After 35 minutes of Borussia Dortmund's rescheduled Champions League last 16 tie with Monaco, one began to wonder how the German side could possibly have been expected to play given their chilling experience less than 24 hours prior.
Two farcical Monaco goals - including a stunning own goal by Marc Bartra's replacement Sven Bender - put Monaco in the ascendancy, but seemed to spark BVB into life in what transpired to be a cracking contest at a rocking Westfalenstadion.
After an early penalty miss from right-back goalscorer supreme Fabinho, 18-year-old French star Kylian Mbappé gave the French league toppers the lead almost by accident, as a nice cross collided with his thigh/knee area and squeezed past Dortmund 'keeper Roman Burki, who last night gave a terrifying insight into the explosions which saw this fixture postponed.
Dortmund's early misery was compounded just after the half-hour mark, as Sven Bender - who likely wouldn't have started had Marc Bartra not been injured in last night's horrendous incident - steered the ball past his own goalkeeper with a spectacular header.
Bender seemed to complain to the referee out of embarrassment more so than anything else, with Falcao not really next or near him as he produced a stunning header into the wrong net.
Dortmund responded after the break, however, Ousmane Dembele tapping home from Shinji Kagawa's squared cross after an inventive flick from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The goal, as a whole, was a work of art, and Dortmund were back in action.
But another defensive calamity from Dortmund gifted Kylian Mbappé a piece of Champions League history. A slack pass from Łukasz Piszczek (copy and paste job, there, as you likely suspected), was collected by the French prodigy who burst clear and produced a stunning finish past Burki.
In the process, Mbappé became the youngest player to ever score a brace in a Champions League knockout tie.
Dortmund responded once more, however, with Shinji Kagawa - who is yet to rediscover his career-best form with Dortmund after returning from Manchester United - taking us back to 2012 with a splendid piece of control from a skewed cross, before sending a defender out for L'Équipe with a clever dummy-feint and slotting past Danijel Subašić (another C&P effort from yours truly) with his left foot.
It finished 2-3 to the French visitors, but for two free-scoring sides with poor defences, it's all to play for in the return leg at Stade Louis II next week.
