Masters and Ashes show other great comebacks to emulate Dortmund

Great comebacks are commonplace in sport. In the Champions League alone, Manchester United won the Champions League with two injury-time goals, Deportivo came back from 4-1 down to beat AC Milan and Liverpool were 3-0 down to the same Italian opposition at half-time in 2005.

Borussia Dortmund are the latest to add their names to this list, but equally unexpected and shock results occur elsewhere in the sporting world, with five of the best below.

Gary Player 1978 Masters

Player began the final round seven strokes adrift of overnight leader Hubert Green, with the likes of defending Masters champion Tom Watson in closer contention to strike.

Player’s agent was among those that had written the 42-year-old off, but the South African responded by equalling the course record of 64 at Augusta, which included six birdies on the back nine to claim a third Masters by just a single shot.

1981 Ashes

England somehow won the Ashes in 1981 and this was in no small part down to the heroics of Ian Botham and Bob Willis at Headingley.

Following on 227 runs behind, England then found themselves 105-5 in their second innings, until Botham’s 145 not out left Australia needing 129 to win the match.

Willis then starred with the ball to take 8-43 to hand England the unlikeliest of 18-run victories.

Foinavon 1967 Grand National

Despite previously finishing fourth in a King George and running in a Cheltenham Gold Cup, Foinavon was considered a no-hoper at Aintree and was running to his price on the opening circuit under late stand-in jockey John Buckingham.

However, a pile up at the fence after Becher’s resulted in Foinavon being the only horse to clear without stopping and sent him off into an unassailable lead.

Given that approaching Becher’s he was virtually last and he made it to the fence now named after him about 12 seconds after the leaders, this was certainly an unexpected victory.

Pete Sampras 1996 US Open quarter finals

Sampras had already battled back from 2-1 down in sets against Alex Corretja to force a tie-break in a deciding set when disappearing to the back of the court to be sick.

Dehydrated and exhausted, he stumbled to 7-7 in the tie-break before barely being able to serve.

He somewhat managed to send down an ace before a double fault from the Spaniard handed Sampras a surprise victory, certainly given his condition at the start of the tie-break.

McLaren 1983 US Grand Prix

Qualifying struggles, particularly with their tyres, saw McLaren pair John Watson and Niki Lauda begin from positions 22 and 23 on the grid in California.

However, they were up into the top five a third of the way into the race, but collisions involving the likes of pole-setter Patrick Tambay and Keke Rosberg and car problems for late leaders Riccardo Patrese and Jacques Laffite enabled the McLarens through for the win.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.