5 most surprising Champions League runs ever

3) APOEL Nicosia 11/12

Apoel pulled off arguably the greatest Champions League shock by making the quarterfinals of the 2010/11 UEFA Champions League. The scale of the Cypriot champions’ achievement can be gauged by the simple fact that APOEL needed to play 6 qualifying rounds just to make it to the group stages of the Champions League.

The Nicosia-based club were rank outsiders when they were drawn with teams of the caliber of Zenit St. Petersburg, Shaktar Donetsk and FC Porto. This was only their second ever appearance in the Champions League proper, but APOEL stunned Zenit in the first game itself, winning 2-1 while also defeating Porto at home.

Three draws in their other games earned APOEL qualification to the knockout stages with a game remaining, which allowed them to still celebrate despite losing 2-0 to Shaktar Donetsk in their final game, with APOEL topping the group with 9 points.

The fairytale looked like it would come to an end when APOEL were drawn with French giants Lyon in the Round-of-16, a team that had a history of dumping out bigwigs like Real Madrid at this stage. When Alexandre Lacazette scored in the first leg to give Lyon a 1-0 win in France, it seemed as if APOEL were destined to finally give way to the cold, hard logic of the Champions League.

However, an early goal from Gustavo Manduca set the cat among the pigeons and APOEL held out for 120 agonizing minutes, thus sending the tie into a penalty shootout. Dionisios Chiotis was the Cypriot club’s hero, as the APOEL keeper saved penalties from Lacazette and Michel Bastos to send the 23000 fans gathered inside the GSP stadium, Nicosia into a frenzy.

APOEL’s dreamlike run was even better as the minnows were drawn with the most storied Champions League club, Real Madrid, in the quarterfinals. Despite an 8-2 aggregate loss, walking out to the Champions League anthem at the Santiago Bernabeu surely represented the pinnacle of the career of many of the APOEL squad.