Of all the editions of the Champions League, this 2024-2025 vintage was on paper the least exciting: many more matches, a classification between teams which do not face each other, pipes like Slovan Bratislava, Sparta Prague or Sturm Graz, locomotives not there. No matter: football will always dance, tonight is proof of that. Trailing 3-1, then 4-2 in Lisbon, FC Barcelona overthrew Benfica under downpours. The first 4-5 in the history of the Champions League was completely crazy, impossible to predict, the opportunity to bring out a word left in the closet: Absurdity.
The politics of empty Szczęsny
Portuguese supporters who have not dared to brave the rain will always be able to bite their fingers: they have not encountered this country where nonsense is the law. It was raining a little, ok, but this match was worth all the fatigue in the world, all the headaches. In Absurdy, common sense does not exist. And this is how a Greek substitute in Dortmund five years ago became a hero: Vangélis Pavlídis reigned supreme with a hat-trick in thirty minutes, taking over from Kostas Mitroglou in the national rankings.
Common sense, also absent in Barcelona, would also have pushed Hansi Flick to start Iñaki Peña in place of an ex-retired smoker. But Wojciech Szczęsny started. He offered the perfect example to the politicians of Absurdism that working old is never a good sign. What 34-year-old guy who can afford a quiet retirement in Dubai prefers to train football every day and bruise his teammates? The goalkeeper did not want to choose and went to buy his pack of cigarettes on the second Portuguese goal, meeting Alejandro Balde on his way (2-1). Same on the third, when he didn’t stop at Kerem Aktürkoğlu (3-1).
The Sports World had already written everything about “Barça’s dismal match” but logic had deserted the Luz this evening. The toothpaste squirted out of the tube, and in these cases, it was impossible to put it back inside: Szczęsny, always him, did not understand his captain Ronald Araujo for Benfica’s fourth. Nice, his counterpart Anatoliy Trubin showed solidarity with his Polish neighbor, by clearing directly on Raphinha’s head. 3-2. The entropy was already total, the match completely out of whack. Eric García even scored.
-Everything could have ultimately held in this last action: Szczęsny who misses yet another exit, the Lisbon team who demand a penalty, Raphinha who runs like a teenager running to the grocery store to finish his evening, a hook on the last defender, and goal . 3-1 at 64e4-2 at 68eand therefore 4-5 after nine minutes of added time and a red card. A week after slapping Real Madrid, Barça achieved two comebacks in a single match, and perhaps definitively exorcised his demons from Rome, Liverpool and Bayern. Barcelona also becomes the second team to win a Champions League match after winning four.
Bonus for insomniac Parisians: this goal allows Paris to play its European destiny next week in Stuttgart whatever happens. Meanwhile in the multiplex, no one would believe it if it was said that Lille stood up to Liverpool in numerical inferiority. Nobody would believe it either if we said that Bologna scored two goals in one minute and overthrew Dortmund. Red Star Belgrade, which thought it would overthrow PSV, seemed rational. The umpteenth resurrection of Atlético de Madrid, which gave a lesson in Cholismo, a real one, to a team undefeated last season, even more so. However, that was crazy too.
Liverpool-Lille notes
