Most
Champions League knockout ties are tight, and for good reason. By the time the
last 16 comes around, the teams left standing are the best clubs in Europe. At
that stage of the competition, nothing comes easy. Defences are tight, away
goals matter, and most ties are settled by small margins. That is what makes
the rare high-scoring ties so memorable.
Only 18 games in
the competition's entire history have produced 11 goals or more across two
legs. These are the best of them.
Bayern Munich 12-1 Sporting CP, 2008-09 Round of 16
Bayern
showed up in Lisbon for the first leg and absolutely took Sporting apart,
winning 5-0 with Franck Ribery and Luca Toni both grabbing two goals each. It
was a hammering, plain and simple. But somehow, the second leg in Munich was
even worse.
The second
leg saw six different Bayern players score in a 7-1 win that was, if anything,
even more comfortable than the first. 13 goals in total, 12 of them Bayern's. Sporting were massive underdogs from the moment the draw
was made, and the games themselves proved every bit of it right.
Watching the
footage back now, it's hard to find a single moment where Sporting looked like
they had a chance. Bayern were simply in a different class across both legs,
and there was nothing Sporting could do about it.
Liverpool
7-6 Roma, 2017-18 semi-finals
Of all the
ties on this list, this is probably the one that best captures what the
Champions League knockouts can do to a person. Liverpool were 5-0 up at
half-time in the first leg at Anfield. Mohamed Salah was at his absolute best,
and the tie looked finished before Roma had even touched the ball in the second
half. Then Roma scored twice late on, and suddenly it was not so comfortable.
The second
leg in Rome started with Liverpool leading 7-3 on aggregate and ended with Roma
scoring three in a row to make it 7-6. Liverpool went through, but only just. 13
goals across two legs, and the drama was completely disproportionate to how
one-sided it had looked at the interval of the first game.
Inter
Milan 7-6 Barcelona, 2024-25 semi-finals
This one
equalled the record and was probably the most dramatic of the lot. The first
leg in Barcelona finished 3-3, with Inter scoring two, conceding two, going
ahead again, only for Barcelona to level it in the final minutes.
The second
leg at the San Siro followed a similar pattern but with higher stakes. Inter
led 2-0 at half-time, Barcelona came back to take it to 3-2 with the tie level
on aggregate, and it looked like the Spanish side were going through. Then
Acerbi equalised in the third minute of added time. Frattesi came off the bench
in extra time and scored the winner. Inter went to the final in Munich, where
PSG beat them 5-0. 13 goals across two legs, and the tie had no right to be as
close as it was.
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