Substitute Sergi Roberto scored a dramatic late goal as Barcelona pulled off the biggest comeback in UEFA Champions League history with a miraculous 6-1 victory to pip Paris Saint-Germain to the quarter-finals.
Beaten 4-0 in the first leg, Barça set out determined to become the first team in UEFA club competition history to overcome that deficit – and their hopes of a famous ‘remontada’ began taking tangible form when Luis Suárez beat Kevin Trapp to a bouncing ball and headed just over the goal line with less than three minutes gone.
Worse was to come for a Paris team struggling to make an impact when Andrés Iniesta bustled through to the byline on to Suarez’s flicked pass and back-heeled a pass which Layvin Kurzawa inadvertently knocked beyond Trapp.
Lionel Messi then converted a penalty after Thomas Meunier had pulled down Neymar as Barça made a blistering start to the second half to move within a goal of parity, but Edinson Cavani, who had hit the post moments earlier, seemingly put the tie to bed when he blasted high into the net after 62 minutes.
That sucked the intensity from the game, Cavani only denied a second by Ter Stegen’s boot when clean through and Ángel Di Maria taking too long in another one on one, but Neymar brought the tie back to life again in the 88th minute with a superb free-kick. The Brazilian then fired in a spot kick after Marquinhos was penalised for impeding Suárez to set up an incredible finale.
The hosts needed a single goal once again, and had five minutes of added time in which to find it.
In the very last of them, Neymar lifted a pass over the defence and substitute Roberto stabbed it in to spark euphoria in the Camp Nou stands as the game ended 6-5 on aggregate.
The Catalans thus become the only team to advance to the last eight of the UCL for 10 successive seasons.
