Five of the eight UEFA Champions League last-16 ties head into the second leg with one team holding an advantage of at least three goals. Is there any hope for comebacks?
You expect to see fewer one-sided results the deeper you get into the UEFA Champions League. But the first legs of the 2025-26 round-of-16 ties chucked out a bunch of brutal outcomes that may already spell curtains for several ties – bar some remarkable turnarounds.
Across the action on Tuesday and Wednesday, no fewer than five of the eight last-16 first-leg matches ended with deficits of three or more goals.
While some of the losers may still harbour defiant hope of turning things around next week, many on-lookers will insist all five of those ties are already dead.
On Tuesday, Atlético Madrid scored five goals in a Champions League knockout match for the first time ever as they crushed Tottenham 5-2, while Atalanta suffered their joint-heaviest defeat in European competition when losing 6-1 at home to Bayern Munich.
Then, three of Wednesday’s four matches were decided by three-goal margins.
Pep Guardiola suffered his joint-heaviest defeat in the first leg of a Champions League knockout tie as Manchester City lost 3-0 to Real Madrid at the Bernabéu; Chelsea’s 5-2 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain saw them concede five goals in a single UCL game for just the second time; and Sporting CP were beaten 3-0 away to Bodø/Glimt, last losing by more on the road in a UCL match way back in March 2009.
The teams who won on Tuesday and Wednesday scored 23 goals between them; the losers managed five collectively. There have only been five matchdays in Champions League knockout history that have seen a greater disparity in goals between the winning and losing sides.
So, is there any way back for Tottenham, Atalanta, City, Chelsea and Sporting?
Well, first of all, Atalanta’s task appears all but impossible given no team have ever come back from five goals down to progress in a UCL tie, and they’d have to manage that away from home against a very impressive Bayern side. We are probably safe to rule that one as done and dusted.
As for the others, though, there is still some hope to cling to.
Now, we’re obviously talking in terms of historical precedent initially here rather than there being optimism for each of the other four sides. For instance, the prospect of Spurs turning things around given their dismal form (Tuesday’s loss saw them suffer six successive defeats in all competitions for the first time in their history) seems far less realistic than City, Chelsea or Sporting coming back from the brink, even though their deficits are identical.
All four have the same mountain to climb, it’s just that some will be better prepared for that ascent than others.
When it comes to inspiring hope, then, those clubs have four examples to look to: Deportivo La Coruña (vs Milan) in 2003-04, Barcelona (vs PSG) in 2016-17, Roma (vs Barcelona) in 2017-18, and Liverpool (vs Barcelona) in 2018-19.
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11 months ago Graham BellBarcelona’s success over PSG in 2016-17 is the benchmark for turnarounds. They overturned a 4-0 first-leg defeat by winning 6-1 in the return game, and they remain the only club in the competition’s history to come back from a four-goal defeat in the first meeting.
It was one of the Champions League’s all-time great ties.
Unai Emery’s Paris Saint-Germain swept Barcelona aside in the first leg of their last-16 tie at the Parc des Princes to leave Barça with their work cut out. But the Catalans also had the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar.
The second leg was an incredible affair at Camp Nou, with Barça winning 6-1 on the night and 6-5 on aggregate, substitute Sergi Roberto scoring the crucial sixth goal just 20 seconds before the end of second-half stoppage time.
That was the first time since 2003-04 that any team had overturned a first-leg deficit of three or more goals, with Deportivo the first. They’d been beaten 4-1 in San Siro, but then earned a 4-0 victory in the second leg at the Riazor to seal a famous 5-4 aggregate win, taking them into the semi-finals of the competition.
But it was as if Barça’s remarkable comeback against PSG flicked a narrative switch. Having not seen such a turnaround for 13 years, we then had them in 2017, 2018 and 2019 – and Barcelona were involved in all three.
In 2018, Barcelona’s 4-1 win over Roma at Camp Nou in the first leg of their quarter-final seemed routine enough, even accounting for two own goals by the Serie A side.
But Kostas Manolas, guilty of one of those own goals, more than made up for it in the second leg, scoring the third in an incredible 3-0 win for the Giallorossi. We must point out, however, that Roma progressed on the away goals rule, which of course is no longer a factor in European knockout football. Were this comeback to happen today, Roma would still have to do the business in extra-time or penalties.
About 13 months later, Barcelona endured another harrowing collapse. A 3-0 home win over Liverpool courtesy of a Messi brace and Luis Suárez netting against his former club seemingly ensured the Blaugrana had one foot in the Champions League final.
However, on a historic night at a rocking Anfield in the second leg, Liverpool turned things around with a remarkable 4-0 victory, the decisive goal coming via a now-iconic quickly taken corner from Trent Alexander-Arnold to Divock Origi to stun the Catalans once more.
While we haven’t seen a team recover from a three- or four-goal deficit to progress from a Champions League tie since, it might surprise some to learn these four examples come from a possible 51 – that means 7.8% of UCL ties that have seen a team win the first leg by three or more goals have ended up being won by the other side.
It’s also worth remembering that we did nearly see such a comeback in this season’s play-off round. Juventus lost 5-2 at Galatasaray in the first leg and were then 3-0 up at the end of the regulation 90 minutes in the second to force extra-time. Had they not had Lloyd Kelly sent off, Juve may well have done enough to prevent their visitors scoring twice in extra-time to seal progress.
There is precedent, then. There are omens and there is (a sliver) of hope.
But, realistically, what chances do Tottenham, City, Chelsea and Sporting (and Atalanta) have of reaching the quarter-finals?
As noted before, while their challenges are rather similar in terms of deficit (excluding Atalanta), each situation has its own nuances. The Opta supercomputer can help us make sense of that.
For instance, Manchester City are deemed the likeliest to overcome their first-leg defeat. They still reached the quarter-finals in 16.38% of the supercomputer’s 10,000 simulations.
Sporting are next, stunning Bodø/Glimt to reach the last eight in 13.3% of the latest sims; then we have Chelsea (7.26%) and then Tottenham (3.16%). And, just to sate any curiosity, Atalanta are given a 0.01% chance of knocking out Bayern Munich.
For Tottenham, Chelsea, City and Sporting, the task is daunting; for Atalanta, it’s practically hopeless. But ties that live longest in the memory and have the greatest legacies tend to begin in similarly futile circumstances.
The second legs may well confirm the inevitable, or they could provide us with another miracle to file alongside those at the Riazor, Stadio Olimpico, Anfield and Camp Nou.
In the Champions League, you just never know.
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Champions League Miracles: Do Man City, Chelsea, Sporting, Tottenham or Atalanta Have Any Hope Left? Opta Analyst.
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