Remarkable results that were against the odds
The beautiful thing about sport is that you never really know what is going to happen, one minute the favourites are firmly ahead, the next the underdogs score a 5-minute hat-trick of goals to stun their opponents and the rest of the sporting world.
Last week Barcelona shocked the world with what has been labelled as the best comeback in football history. They had lost the first leg 4-0, meaning that they had an absolute mountain to climb if they were to get anything from the game. Bookmakers had them down at 200-1 to progress, and most people in the game had written their chances off.
Barcelona is arguably the best team of the last decade, so if any team could pull off the kind of mammoth performance that was required, it was always going to be them. The team scored within 3 minutes and went on to add another before half time. The comeback was on – only two more goals required to take it to extra time.
When they got the third, it seemed inevitable that they would go on and achieve this miraculous comeback. That was of course until PSG managed to get a goal back, giving them a vital away goal, which meant Barca now needed to score another 3! Then something quite magical happened in the dying minutes, Neymar scored two goals, leaving them needing just one more. The clock was winding down, and with seconds to spare, they grabbed that winner in circumstances that will probably never be repeated.
It is not surprising that bookmakers have now placed Barcelona as favourites in the latest odds on Champions League winners. Football seems to throw up these amazing situations; in 2005 Liverpool came back from 3-0 down in the Champions League final in dramatic fashion. And of course, last year saw Leicester stun the bookmakers who had placed them at 5000-1 to win the Premier League, which they somehow did.
Tennis hasn’t been short of big shocks either. Recently, world number 1 Andy Murray went out of the Australian Open to world no. 50, Mischa Zverev. Back in 2014, Wimbledon crowds were stunned when unheard of wildcard Nick Kyrgios (ranked at 144) knocked out then world number 1, Rafael Nadal. In the women’s game, there was a huge upset in the 2008 US Open when top seed Ivanic was beaten by Julie Coin, who was at the time seeded 188 in world tennis.
Whether you like to have a few bets or not, sport never ceases to amaze the world when teams or individuals manage to overcome the highest of odds to succeed. What an exciting world that we live in where a team can win a Premiership title when they were quoted at 5000-1 chances to do so. Whether it’s football, tennis, basketball or any sport, there is always that slim chance that the huge outsider can do something magical, creating history and shocking the bookmakers.
