FC Barcelona beat Benfica 5-4 in a nine goal Champions League thriller where the Catalans completed a comeback for the ages to stay second in the elite European competition’s league phase.
Hansi Flick’s men went 1-0 down in under two minutes at the Estadio da Luz with Vangelis Pavlidis capitalising on slack defending.
Robert Lewandowski pulled one back with a 13th minute penalty, but the Greek striker on the other side of the ball completed his hat trick in just over half an hour meaning that Barca trailed 3-1 at the interval.
While one of his strikes was perhaps a soft penalty, goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has to shoulder the blame for the second brought about by a poorly-judged run out of his box which resulted in him clattering into left back Alejandro Balde.
Around nine minutes after the interval, Raphinha scored his first of evening when heading a poor kick by Benfica goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin back into his net.
Yet when Ronald Araujo scored past his own shotstopper by putting a Benfica cross past him, leading Barca trailing 4-2 and by a two-goal margin for the second time in the evening, all seemed lost.
The Blaugrana had other ideas, though, and embarked on a remontada for the ages deserving to rub shoulders with Neymar-inspired comeback against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.
Another Lewandowski spot kick reduced the advantage, before Eric Garcia latched onto a Pedri cross to finally equalize through a bullet header.
Cagey soccer ensued. But deep into stoppage time, a Raphinha in form of his life ran with everything he had on a counter attack started by a thunderous clearance, and cooly cut inside to smash home and give his team a victory to remember with his eighth strike in seven UCL outings this term.
Sliding to his knees in relentless torrential rain, the winger was understandably mobbed by his teammates both on the field and off the bench, as the travelling hoards went wild in the away end.
Eliminating the need to contest a playoff, Barca has now automatically qualified for the UCL’s knockout phase and will at least finish in the top 8 of the league phase.
It has just one match left to play, against Europea League holders Atalanta, and will tick that fixture off in Montjuic on January 29.
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