The Champions League is Europe’s premier footballing cup competition. And it’s nights like the one last Tuesday when Barcelona visited Benfica in Lisbon that remind us of the grandeur, excitement, and value that the UCL brings to football. It is only because of European Football that we get to see classics like the one we saw 2 nights ago. An absolute blinder of a crazy game capped off with a last-minute winner.
The UEFA Champions League adopted a brand new format at the start of this season and while there were some doubters of this new format there certainly aren’t any left. The old format only saw teams playing 3 other teams in a 6 match group stage system. But the new format makes the team play a total of 8 opponents in a league-based system. The Barca-Benfica game was a direct result of this new format. And it was an absolute banger. The game had everything from own goals to red cards and weird goals to 3 penalties being awarded. The game was fittingly sealed by the last kick of the game from Raphinha, a man who is currently in red-hot form. Not only this but those who missed out on the game were the unluckiest bunch as the ones who watched it witnessed a historic Remontada from FC Barcelona away from home in Lisbon.
Historic Remontada That Only Happened Because Of The New UCL Format
Benfica scored in the 2nd minute of the UCL encounter after which Barcelona assumed control of the proceeding until a 13-minute Lewandowski penalty equalised the score. From that moment onwards 2 major goalkeeping mistakes by Sczcesny one of which included colliding with his teammate meant that Barca was down 3-1 by half-time.
As the UCL game went on, so did the drama. Around the 65th minute, Raphinha scored unknowingly as the Benfica keeper hit the ball right at his forehead and the ball rebounded directly into the goal. Just 4 minutes later Barcelona conceded via a Ronald Araujo own goal to trail 4-2 on the night. And just as all hope seemed lost, Pedri Gonzalez, the only player on the pitch who seemed to be playing real football stepped up to orchestrate a FC Barcelona Remontada. Lewandowski buried a 2nd penalty on the night and the beautiful lofted cross by Pedri found the back of the net via Eric Garcia’s header to tie the game.
But the drama wasn’t over yet. Well into the injury time in the 96th minute, the home side was awarded a dangerous freekick. The ball was somehow cleared by Los Cules and Raphinha was on the run on the opposite side of the pitch. As the ball made its way towards him you could just feel like it was going to end up being a goal. And that’s exactly what happened. Raphinha buried the ball inside the net after a beautiful solo run to win Barcelona the game by its whiskers. And a famous European Night in the UCL came to an end.
The Unpredictability Gives Football A Breath Of Fresh Air
This new UCL Format is much better than the previous ones because it has a predecided bracket system which eliminates the possibility of draws for the Ro16 and onwards. So all the arguments of the draws being biased against certain teams would be squashed. Furthermore, it enables a total of 36 teams to play in the UCL. And above all, it’s highly unpredictable further enhancing the footballing experience of a fan.
Who would’ve thought teams like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG and Man City would be sitting in 15th, 16th, 22nd, and 25th places respectively? While teams like Brest, Feyenoord, Club Brugge and Celtic would have realistic chances of making it into the top 16? And this is just the trailer of what’s to come. As the UCL enters its 8th group stage match week, all hell would break loose and the permutations and combinations would blow the minds of football audiences.
