Luis Enrique: Belief saw Barcelona through

The Brazilian forward played the game of his life as Barcelona made up a 0-4 first leg deficit by winning 6-1 in front of almost 100,000 ecstatic fans at the Camp Nou stadium for an astonishing 6-5 aggregate triumph. They were dead and buried.

“We had chances to make it 3-2 and then the refereeing decisions, I don’t know if they were right or not, but for sure they damaged us”. With Barcelona unable to score any goals on the road at this point, the tiebreaker was held by PSG, and thus, seemingly, the victory was held by PSG. The French side managed only four passes between the 85th minute and the final whistle, and three were from the kick-off.

Pandemonium ensued, as Roberto was buried beneath a mountain of celebrating Barcelona players and staff on the Camp Nou turf.

Neymar’s free-kick in the 89th minute followed a penalty a minute later, and then, five minutes later, he lofted the ball forward for the sixth. The Brazilian scored on a free kick only a player of his caliber could score on, bending his shot around a PSG wall and squeezing in at the near post. It was unbelievable, but bound to be forgotten. Who was going to care about a goal from the team that was getting eliminated, after all?

That penalty – converted by Neymar – brought the scores level at 5-5 on aggregate, and Sergi Roberto scored the crucial victor in stoppage time to send Luis Enrique’s team through to the last 8.

The coach was also praised in the Spanish media, with daily Marca describing his tactical preparation as “the flawless plan”, while Sport highlighted “Luis Enrique’s three decisions that made the comeback possible”. “Nobody thought we could score six and we did”.

The fierce criticism that came Enrique’s way after their humiliation in Paris three weeks ago has eased after he announced last week that he will step down after three seasons as coach at the end of the campaign.

Champions League fans will surely recall Liverpool’s stunning comeback against AC Milan in the 2005 final, when they came back from a 3-0 halftime deficit to win.

Barcelona pulled it off. No one believed him and he probably didn’t even believe himself, but it happened and it happened in some style.

It was a record-breaking, gob-smacking performance by the Catalan side, who did what no side had done in Champions League history, in coming from four goals down to win a tie. They did the impossible.