Football is a cruel, cruel game. Forget about the heartbreak of TV shows and movies – the agony of conceding a last minute goal in a big match is never ending, and these are potentially the worst of them all.
It’s funny how the elation you feel from scoring late on can leave you numb to the fact that the opposition have just experienced utter deflation. The contrast between the two emotions is captured more perfectly in this sport than any other around the world.
Just have a look at these eight occasions here…
Manchester United 2-1 Bayern Munich, Champions League Final
You're 1-0 up in the Champions League Final. Biggest game of these Bayern players' lives, and all of a sudden they're awarded a big fat dose of heartbreak in the form of two injury time goals for United. They were quite literally preparing to write their name on the trophy. Baffling.
Source: Ytimg
Chelsea 1-1 Bayern Munich, Champions League Final
As well as Bayern's Nou Camp tragedy, they also lost another UCL final to Inter Milan. So when they conceded in the dieing minutes against Chelsea which sent the game to extra time, you can imagine their thought process - 'here we go again'. Didier Drogba, ladies and gentlemen.
Source: Independent
Watford 3-1 Leicester, Play-Off Semi-Final
Astonishing. Simply astonishing. Leicester missed a penalty in the final minutes of this play-off semi final, which Watford followed up on by racing down the other end and instantly scoring the winning goal to send themselves to Wembley. You just wouldn't want to play football ever again after that.
Source: Huff Post
QPR 1-0 Derby, Play-Off Final
Honest to god, this one is sickening. QPR were down to 10 men and Derby had absolutely battered them for pretty much the entire game, until Bobby Zamora popped up with a last minute winner to send Rangers into the Premier League.
Source: Seagulls
Holland 2-1 Mexico, World Cup Round of 16
Mexico looked about as comfortable as you could hope to be in a World Cup knockout game, but as we all know it only takes one false move or one error to change the course of footballing history. In this case, a late equaliser followed by a contentious penalty saw the Dutch through into the last eight.
Source: Nieuws
Chelsea 1-1 Barcelona, Champions League Semi-Final
If you're a Chelsea fan then the sheer mention of this goal will make you feel physically ill. The Blues were in complete control against Barca and had three or four solid penalty appeals turned down, and from then on it seemed academic as to what was going to happen. Iniesta, goal, heartbreaker.
Source: Lavozdel Barcelona
Bayern Munich 2-1 Borussia Dortmund, Champions League Final
Whilst Bayern finally had their day in the sun, Dortmund's fairtytale came to the most bitter of conclusions. After a fierce Champions League Final at Wembley, Arjen Robben somehow found his way through on goal and his tame shot trickled into the back of the net. Sucker punch.
Source: Mg.Co.Za
Manchester City 3-2 QPR, Premier League
AGUERROOOOOOOO! Utterly stupendous, this one. Two goals in injury time win the title for City at the expense of their bitter rivals Manchester United, and whilst they do have a host of league championships to their name the nature of this failure was absolutely devastating.
Source: Media Cache
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Now that’s not to say there aren’t several other examples that could’ve easily been included here, because there are. But with the stage on which these occasions were set, you just knew that any form of drama was going to end in joy for one and absolute misery for the other.
More of the same in the future please, chaps.
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