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Hello! Pandemonium in Lisbon. Thank heavens for Raphinha.
Coming up:
🫠 Barca bring the chaos
📺 Raging Amorim wrecks TV
💰 The first $1m women’s player
Omnishambles: Glorious farce as Raphinha seals Barca’s comeback win
January 21, 2025. Remember it not as the morning after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, but rather as the date of the most incompetent tie in Champions League history. And I mean that as a compliment because incompetence can be the godfather of pure entertainment.
It was last night as Benfica and Barcelona ploughed their life savings into out-fiasco-ing each other. I’m here for total football, but I’m up all night for an omnishambles, too, and Lisbon gave us an instant classic of the genre. Don’t ask me how Barca got out of Dodge with a 5-4 win.
At various points, they were 1-0 down, 3-1 down and 4-2 down. Benfica’s Vangelis Pavlidis managed to score a hat-trick and lose. Barca were smoked — or so we thought, until Raphinha edged it spectacularly in the 96th minute (above). He’s irreproachable and he smells of the Ballon d’Or. Everything else in the (relative) warmth of
