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It was the most astonishing comeback in Champions League history. It cost Unai Emery his job, sent striker Edinson Cavani into therapy, and meant referee Deniz Aytekin never got to officiate another knockout match. Tonight it could serve as the perfect inspiration for Paris Saint-Germain.

Now it’s the French who need a comeback, trailing 3-2 from the first leg. Back in March 2017 they had won the first game 4-0 only for Barcelona to do what no team had ever done before and overturn a four-goal deficit with a 6-1 second-leg victory.

Barca put their comeback down to three factors: the leadership of Luis Enrique, who was Barca coach then and is PSG’s now; the raucous Nou Camp crowd; and a top secret game plan hatched on the flight back to Spain after the first-leg defeat. According to PSG there was also a fourth crucial factor – the referee.

No one could sleep on the flight back to Barcelona from Paris. Luis Enrique was still quietly fuming at the performance, and Sergio Busquets’ post-match interview, that pointed the finger of blame at Barca’s tactics, had done nothing for the mood.

Robert Moreno, then a member of Luis Enrique’s technical staff and now Sochi manager in Russia, re-watched the game. By the time Barca touched back down in Spain he was clear about how they needed to approach the second leg.

They would abandon their 4-3-3 and play 3-4-3 with left-back Jordi Alba dropped, and Rafinha Alcantara upfront allowing Lionel Messi a freer role.

There was a three-week gap before the second leg and so the new system could be practiced in the four league games before. In wins over Leganes, Atletico Madrid, Sporting Gijon and Celta Vigo variations of what would be the formation and starting eleven against PSG were implanted.

The least noise made about the shift to 3-4-3 the better, and when teamsheets were handed in before the start of matches by club delegate Carles Naval, Barca were, on paper, still set up in a 4-3-3.

When the big night came it was Samuel Umtiti, Gerard Pique and Javier Mascherano in a back three. Jordi Alba became an unused substitute - the start of a rift between him and his manager that took years to heal.

The formation tinkering alone would never have been enough. Luis Enrique is a coach players would jump into the void for if he asked them. His leadership was key.

And there were leaders on the pitch too. Luis Suarez headed past Kevin Trapp after just three minutes, and when Layvin Kurzawa put through his own goal five minutes before half time most of the 96,290 inside the Camp Nou were chanting ‘Yes we can’.

Barcelona now needed three more goals to win the tie but Luis Enrique had always been convinced that PSG would score and that dictated his half time team-talk, dedicated to preparing his players for when it happened.

On 61 minutes, after Lionel Messi had scored a penalty to make it 3-0, Cavani made it 3-1 and 3-5 on aggregate. But Barcelona did not fold. ‘This was all about belief. We never lost it,’ said the coach said after the game.

Even he didn’t expect the scorer of the winning goal to be homegrown, squad man Sergi Roberto. After Neymar had scored twice Roberto finished the job on 94 minutes and 29 seconds.

'I saw him score a lot of goals when he was a kid, but I often joke with him that these days he couldn't score under a rainbow,’ said Luis Enrique after the game.

Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu recalled how his opposite number Nasser Al-Khelaifi had thought the match was won with five minutes remaining and left the directors box to go down

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