2018-2019 UEFA Champions League

Overview

2018-2019 UEFA Champions League refers to the 2018-2019 Champions League Football tournament. The tournament became notable for a pair of highly unlikely comebacks from Liverpool and Tottenham in the semi-finals of the tournament that placed them in the final, to take place June 1st, 2019 in Madrid, Spain.

Background

After qualifying rounds for Champions League occurred in the summer of 2018, the tournament proper began in September. After the group stages, the knockout rounds saw Tottenham Hotspur beat Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City beat Schalke 04, Ajax beat defending champions Real Madrid, Juventus beat Athletico Madrid, Manchester United beat Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona beat Lyon, Liverpool beat Bayern-Munich, and Porto beat Roma. Eventually, the tournament led to semi-final matchups Liverpool vs. Barcelona and Tottenham vs. Ajax.

Developments

Liverpool Comeback

May 1st, 2019, Barcelona defeated Liverpool 3-0 in the first leg of their semifinals. This meant that Liverpool would have to outscore Barcelona by four goals in the second leg to advance. They were able to pull off the task on their May 7th second leg, winning 4-0 in a stunning upset. The result stunned viewers, who quickly made memes about the game. Complex^[1] made a Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead joke on Twitter, gaining over 1,000 retweets and 2,100 likes (shown below, left). User m3tello^[2] tweeted a Game of Thrones joke about the game (shown below, right). Memes about the victory were covered by Complex,^[3] Yahoo,^[4] and TalkSport.^[5]

Tottenham Comeback

On April 30th, Tottenham lost 1-0 to Ajax in the first leg of their semifinal. Of note, Ajax's goal was an away goal, which are prioritized should the two legs end tied in goals on aggregate. This meant Tottenham would have to win their game in Holland to advance. In the first half of the two team's matchup at Ajax Stadium on May 8th, Ajax scored went up 2-0. Tottenham's poor play inspired TNT commentators to declare Ajax would be advancing after their second goal, despite over 50 minutes of soccer to still be played. In the second half, Tottenham mounted a massive comeback, scoring their third goal in the last minute of extra time. The stunning comeback coming the day after Liverpool's stunning comeback led to memes about the wild two days of football. These were covered by The Daily Mail^[6] (examples shown below).

Search Interest

External References