La Remontada

Thank you Jack Sauer for inspiring this post. For the uninitiated, the Champions League knockout games are played across 2 legs (games) so both teams get the chance to play in front of their fans. The winner of the round will move on to the next round. So if a team wins the first leg 2-0, but loses 1-0 in leg 2, they will move on to the next round. Naturally, this set up opens the door for crazy comebacks between legs. This season we saw one when Norwegian club Bodø/Glimt won the first leg 3-0 against Sporting CP, only for Sporting to win the 2nd leg 5-0 and move on to the Quarters. There have been multiple 3-goal comebacks. There has only ever been 1 4-goal comeback. In 2017, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) entered their stadium for the first leg of their quarter final matchup with Barcelona. PSG clobbered their Catalan opponents. They won 4-0 and looked poised to head to their first ever Champions League semi final. Leg 2 would be at the Camp Nou, Barcelona’s stadium and it immediately fell apart for PSG. Luis Suarez scored for Barca just 3 minutes in and PSG scored an own goal in the 40th minute, making it 2-0 at halftime. Neymar drew a penalty just 5 minutes into the 2nd half and Messi scored to make it 3-0 (4-3 on aggregate). However, right when it looked dire, PSG actually found a goal to make it 3-1 (5-3 on aggregate). This was more important than you may realize. At the time, the Away Goal rule was in effect. In short, if the score was tied through 2 legs, then the tie would go to the team who scored the most away goals. Since PSG had the only away goal, they now held that tiebreaker. This meant Barcelona could’ve won by 4 and it wouldn’t matter. They needed 3 goals in 30 minutes to move on. Surely that wouldn’t happen… right? In the 88th minute, Neymar scored a free kick from outside the box. In the 91st minute, Neymar scored a penalty to make it 5-1 and 4 minutes later, in the final minute, Neymar lobbed a ball into the box for Sergi Roberto who scored and gave Barcelona the lead on aggregate. PSG never got another chance and Barcelona completed the greatest comeback in UCL history. Beyond just being a soul crushing loss, this game had a massive impact on the football world. After the season ended, PSG did the unthinkable and triggered Neymar’s release clause. A release clause is a sum of money written into the contract that, if offered to the club, allows the paying club to jump straight into contract negotiations with the player rather than having to negotiate with the club that owns the player. In Spain, every player is required to have a release clause. With superstars like Neymar, that release clause is often made something ridiculous no club would ever pay. Neymar’s was €222M ($261M USD at the time, $348M USD today) and PSG paid Barca the money. They negotiated a contract with Neymar and the Brazilian winger joined PSG. To this day, it is the most expensive transfer in football history. No other player has cost a team €200M. La Remontada and the following events are some of the most insane moments in sports history.