Roma overcome a 4-1 first leg defeat to beat Barcelona 3-0 and reach the Champions League semi-finals.
While there has of course been extensive coverage of the result and its implications in Spain and Italy, the result sent shockwaves around the football world.
France’s biggest sports newspaper, L’Équipe, didn’t miss the parallels between this and Barça’s own comeback against Paris Saint-Germain last year.
“But Barcelona are not PSG. Or so we thought. The story seemed written,” the newspaper wrote.
Roma overcome a 4-1 first leg defeat to beat Barcelona 3-0 and reach the Champions League semi-finals.
While there has of course been extensive coverage of the result and its implications in Spain and Italy, the result sent shockwaves around the football world.
France’s biggest sports newspaper, L’Équipe, didn’t miss the parallels between this and Barça’s own comeback against Paris Saint-Germain last year.
“But Barcelona are not PSG. Or so we thought. The story seemed written,” the newspaper wrote.
In the end it was “a magic night, unreal for them as for their opponents, who learned last night that the Italian for ‘remontada' is ‘rimonta’”.
France Football opened with “dominating from one end to the against the harmless Catalans, Roma, largely beaten in the first leg (1-4), managed the feat of qualifying for the semi-finals by thrashing Barça (3- 0). Simply incredible”.
Edin Dzeko was “the symbol of a huge Roma performance”.
Britain’s The Guardian called it “one of the most remarkable comebacks in the history of the Champions League”, declaring “for Roma there were memories to last a lifetime”.
The New York Times assessed the exits of both Barça and Manchester City, who went out to their fellow Premier League side Liverpool.
“To Liverpool and Roma, reaching the Champions League semifinals is an unexpected bonus, an impossible dream,” writes Rory Smith.
“To Manchester City, as to Barcelona, not doing so is in some way falling short.”
Bild wrote simply “Rome explodes, Messi out” before stating that “Roma managed to do the unbelievable and make it to the semi-finals”.