5 Unbelievable Sporting Comebacks
Everyone loves a winner but few back the challenger who has no hope until they prove the doubters wrong and show them what a real champion is made of
Sport shows that anything is possible.
Here are five of the most memorable sporting comebacks that I’ve admired over the past few decades:
1.Tiger Woods’s Masters’ win in 2019 was monumental and unexpected.
No one expected Woods to win his fifth Masters title that year because his life had been all over the place for the previous few years. As golf is such an individually pressurized sport winning one tournament after one injury is difficult enough but winning the Masters after several is almost impossible.
But that never fazed Woods.
Having had four back surgeries many thought his days of glory had come to an end but Woods proved the doubters wrong.
And it wasn’t just his horrible back injuries that were pulling Woods back into the chasing pack of golf’s elite but other matters in his personal life too. Tiger was pulled over by police after having active ingredients for marijuana, sleep drugs, and painkillers when he was arrested on a D.U.I. in 2017. A video of him being very incoherent went viral and many fans thought his days as a top-class golf professional were over.
By July of 2017 Woods was ranked outside the top 1,000 golfers in world golf and it looked like his career was over.
However, when he went to Augusta two years later he surprised everyone.
A one-shot victory was all it took to overcome the three challenges of Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Xander Schauffele to win his fifth Masters. And Woods did it in front of his children to teach them and all who watched it that comebacks in sport can be achieved when a great champion puts their focus on what they want to achieve.
2. Liverpool’s comeback against AC Milan in the Champions League Final in 2005 was not expected.
Nor was their representation in the final in the first place. Because this was far from the greatest Liverpool side that ever contested a final.
With Djimi Traore at left-back, the tall languid Malian international footballer was never seen as the best option for a Liverpool team not to mention a Champions League winning one. Steve Finnan was on the other side and the Irish international was far from the flashing attacking right back that many teams were beginning to have in their teams around that time.
Then there was Harry Kewell upfront.
The ex- Leeds player had been a great player in his day but by the time he came to Liverpool, he was a pale shadow of his former self.
That Liverpool team was not expecting to win the Champions League at the outset and certainly not going to make the final in many people’s eyes.
But they did.
And in the final, they were up against the class of AC Milan.
Within minutes though the experienced Paolo Maldini put Milan 1–0 up on Liverpool. Then Hernan Crespo made it 2–0 and it seemed the writing was on the wall for the English challengers.
When Milan made it 3–0 by halftime it looked like curtains for Liverpool. And many of their loyal fans lost interest and began to leave the stadium.
But Liverpool never gave up.
Led by their captain Steven Gerrard they scored after the break to make it 3–1. Then they kept battling and got a second. Milan was now ruffled and Liverpool kept the pressure up and by the 90th minute, it was 3–3.
The game went into extra time and they couldn’t be separated until the penalty shootout arrived.
And against all odds, Liverpool created their incredible comeback by winning 3–2 in the shoot-out.
3. But an even more exciting comeback came from the same Liverpool club against the might of Barcelona in the Champions League Semi-Final in 2019.
This time they were 3–0 down after visiting the Camp Nou in Barcelona and not many gave them a chance to overcome the great men in the striped shirts especially with the magic of Leo Messi in the Barcelona side.
But Liverpool’s Divock Origi scored in Anfield to make it 3–1. Then Georginio Wijnaldum scored twice to make it 3–3 on aggregate.
The impossible now seemed possible.
Liverpool was not favored to score as many against such a talented Barcelona side and even at this stage, the biggest Liverpool critics were tipping their cap to the Anfield faithful. Then young right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold spotted that Barcelona was not fully aware in defense and popped in a quick corner kick for Origi to rattle the ball to the Barcelona net.
The game finished 4–3 and Liverpool marched on to the Champions League final where they overcame Tottenham Hotspur.
4. Manchester United’s comeback against Bayern Munich in the Champions League Final in 1999 seemed impossible with ten minutes remaining in the final.
Although their captain fantastic Roy Keane had motivated them to a semi-final victory only to be suspended for the final game it looked as if they lacked that spark to get the equalizer against an efficient Bayern Munich team. As United had gone on to win the Premier League and the FA Cup that season it looked as if their energy had finally run out in the Champions League final as they trailed the German side 1–0 in the closing minutes of the final.
With only a minute remaining Munich was home and dry or so it seemed.
Manchester United subs Sheringham and Ole Solskjaer had come on but had not been able to turn the tide in their side’s favor.
Then the unthinkable happened.
First Sheringham and then Solskjaer scored and by the final whistle, United had overturned the 1–0 lead by Munich and won the treble in their most successful season ever.
5. The Rumble in the Jungle between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali occurred in Zaire in 1974.
Ali who was filled with big talk had been dethroned of his world championship title seven years earlier as the US government felt by him failing to show up to be in the US army he needed to be punished. So they revoked his boxing license as a result.
Although both Ali and Foreman were paid millions to fight in Zaire and promoter Don King was happy for it to be advertised as the “From the Slave Ship to the Championship!” bout the name was changed before the contest by the then Zaire president Mobutu Sese Seko.
Ali wanted to fight in Zaire to bring together the Africans and the African American culture to show his disgust with the fighting in Vietnam.
Sledgehammer blows came from the younger boxer Foreman and it looked as if Ali’s weeks of taunting Foreman was going to be exposed as thrash talk.
However, five rounds into the contest Foreman’s power began to wane as Ali’s expertise playing the dope a rope came to fruition. By the eighth-round Ali pounced into action and used his punches to count against Foreman. After a hard Ali left and a right Geroge Foreman hit the deck and Mohammad Ali was declared the winner.
After all his talk and seven years of exile, he was now the champion of the world again.
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