It was around 10.50pm when the seismometer at Geosciences Barcelona began to spike.
Just a few hundred metres away, over 96,000 people were jumping about like crazy, crying, hugging and clutching at each other’s faces in utter joy and disbelief.
Sergi Roberto had just scored the goal that sealed the most remarkable of victories at Barcelona’s home ground. Down on the Camp Nou’s pitch, his team-mates ran until they found him and soon he was nowhere to be seen, buried under a pile of bodies. Luis Enrique was sprinting around like a madman on the touchline, as was his entire coaching staff.
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Roberto’s 95th-minute strike put Barca 6-1 up against Paris Saint-Germain on the night, sealing their progress to the Champions League quarter-finals despite a damaging 4-0 first-leg defeat.
That night — March 8, 2017 — there was a general state of madness in the city of Barcelona and all the euphoria added up to something like an earthquake, after the most spectacular of comebacks.
𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐚́𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞: @SergiRoberto10 vs PSG pic.twitter.com/Vbn9cHdMXZ
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) March 28, 2022
But just a month earlier, the Catalans had returned from the French capital with a sense that perhaps an era was already over. In 2015, Luis Enrique’s side had sealed the second treble in their history (the first was in 2009) with their fifth Champions League trophy. That four-goal demolition by PSG, a club still in the early days of transformation following their purchase by Qatar Sports Investment, felt symbolic.
“The first few days after the 4-0 defeat were of total fatalism,” says Jose Manuel Lazaro, Barcelona’s chief press officer at the time.
“We saw ourselves (as) out of the Champions League. Then the days went by, the weeks went by. The team won 2-1 at Atletico Madrid. They beat Sporting Gijon 6-1. And, four days before the second leg, they thrashed Celta Vigo 5-0.
“We all started to have the feeling that it wasn’t over yet, that it was possible to come back. We started to believe. Luis Enrique is a very optimistic guy who doesn’t take anything for granted.”
Francesc Satorra — known as ‘The Observer’ ever since photos captured his reaction to then Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho’s eye-gouge on Barca assistant Tito Vilanova during the 2011 Supercopa de Espana — worked for 41 years at the club in a variety of roles. On the night of ‘La Remuntada’ (Catalan for ‘The Comeback’) he was working in operations, with responsibility for the pitch, dressing rooms and mixed zone.
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“As the second leg was not played immediately after the game in Paris, there was time for acceptance, reflection and for Barca to start thinking positively,” Satorra says.
“It is worth remembering that Luis Enrique always has a psychologist, Joaquin Valdes, on his staff. He played a very important role as the day approached.”
Barcelona fans have always had a tendency towards pessimism, but there was still a full house at the Camp Nou that night. You could see banners that read ‘Yes we can’, or ‘We’ll complete the comeback’. Some supporters seemed to have shunned their usual fatalism.
“Arriving at the stadium, there was an atmosphere of expectation that something could happen,” says Jose Sanchis, who was match commentator for Mediapro, the Spanish production company which held the Champions League TV rights.
“In the media, it was repeated almost like a mantra that any comeback would be the greatest in Champions League history. Of the number of games I have seen at the Camp Nou, I have never seen that atmosphere before or since.”
Barca got the perfect start. Not even three minutes had passed when Luis Suarez scored their first. The Uruguayan celebrated by waving his arms like a madman and putting his index finger to his mouth. The home side were dominant, and although the euphoria from that early strike subsided, a Layvin Kurzawa own goal gave them a 2-0 lead at the break. There was a long way to go, but fans now had reason to hope.
Five minutes after half-time, Andres Iniesta found Neymar in the box with a brilliant pass and the Brazilian was brought down by Thomas Meunier. Lionel Messi took charge and put the spot kick away. He ran to get the ball back. Somehow, Barca were just one goal away from levelling the tie an aggregate.
The pitch was buzzing but, 12 minutes later, Edinson Cavani seemed to spoil the party. His away goal meant Barcelona had to score another three if they wanted to progress. They had half an hour to do so.
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“Up in the commentator’s position, in the next booth to me was French TV,” Sanchis says. “They started shouting that it was over and that the next day should be a day of celebration all over Paris, that it was Saint Cavani. I guess they didn’t count on Neymar. He was the one who gave the Barca fans faith.”
Cavani’s goal was like a cold shower for the whole stadium. But the team did not lose heart, and on a rare night when Messi was not the standout player, Neymar was their source of inspiration.
Looking back, it seems utterly absurd, but with just over two minutes of the 90 remaining, Barca were still chasing those three goals.
They found one in the 88th minute as Neymar scored a stunning free kick, his first goal of the night. His transformative second came three minutes later.
Now everyone was on their feet. The Brazilian wasted no time in celebrating, waving his arms and encouraging supporters to cheer louder still, to stick with them until the very end, as he made his way back to the centre circle.
Five minutes had been added on.
In the 94th minute, Barca got a deep free kick and goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen went up for it. Neymar took it. It was easily cleared — but not fully.
As the ball came back to him, everyone in the ground knew this was it. All or nothing, as they say.
Marco Verratti went out to meet him. Neymar feinted and moved the ball onto his left foot. He crossed into the box — too long for Gerard Pique, but not for Roberto.
The Barcelona substitute stretched out his right boot as far as he could.
“I remember we were already desperate. Before Neymar’s goals, it seemed impossible,” Roberto says now.
“But I saw that we would have one last chance and I went towards the back post. For a moment, I thought the ball wouldn’t reach me because Gerard had stretched out his arm. But finally it fell and I managed to touch it. From then on, it was absolute madness.”
On Spanish TV, Sanchis said over and over: “No se puede creer, no se puede creer (‘I can’t believe it’).” He seemed stuck in a loop for almost a whole minute.
“It’s one of the most exciting narrations I can remember and it has nothing to do with the link you may have with one team or another,” he says. “I was aware that I was witnessing something historic in person. On the other side of me, I had an English TV crew, and they all went crazy too. I remember watching them throwing papers in the air, screaming, punching, hugging each other.”
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Roberto celebrated by falling to the ground. He soon disappeared under a pile of ecstatic team-mates. The Camp Nou was one big party.
Luis Enrique ran like Usain Bolt down the touchline. On the stairs leading out from the changing rooms to the pitch stood Satorra, between the two benches.
“There was an uncontainable and indescribable explosion of euphoria and collective joy,” he says. “It’s hard to explain if you don’t experience it. We all jumped out of our seats in the dugout area and hugged each other without knowing who we were doing it with. It was a dream come true.”
Lazaro was up in the VIP seats.
“I will never be able to get the moment when the ball went into the back of the net out of my mind,” he says. “While I was shouting for joy, (then PSG’s sporting director) Patrick Kluivert and Nasser Al-Khelaifi (still the French club’s president) ran out with a grim look on their faces, slamming the door to the lift. They didn’t wait for the match to end.”
Satorra says they weren’t alone in leaving early.
“A lot of people left their seats after Cavani’s goal. And even a lot of the press headed down to the mixed zone early, thinking that Barca would be eliminated and that was that. (PSG head coach) Unai Emery and all his staff went down the tunnel with a face that was a picture — very angry and ranting at everyone.”
Roberto recalls the very different scene in the home dressing room.
“It was a continuation of all the joy that was already seen on the pitch,” he says. “An explosion of absolute euphoria after achieving what seemed impossible. Then I went home, where my parents were waiting for me and I celebrated with them.
“The first moments were of disbelief. An adrenaline rush like that takes days to digest, for you to be really aware of what you have done.”
The script of the match was perfect from a Barca perspective — that the big moment came thanks to a boy from Reus, a Catalan city around an hour’s drive west of Barcelona; a midfielder-turned-right-back produced by the club’s youth academy.
“That was poetic justice for Roberto,” says Lazaro. “He’s a player who gets a lot of stick that he doesn’t deserve. Some people seem to be obsessed (with criticising him) and I don’t know where it comes from. He’s a very important captain for the dressing room. He deserves respect that sometimes he hasn’t had. That he scored that day was the culmination of our commitment to La Masia.”
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Barcelona did not win the Champions League again that year, losing to Juventus 3-0 on aggregate in the quarter-finals. But that game alone was celebrated as if it were a title-winning performance. The match is still remembered as one of the most special. It was the day the club and the people around it put fatalism aside with optimism, magic and faith.
Seven years on, it feels like the most recent great European night at the club. They haven’t lifted the Champions League trophy for nine years and defeats by Liverpool, Bayern Munich and PSG themselves are among the damaging results they have suffered in the competition since.
Tonight (Tuesday), PSG are the visitors again. This time Barca are 3-2 ahead from last week’s Champions League quarter-final first leg, but PSG are more powerful than in 2017 with Kylian Mbappe in their ranks.
It is a wonderful chance to help further heal Barca’s long-standing European trauma. Even if now the optimistic Luis Enrique is in the other dugout.
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: John Bradford)
