Ranking the 5 greatest substitute performances in football history
It is generally the players in the starting XI who tend to garner the most attention, but the ones starting on the bench are no less important, especially when the going gets tough.
For various reasons, ranging from tactical to keeping players fresh, many key players tend to start from the bench. Some of the best players in the world like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Gareth Bale have all come off the bench and made a difference,
It is difficult to come off the bench and make an impact, simply because players are not involved in the action from the start. Nevertheless, there have been numerous epic performances from substitutes in the history of the game: be it a defence-splitting pass to break open a cagey game, produce a heroic last-ditch tackle or, better still, score the winner to seal titles.
On that note, here's a look at the five best substitute performances in the history of the game:
#5 Georginio Wijnaldum (Liverpool) - Champions League semi-final (2019)
Down 0-3 from the first leg in their 2019 Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, Liverpool had it all to do in the return leg at Anfield, especially in the absence of key players.
With their prolific scorer Mohamed Salah injured, Divock Origi received a rare start and scored as Liverpool led 1-0 at the break. But the hosts' woes were compounded when their left-back Andrew Robertson got injured and had to be pulled out. Enter Georginio Wijnladum at half-time.
In one of the most memorable performances by a substitute in Champions League history, the Dutch midfielder scored a quickfire double to put his team level on the night. With the game heading to extra time, Origi then intervened 11 minutes from time to complete the most improbable of comebacks as a shellshocked and insipid Barcelona wondered what might have been.
Following a comeback no smaller than their Miracle of Istanbul against AC Milan in 2005, Liverpool would go on to beat Tottenham Hotspur to win their sixth Champions League title.
#4 Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich) - Bundesliga (2015)
In what must go down as one of the best substitute performances in the game's history, if not the best ever, Robert Lewandowski scored an astonishing five times in nine minutes in Bayern Munich's Bundesliga game against Wolfsburg in 2015-16.
With Bayern trailing one-nil at the break away at Wolfsburg, Lewandowski came on for Thiago Alcantara and ran riot. Six minutes after coming on, he restored parity for Bayern, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Nine minutes later, the prolific Pole had registered the quickest-ever hat-trick, quadruple and quintuple in Bundesliga history as Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola couldn't believe what he was seeing.
The only reason why Lewandowski's feat features low on this list is because his performance came in a league game that wouldn't have been decisive in the context of the title.
Bayern could have lost that game and still won the Bundesliga title by seven points, but that doesn't take anything away from the Pole's dazzling exploits on the night.