Liverpool, who were 3-0 down at halftime to an AC Milan team that included the likes of Kaka, Pirlo, Shevchenko, Gattuso, Nesta, Maldini, Stam, Cafu, Crespo…

Liverpool’s squad included, Traore, Garcia, Baros, Riise, Carragher, Dudek, Gerrard, Kewell…

The gulf in class was incredible, it’s the greatest European final ever.

I seem to remember Luka Modric first season in Madrid, he was shocking, so much so I remember him getting major stick and people mocking him. Then he scored a banger at Old Trafford in the CL and it all turned around for him.

Spain losing the first game in the 2010 WC to switzerland and went on to win the whole thing is the first thing that came to my mind. Also Conte’s Chelsea were in the bottom half 10 games in and went on to win the league in the 16/17 season.

s/o to Argentina’s 2022 WC win as well

Ramos scoring a head goal against Atletico in the UCL 2013/2014 final to even the score

Marseille-Montpellier in the French League 98/99.

First half 0-4

Marseille coach tells the other coach at half time “We’re going to win 5-4”

Final whistle: 5-4

Once saw Groningen come back from a 5-1 defeat in a playoff away game to ADO, win 5-1 at home, o ly to bottle it in penalties. Still sour because of that one.

Fiorentina in 1992, where they sat second in the league table in early December. They went on to get relegated, despite having a team including Stefan Effenberg, Brian Laudrup and a young Gabriel Batistuta. Batistuta though, famously stayed on with the club during the following season in Serie B, helping Fiorentina bounce back up and into an exciting second half of the 1990s where they won a Coppa Italia and were on the fringes of title challenges.

Here’s Hogg, DEENEY!!!

St Mirren 2016/17 season and then 2017/18 season.

At the start of the 2016 season St Mirren Alex Rae was in charge. We didn’t win a competitive league fixture under him that season. He was sacked in September. At the start of October, former Saints player Jack Ross was appointed manager. We wouldn’t go on to win a game till the start of December, with a stoppage time goal from Stevie Mallan. We were 6 points adrift at the bottom of the table.

There was a significant turn around in performances following the January transfer window (with a challenge cup game against The New Saints often being cited as a turning point in the season). In the end it too until the last day to secure safety with a 1-1 draw away to champions Hibernian.

The following season in the league we started with a win, a sign of things to come. We would go on to win the league by 12 points, defeating every team in the league at some point.

Going from last day relegation escapees to champions the following season was some roller-coaster.

International: Denmark becoming European champions

Club: Leicester or Wolfsburg winning their league

I’m biased as a City fan, obviously, but after Kompany and Lescott, we’d gone on a streak of signing defenders that could not cut the mustard at the level we wanted to play at. Demichelis, Otamendi, Mangala. Then we signed John Stones. He was okay at first, but then dropped off - from what I remember, it was a mixture of personal issues and injuries - and everyone including our own fanbase had him in the same bracket as the Mangala archetype, that being very talented but never living up to the potential we clearly signed him for. Even the club seemed to give up on him, signing up Aymeric Laporte to presumably fill the gap he was going to leave in the squad.

Over the next two seasons, though, he went from being the player that everyone wanted to be dropped, the player that we were absolutely certain was going to be sold just as soon as a club would take his large wages, to being a decent backup, to being on a good run of form, earning a new contract and some trust from Pep which then propelled his form to another level and he hasn’t let it drop since. He’s now an absolute hero to the City faithful, and his nickname of Johnny Boulders stuck. That seemed to give him all the confidence he needed and now there’s less confidence in the team in general when he’s not playing - certainly not as impactful as Rodri when he doesn’t play, but still significant. Hell, even Football Manager introduced their new “Libero” centre back role as the “John Stones role” - the player who starts at CB and steps into the midfield in possession to create a double pivot of DMs.

I’ve been watching football for a long time and I’ve seen a lot of players who signed for a club, didn’t live up to their expectations, and got sold on. I’ve seen arguably more of it at City because of the rapid build to success - Roque Santa Cruz, Robinho, Bony, Mangala, Jack Rodwell, Jesus Navas, Fernando, Claudio Bravo, just to name a few through the years. I don’t think I’ve seen someone get themselves into that hole and then dig themselves out of it to the point that they’re seen as absolutely critical to the team’s success as well as Stones has.

You’ve got unlimited things to choose from as exciting turn arounds in football ( a lot of examples in here”

And you choose a player over taking another’s goal haul in a cup competition 😂

Obsessed.

Leicester clawing away from relegation and winning the league at 5000/1 next season…nope I’ll choose Ronaldo outscoring another player

Sheffield Wednesday turning a 0-4 loss in the first leg into a 4-0 win. 5-5 after OT and winning on penalties in last years promotion push to the Championship. It was unreal like nothing I have seen since Milan bottled the final against Liverpool 200X.

football is the greatest sport in the history of the world, capable of moments of astonishing excitement, beauty and emotion, and then I come onto Reddit’s biggest, most popular football sub expecting to see discussions which reflect this and instead I’m presented with this utterly tedious nonsense.

What Cristiano Ronaldo fanboys have done to every single outlet to talk about football has ruined the sport for generations. And I’m saying this as someone who couldn’t give a shite about Messi.

A controversial one maybe. I remember Cristiano Ronaldo was known as a show pony with no end product. Then his father died. And his first game back he scored a howitzer from way out with his left foot at Pompy. That was his turning point in my opinion.