The Penalty That Kept the Impossible Alive

90th minute, Camp Nou. Neymar's free kick two minutes earlier had made it 4–1 on the night and 4–5 on aggregate; Barcelona needed two more. Luis Suárez took the ball into the PSG area with Marquinhos behind him, felt contact from the defender, and went to ground. Deniz Aytekin pointed to the spot. Neymar converted in the first minute of stoppage time: 5–1, 5–5 on aggregate, PSG still ahead on away goals. Marquinhos was booked. Four minutes later Sergi Roberto scored the sixth.

Suárez had already been booked in the 67th minute for simulation under a challenge from Verratti. PSG's later complaint to UEFA argued that his fall in the 90th should have drawn a second yellow rather than a penalty. Pundits and former referees reviewing the match were largely critical of the award; one described the referee as having 'bought the Suárez dive', another said 'there is contact but Suárez helps a lot with the simulation'.

The prosecution's case rests on the contact, the fall and the card that came first. Replays show Marquinhos' arm and body brushing Suárez from behind; they also show Suárez initiating the collapse, arms out, a beat before the contact would have brought him down. A player already cautioned for simulation that night had, on this reading, done it again — and instead of a second yellow, the referee gave the decision that turned 4–5 into 5–5. Every account of the night's pressure on Aytekin, from the crowd to the surrounding players, converges on this minute.

The consequence makes it the Remontada's hinge. Without the penalty Barcelona needed two goals in stoppage time; with it they needed one, and Sergi Roberto provided it in the 95th. PSG's five-page letter listed the decision; Emery later said Barcelona's players 'kept on diving in the box, putting lots of pressure on the referee until he fell for it'. The prosecution says that is exactly what happened.

There was contact from behind on a player at full speed inside the area. That is a penalty every week in every league, and the referee is not asked to grade the theatricality of the fall when the foul is real; he is asked whether the defender's contact brought the attacker down or was likely to. Marquinhos was booked, which tells you the referee saw a foul, not a dive. Aytekin was five yards away with a clear view; the critics were watching slow-motion replays from the side.

The defence also notes that PSG's own list of grievances included the opposite complaint at the other end — that Mascherano's foul on Di María was not given — which is a case for saying the referee missed contact in both boxes, not that he favoured one team. And whatever the merits of this penalty, PSG were still ahead on aggregate after it. The tie was lost to a sixth goal four minutes later, scored from open play.

Law 12 in 2016/17 awarded a penalty for a careless, reckless or excessively forceful push, trip or charge inside the area, and made simulation — attempting to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled — a cautionable offence. A second caution meant a sending-off. The law asked the referee to decide, in real time and without video, which of the two he had seen. VAR arrived in the Champions League the season after next; whether it would have overturned this award is the kind of counterfactual the archive records only as attributed speculation.

Neymar scored the penalty to make it 5–1, PSG remained ahead on away goals for four more minutes, and Sergi Roberto's 95th-minute goal completed the first successful overturn of a four-goal first-leg deficit in the competition's history. PSG went home and wrote to UEFA; UEFA's president said referees are not suspended and its press office declined further comment. Aytekin never spoke about the match. The tribunal's VAR Replay scenario, played as PSG from the 85th minute, scripts this penalty as history's second goal against you.