Barcelona defeats PSG on aggregate in historic Champions League comeback
Barcelona completed a historic comeback Wednesday in the UEFA Champions League round-of-16, defeating Paris Saint-Germain 6-5 on aggregate to advance to the quarterfinals. The two teams met Feb. 14 in France for the first game of their round-of-16 matchup, a game PSG won 4-0, and The Guardian wrote afterwards that Barcelona would need "little short of a miracle" to advance.
The miracle began less than three minutes into Wednesday's game at Barcelona's Camp Nou, when striker Luis Suarez guided an errant ball into the back of the net over PSG's defense:
Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi then scored for Barcelona in the 40th and 50th minutes, respectively, putting the home team up 3-0. Edinson Cavani finally scratched for PSG in the 62nd minute to put the score at 3-1 in the game and give PSG a 5-3 edge on aggregate.
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Two goals by Barcelona's Neymar Jr. gave each team five goals on aggregate. With the aggregate score even, PSG would have won the matchup on away goals, as it had scored more goals in Spain (one) than Barcelona scored in France on Feb. 14 (zero). But Sergi Roberto scored the winning goal in stoppage time — Barcelona's third goal since the 88th minute — to cap the wild comeback:
Before the game, ESPN's Soccer Power Index gave Barcelona just a 7 percent chance to advance to the quarterfinals. The team will join Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, and Bayern Munich in the next round.
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Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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