While everyone was busy watching Liverpool-Man City, Roma pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Champions League history.
After going 4-1 down in the first leg at the Camp Nou, Roma went back to Italy with just a 2% chance of advancing to the semi-finals, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Even before the tie started, no one gave Roma a chance. And who in their right minds would? They recently slipped down to 4th in Serie A, and just barely scraped by Shakhtar in the Round of 16. Meanwhile, Barcelona has lost just ONCE since August, and had only allowed 3 goals in the Champions League up to this point. And now with a 4-1 deficit, advancing seemed impossible.
But Roma went out and played like they had nothing to lose. Edin Dzeko put his side up 1-0 in just the 6th minute, but it was seen as nothing more than consolation for the Italians. Everyone thought “oh that’s cute, Roma’s trying to make a comeback”. They created a few more half-chances throughout the rest of the first half, but it never amounted to anything.
Then, in the 57th minute, Dzeko was through on goal and brought down by Gerard Pique. Daniele de Rossi stepped up and blasted the penalty to ter Stegen’s right to put Roma up 2-0.
Game on.
This is when the panic and urgency started to surface for Barcelona. After spending the first 60 minutes with one eye on the semi-finals, they were just one goal away from bowing out of the Champions League in the same round in which they found themselves on the opposite side of an incredible comeback just one year ago.
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The pressure kept coming from Roma. Ter Stegen bailed out Barcelona on a few occasions, including a fantastic save from point-blank range in the 79th minute when Florenzi’s cross found Dzeko at the far post. Roma kept pushing for that illustrious third goal that would no doubt go down in Italian football lore.
And then it happened.
Cengiz Under whipped in a corner, and Kostas Manolas beat his defender at the near post to put the Italians ahead on away goals in the 82nd minute.
The Stadio Olimpico erupted. Even Roma’s official Twitter account was at a loss for words.
They had done the impossible. Roma shut down Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez and won 3-0 against one of the biggest clubs in the world to earn their first ever semi-finals appearance. They now join opponents Barcelona (vs PSG in 2017), and Deportivo la Coruna (vs Milan in 2004) as the only three clubs to overcome a 1st-leg deficit of 3 or more goals in Champions League history.
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In the end, Roma deserved to win. They fought hard, played well, and stayed focused for all 90 minutes – something Barcelona wasn’t able to do today.