instead of attacking the 3–4–3 formation with the pace he had on the wings, he asked his team to sit back, inviting pressure and once the Catalonian team sniffed blood, they were done. Even after substituting in Di Maria (who was their best player in the first leg) and getting the goal which was a result of pushing the pace, he sat back again.

And I’m not sparing the players either. While in the first leg they were prancing around like deer jacked up on morphine, in the second leg they were moving as if they had rocks in their diapers. Look at the first two goals again, they didn’t know what to do with the ball. It was as if they forgot that they could kick the ball away from their own goal.

Had Barcelona carved them up with their trademark passing and ruthlessness in front of goal (something that PSG did very well in the first leg), you could’ve chalked up the loss to Barcelona’s superior talent prevailing over the two legs. But PSG went to Camp Nou, took their pants off and laid down, ready to be spanked right from the kickoff. These were Barcelona’s goals in Wednesday’s game:

Suarez from open play (for which Verratti and Trapp were equally culprits), own goal, penalty, free kick, penalty and Roberto from open play

With the exception of Sergio Roberto’s goal, all the other goals can be pinpointed to PSG shooting themselves in the foot (and if you want to get nitpicky here, even the Roberto goal was a direct result of Serge Aurier watching the ball sail over his head).

On offense, after PSG snatched a goal and looked in (somewhat) control of the tie, they flubbed two huge and fairly regular chances to finish Barcelona off. The first one courtesy of Cavani who was 1-on-1 with ter Stegen (not the greatest goalkeeper in the world), and had all the time in the world but couldn’t get the job done. The second one fell in Di Maria’s lap who could’ve squared it up for Cavani, but chose to go for glory himself while he was fouled by Mascherano (hold on to this).

Heck, in the last eight minutes, Barca scored three goals while PSG managed to complete only four passes, three of which were from dead-ball situation.

Had I been a PSG fan, those missed chances would give me endless nightmares instead of all the officiating fiasco. Which leads me to…

4. Did the referees rob the Parisians and wrote Barcelona’s name in the history books?

Here’s what UEFA is doing right now:

Would Mascherano’s handball in the first half be given 10/10 times? Umm…no. But 7/10? Heck yes! Ditto with the foul on Neymar that resulted in a penalty.

What about Mascherano’s clever “nudge” to Di Maria? Is that a penalty? Yes, if the referee wasn’t 40 miles away from the action or if one of the assistant referees who were so eager to point the penalty attempt on the other side of the field, had helped him out.

But you know what? A case can be made for each of those correct or incorrect calls, depending on which side your allegiance lie but a case can’t be made for the horrendous dive by Suarez in the 91st minute. Even if you are a Barcelona fan, you can’t say with a straight face that the penalty awarded as a result of the *foul* on Suarez was the right call. If you think that was the case, we can’t be friends anymore. Period.

The officiating wasn’t on par with the Barca-Chelsea ’09 level or even the 2002 FIFA World Cup atrocity, but it was pretty bad. And to all those people who’ll remember this night forever, remember the “helping hand” that went into the process too.

5. With the momentum of winning a historic match on their side, is Barcelona now going to win the treble?

If you asked me right after the final whistle blew, then I would’ve said: heck yeah. But now the answer is, probably not. Look, there exists a universe in which they do win the treble. They will and should brush aside Alaves in the Copa del Rey Final (although Alaves did beat them 2–1 early in the season, so there’s that). Their best shot of winning the premier European competition is to avoid Bayern till the final. Face them in the final, and hopefully one of the MSN will carry you to the dreamland. A meeting before the final will be the worst possible outcome for the Culés, as on current form Bayern will romp past them.

La Liga is where things start to get dicey. The roster is flawed, aging and paper-thin. They will need everything from everyone, week in and week out to chase Madrid, who are two points ahead with still a game in hand. And when you are turning to Paco Alcácer, Denis Suarez and the immortal Andre Gomes for the answer, you are probably asking the wrong question.

Luis Enrique is trying every trick in his bag and his recent shift to 3–4–3 has papered over the cracks. They have regained some of that Barcelona-like mojo back, with Messi pulling strings from the center. But the formation has its pitfalls. Smart teams will attack the lack of protection on the wing, Iniesta suddenly looks 50 years old slugging it out on the field and Mascherano’s form has been on a roller coaster ride ever since the start of the season.

This Barcelona era which began in 2005–06 has been synonymous with skill, ingenuity, magic and class. Will, struggle and desperation, characteristics that got them past PSG, is what this season’s team has shown on most of the occasions. If they manage to sneak in a treble, it might not be most elegant of the ones they already possess. But it might be the most significant one, just like the fateful night in Camp Nou that will live on forever.