GOALKEEPERS were the pantomime villains in their nine-goal thriller between Barcelona and Benfica.
The European giants went head to head in their penultimate Champions League league phase games of the season when the Catalan club scored THREE goals in the last 20 minutes to win 5-4.
Wojciech Szczesny came out of retirement in October to seal a deal with Barcelona amid their goalkeeping crisis, but manager Hansi Flick might have felt his side would have been better served without the Polish international bothering.
The former Arsenal and Juventus shot-stopper had a calamitous first half between the sticks as he dropped two clangers to concede a first-half hat-trick from Vangelis Pavlidis.
There was nothing Szczesny could have done about Pavlidis’ opener, but his second and third were almost entirely down to the Pole.
Just nine minutes after Robert Lewandowski had levelled the scores for Barcelona to 1-1, Szczesny inexplicably came charging out of his area to greet a “loose” ball played over the top by Nicolas Otamendi.
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Instead, he clumsily clattered into his own defender Alejandro Balde, completely wiping out the left-back and allowing Pavlidis to score the easiest goal he’ll ever score as he ran through on an open net.
The third was just as much Szczesny’s fault too as he came charging off his line once again, this time sliding at the feet of Benfica winger Karem Akturkoglu and bringing him to the ground inside the area for an undeniable penalty.
Pavlidis converted the spot-kick and Benfica were 3-1 up inside 30 minutes.
But the action didn’t stop there with the second half throwing up even more goals, drama… and goalkeeping howlers.
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In fact, Benfica keeper Antoliy Trubin made perhaps the worst goalkeeping mistake of the game after the break.
Trubin tried to play the ball out of his own box after making a save from a long-distance Gavi effort and got the whole thing horribly wrong.
The Ukrainian goalkeeper hit his clearance straight into the head of Barca’s Raphinha, seeing the ball bounce right off the Brazilian’s head and into the back of the net.
Trubin could have tried that 100 more times and wouldn’t have hit him, but the freak moment gave Barcelona a way back into the game and had TNT Sports’ commentator Ian Darke asking: “Have you ever seen a goal like that?”
Despite Benfica managing to go up the other end and force a Ronald Araujo own goal just four minutes later to go 4-2 up, Barcelona’s freak goal had given them a spark to fight back in the game.
Goals from Lewandowski, Raphinha and Eric Garcia did just that as the Spanish giants turned it around to score their winner in the 96th minute of the clash.
All-in, the match had three penalties, nine goals, an own goal, three calamitous goalkeeper errors, six bookings, a hat-trick hero and ended with Barcelona sealing their spot in the next round of the competition.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
