Atalanta join Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea in top ten Champions League second-leg comebacks | OneFootball

Atalanta pulled off a remarkable comeback to qualify for the last 16 on Wednesday and make the top ten Champions League second leg recoveries of all time. They were so, so nearly joined by Juventus, who took Galatasaray to extra time after losing the first leg 3-0, only for Victor Osimhen to break hearts in Turin.

We’ve cherry-picked six of the 11 victories from two goals down based on where the game was played, the level of the opponents and vibes – there are some vibe-driven decisions for sure – to go with the three times a three-goal margin was overturned and the greatest comeback of all time in 2016/17.

10) Atalanta 4-1 Borussia Dortmund (agg 4-3) – knockout round play-offs, 2025/26

Premier League flops Gianluca Scamacca and Davide Zappacosta levelled the tie on aggregate in the first half before Mario Palasic gave the Serie A side the advantage soon after the break.

Karim Adeyemi looked to have taken the game into extra time when he curled in draw the tie level, but with just seconds left in stoppage time, Ramy Bensebaini caught Nikola Krstovic on the head in the box with a reckless high boot.

The referee initially pointed for a corner but VAR called for a pitch side review as the blood quite literally poured from Krstovic’s head. A penalty was awarded and Bensebaini was dismissed with a second yellow card, after straight reds had been shown Dortmund’s Nico Schlotterbeck and Atalanta’s Giorgio Scalvini on their respective benches for some touchline shenanigans.

Lazar Samardzic smashed in the high-pressure penalty to send Atalanta into the last 16, where they will face either Arsenal or Bayern Munich. Best of luck, lads.

9) Monaco 3-1 Real Madrid (agg 5-5 – Monaco win on away goals) – quarter-finals, 2003/04

Raul stretched the advantage of a Galactico Real Madrid team also featuring Zinedine Zidane, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo and Luis Figo to 5-2 ten minutes before half-time to make a Monaco comeback particularly unlikely.

Ludovic Giuly offered Monaco a glimmer of encouragement to cling on to at the break before on-loan striker Fernando Morientes, facing his parent club, raised hopes even further with a 48th-minute header to pull the Ligue 1 side within a goal.

Giuly backheeled Monaco into dreamland when he finished through Carlos’s legs and beyond Iker Casillas.

“Of course we missed [David] Beckham,” said manager Carlos Queiroz after the game. “But you can’t pin this down to the absence of one player.”

8) Barcelona 4-0 AC Milan (ago 4-2) – last 16 2012/13

Barcelona became the first team in history to overturn a two-goal first-leg deficit without the aid of an away goal.

Former Pompey pair Kevin-Prince Boateng and Sulley Muntari had given Milan a cushion to take to the Nou Camp but Lionel Messi wiped out the Rossoneri’s advantage before the break, despite M’Baye Niang hitting during the first half.

With the momentum behind Barca, David Villa and Jordi Alba’s second-half strikes inflicted the heaviest ever Champions League defeat on Milan.

7) Chelsea 4-1 Napoli (AET, agg 5-4) – Last 16, 2011/12

Andres Villas-Boas was sacked following the 3-1 defeat in Naples and the second leg was just the second game of Roberto Di Matteo’s tenure as the supposedly ageing Chelsea players who would end up dragging them to glory in Munich a couple of months later.

Didier Drogba and John Terry gave the Blues the 2-0 lead required to reach the quarter-finals but Gokhan Inler struck for the Serie A side before Frank Lampard scored from the spot to take the game to extra time, during which Branislav Ivanovic smashed the winner into the roof of the net.

6) Bayern Munich 6-1 Porto (agg 7-4) – quarter-finals 2014/15

Needing a 2-0 win, Bayern were level on aggregate within 22 minutes thanks to Thiago and Jerome Boateng headers. Thomas Muller’s drive was the filling in a Robert Lewandowski goal sandwich before Jackson Martinez gave Porto some very faint hope.

But Ivan Marcano was sent off, with Xabi Alonso scoring from the free-kick for Pep Guardiola’s side.

5) Paris Saint-Germain 1-3 Manchester United (agg 3-3 – Man Utd win on away goals) – last 16 2018/19

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was without 11 first team players for the second leg, including Paul Pogba after his red card in the first at Old Trafford, but Romelu Lukaku gave United the best possible start, rounding the goalkeeper to score after defensive blunder after just two minutes.

A horrible spill from Gianluigi Buffon from a dipping Marcus Rashford shot gifted Lukaku another after Juan Bernat had equalised for the hosts. And Rashford then scored deep into stoppage time from the spot after one of those classic Champions League handballs that actually definitely shouldn’t really be a handball when that nonsense was at its absolute peak.

4) Roma 3-0 Barcelona (agg 4-4 – Roma win on away goals) – quarter-finals 2017/18

Edin Dzeko struck early for the unfancied hosts and veteran Daniele de Rossi thenscored a second-half penalty before Kostas Manolas wrote himself into Champions League and Champions League commentary folklore as the Greek God in what might have been peak Peter Drury, before he became too annoying to bear.

Whoever was in charge of the Roma socials said it best though…

3) Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona (agg 4-3) – semi-finals 2018/19

Lionel Messi scored a brace in the first leg including a free-kick from a gazillion miles out to give Jurgen Klopp’s side a mountain to climb that they ended up sprinting up in one of the most special of special European nights at Anfield.

Divock Origi tapped in after seven minutes to get the crowd in the mood but Liverpool needed Alisson in top form as Barcelona missed a host of chances to put the game beyond the hosts before a second-half brace from Gini Wijnaldum drew the Reds level.

We then had the ‘corner taken quickly’ moment which will live long in the memory of the Liverpool fans who haven’t scrubbed it out of their minds on the basis of the rat who delivered it to man currently without a football club at the age of 30 but who will remain an Anfield cult hero for life.

2) Deportivo La Coruna 4-0 AC Milan (agg 5-4) – quarter-finals 2003/04

Kaka, Andriy Shevchenko, Cafu, Paolo Maldini and apparent conspiracy theorist Andrea Pirlo were the stars of an incredible AC Milan side which spanked Deportivo 4-1 in the first leg at San Siro, but the tie was turned on its head within 43 minutes of the second leg.

Walter Pandiani, Juan Carlos Valeron and Newcastle flop Albert Luque scored the first-half goals before substitute Gonzalez Fran finished the Serie A side off with 15 minutes to go in one of the biggest shocks in Champions League history, which had Pirlo questioning whether there wasn’t something fishy going on.

“For the first and only time in my life, I’ve wondered if people I’d shared a pitch with might have been on something. Maybe it’s all just anger that I haven’t yet managed to work through. But the Deportivo players were like men possessed, galloping towards a target that only they could see,” he said in his autobiography.

1) Barcelona 6-1 Paris Saint-Germain (agg 6-5) – Round of 16, 2016/17

“I would say to the hospitals of Barcelona to hire nurses. Tonight, people will make a lot of love. It’s a miracle,” Gerard Pique said after the game, in what we hope is a midwife mix-up for the sake of his small and humble breasted ex-girlfriend. Although if he did confuse them with mountains a nurse absolutely would have been required.

Barcelona are the only team in Champions League history to overturn a four-goal first leg deficit after a 4-0 battering in Paris appeared to signal a European power shift.

The MSN Barcelona team came out fighting, taking the lad through Luis Suarez in the third minute before an own goal halved the deficit at the break. Lionel Messi smashed in a penalty early in the second half but Edinson Cavani found the net just after the hour mark to ensure Barcelona needed six.

And so they did. In added nonsense the fourth from Neymar didn’t arrive until the 88th minute before the Brazilian scored a penalty in the 91st, and with just ten seconds of stoppage time remaining and PSG still heading through on away goals, .