European Cup Trivia

[Kevin S]

Anyway, my bid is Dynamo Kiev. Now up to 34 attempts on the big one, and they've had a few eras of being rather good - the Buryaks, the Blokhins, the Shevchenkos - but never quite made it.

[Alex Anderson]

Bloody hell.

When TRLB mentioned Everton I slapped my head thinking "damn - yeah - I've bored so many people with that down the years - my theory that the mid-80s Everton (my fav ever one-off English side) were the champs Europe never had ... fuck could I forget that!" ...

... and I was sure I'd put forward the size and passion Schalke before too ... and ad hoc was ringing Andalucian bells ... and Man City - yeah! - they've won as many Euro comps as PSG (the same one too) and are bankrolled by similar petrodollars ...

... and then Kevin S settled on Dynamo Kiev, who I now remember were my personal favourite suggestion - two semi-finals, several great teams, two Ballons d'or, denied by the Soviet winter season - and the one I settled on before ... WHEN I ASKED THIS SAME QUESTION ON THIS SAME THREAD LAST YEAR!

I made none of those other suggestions before. I just went for Dynamo Kiev.

I'm sure I ended up arguing with ursus (shockeroonie!) who I think opted for his Honved honies. But I don't trust any of my memories now.

I'm gonnae tell myself this is the PMT. Or let me pretend it might also be the fates talking through me - making the thread come all the way back round, poetically, to Kiev again on the day of the final ...

[Yes. Fates talking through me. In terms of my brain's health, that's much more reassuring]

... but I'm worried. I think it might be just as well the final's tonight, and all the trivia officially needs reviewing after midnight ... think I'm spent ...

Warren Beatty is presenting the trophy though, yeah?...

[Third rate Leszno]

I know what you mean about the PMT, Alex. Still no idea where we're going to watch the match, local places are small and not geared up for large numbers of people wanting to watch their small telly's, whilst town has much more choice, but will be hectic with no guarantee of finding a venue that hasn't been rammed solid since 3pm, isn't charging to get in (fuck that) or is full of dickheads and stag do's.

Probably need to start now, just to be on the safe side. And what better choice for an opening beer on final day than this?

[Alex Anderson]

I know, mate - it's sometimes murder in town, what with all the bandwagon jumpers ...

...

That's a beautiful-looking bottle of beer, Sir. I mean, I'm not much of a drinker myself - prefer a good cuppa and I like to stay sober when there's a big game on ...

... have a swig every time you hear one of these blandly predictable factoids coming out your telly during Saturday’s live broadcast of the 63rd final of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup/UEFA Champions League ...


Recommended dosage per factoid: One solid mouthful of Tennent’s Lager direct from a pre-chilled 440ml can (not the pint cans; they’re just wrong. And anyone even considering a “keg” can just fuck-off out the road of my final – yes, I said MY FINAL - and spend the whole weekend playing Fortnite and watching Disney Star Wars spin-offs like they really want to because if there’s one thing I will not tolerate on Champions League Final Night it’s corporate sell-outs) or one shot glass-sized shot of Messer Schmitt Herbal Schnapps, currently on offer at Morrisons Anniesland for less than eight quid but available at most good UK retailers for under a tenner … OR YOUR REGIONAL EQUIVALENTS ...

... but if I ever decided to try alcohol, that looks like the absolutely perfect boy for tonight's little classic.

Strangely enough though, my wife is quite keen to drink tonight. In fact I think she's started already. Can't think why. It's as if she's suddenly depressed about something ...

... I got married on Wed 26 May 1999 - what bigger declaration of love, if you're me, than telling her you would miss a live televised European club final for her - so I missed that one ... had our "reception" in a Glasgow pub with no telly.

And then in 2004, out for a fifth anniversary meal, as I slowly realised there was a fair chance future European finals might be on the same date as my wedding ... Very quiet meal ...

... never seen her drinking whisky before. Or Super Lager. She keeps muttering " ... any Judge would've reduced the sentence ... I would've been out by now ..." - must be some legal drama she's watching on telly ... while I research more football stats to entertain her with. God, she's a lucky lady.

Anyway - it gets us all in different ways does the European Cup final. But, as I said earlier, I can't imagine what it's actually like to have a horse in that particular home straight. You must be absolutely frantic.

Christ, I bought a bottle of Moet in 1993, when I was 23, the night we were in Marseilles in an effective semi-final second leg. Because by that point I'd already had all the European Cup finalists and final goal-scorers memorised for over a decade. Just to get my team onto that roster of names and years I'd recite internally when I brushed my teeth (yup) would have been celebration enough.

I love pubs and I love watching football but, like chicken lasagne, I can't mix the two. I gave up watching games in "mixed" (i.e. pubs) pubs years ago - barred myself from all but diehard Rangers shops - but a lot of that's because of Rangers and the whole Scottish scene. And I think that's also another key factor in why I love European football so much - it gets you away from the internecine stuff and into a gorgeous world of wider perspectives, possibilities and boulevards.

First final I remember watching - Liverpool 1977.

Best final I ever saw - Liverpool 2005.

Only final I ever attended - Real Madrid 2002.

And while the Milan of 88-95 are the great team of my inescapable teens to mid-twenties period, when I were a nipper out the back door it was Liverpool and Real I was scoring against for Rangers in the European Cup. Because we couldn't win the fekin League, Liverpool were the best in Britain and Europe for my entire childhood, and I was already so into the European Cup that I knew all about the Real legend.

So while, since 77, I've seen my club both a goal from the final and on the verge of death, tonight feels like a return to my childhood norm. Except that, when I was a kid, European Cup finals were shit - tonight's could be comic book great.

So wherever you go and whatever you drink, enjoy it Third rate les Bleus - hope you're surrounded by like-minded souls cheering on the localest team and that your First rate les rouges do the bizzo.

And, for fuck's sake, don't end up in a pub where someone's having their wedding reception in a room without a fucking telly. Yes - some people are just that sick.

[Alex Anderson]

To complete the sense of occasion and increase the celebration - here's my final verbose post ... I swear it to be so. Verily. I swear it with one hand on one lobe of the Cup With The Big Ears.

European Cup Trivia Page 2018 Champions League final – harketh the good news.

Why, exactly, the fuck am I getting so maudlin about a trivia thread? Well, I mean, I don’t want to come across all preachy but it was prophesied by the ancients (Bernard Tapie and Campbell Ogilvie in a 1991 conference call), that when the Motson retires his mic of babble and live coverage of the final is cast out in exile from council telly, a non-champion will collide on the Eastern Steppe with a man known by twixt the last-most initials, and the world shall worship the false god of Heineken.

First they said there wouldn’t be more than two teams from one country in the competition, then they trebled the ticket prices, and now the “freeview options” just scream that it’ll soon be more expensive to watch the final on your telly than it was to buy a ticket from a cockney tout on Cathcart Road to see the greatest strike in the history of ITV2 compilation clip shows, in the 2002 final. Like I say, not being preachy but THIS IS END DAYS and, possibly, THE RAPTURE, so I must than this flock for the precious fruit yielded by their missionary work.

Who is the ugliest player ever to play in Europe's biggest club final? We know. Why didn’t Warren Beatty present the trophy to Real Madrid after the 1958 final? We know. These are the words the philistines don’t want you to hear - the truths they fear.

BT Sport doesn’t care about how many NASL players have scored in the European Cup final. Mastercard would rather you didn’t know how many finals have been played in cities that also hosted Formula 1. And Gazprom definitely don’t want you thinking about how many teams in away strips have won the European Cup – they just want you to buy more and more packets of Gazproms.

Lo! We must keep the faith. We must not, those of us who remember Phil Neal – twice conqueror of Rome – declaring a grainy three-minute Football Focus segment of sexist banter with Bob Wilson on the Wirral too immodest, we must not fear today’s hour-long Channel 4 documentaries on a guy from Egypt who could only score one of his team’s nine against Brighton this season.

Let us who can divine the real message of the European Cup Final uplift the remote control of the oracle and take our place on the sofa of rectitude. Let us share the real factoids – the instructive factoids - the divine factoids; The factoids that need no alcoholic accompaniment because they are their own reward as they preserve the heart and soul of a tournament under attack by Mammon. Prepare ye all to go forth and testify.

There are some in this world – and it breaks our heart – there are some on this Gento-forsaken planet who think the trophy itself was always the same shape and that it’s always the original cup the finalists compete for. There are many who think this final was only ever played on a Saturday.

There walk among us people who believe themselves football fans yet think every strip in Europe was always made by the same four manufacturers, that floodlights were only ever mounted in roof fascias, that Scottish clubs never get past December and that Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa are “quite big Championship clubs”. Yes, they may have booed Zadok the Priest at New Maine Road but it is clear to me these souls have never felt the light, love and warmth of a midweek Guardia Civil baton charge in the pokey wee back streets outside El Madrigal.

Brothers and sisters, we’re living in a world of children who think there was always a group stage. More who think there was only ever one group stage! Why, just the other day a toddler at our very own day care centre spat his dummy in my face when I tried to tell him his forefathers knew but one club from each country in the competition. “Go sell that Harry Potter shit somewhere else, gramps”.

But I couldn’t be angry. No, people, I neither raised my voice like Barry Davies hailing Tommy Smith’s goal in the 1977 final, nor retaliated in self-defence by bringing my 1990-91 Rothman’s across his wee coupon with more power than the hammer Tommy Smith dropped on his foot to rule him out the 1978 final. As I wiped the Rusk splatter from my face, I felt the power of edited highlights of Dynamo Dresden fans throwing bricks at Red Star Belgrade after the boxing from Hackney Town hall presented by Harry Carpenter. And I was nourished. And I asked him if he could tell me …

How often the final has been hosted by a club which has never appeared in the final itself?

He was as turned to stone.

On this our holy day, we must be a shining example to the weary of brain, the confused of heart; to the heretics and the Linekers. Show them that one needs not alcohol, pusher’s pill nor soggy chip of fry to enjoy the greatest day in our calendar. Though its power be blunted by the fact we can watch the fucking FA Vase and Trophy finals live, back-to-back, far less every group game via the red button, still we worship soberly at the altar of a live European Cup final in our living rooms.

Yay, though the materialistic corporations exploit even the 63rd coming of The Club Game To End All Club Games, and man’s avarice bleeds it of its deeper truth; Yay, while the weak-of-faith “When Saturday Comers” kick its martyred body with cruel curses and epithets such as “cartel”, “monopoly”, “predictable” and “Did Ferguson make Owen Hargreaves and Michael Owen take fucking Monotone Voice lessons from Paul Scholes as soon as they arrived at Old Trafford??!!”, we will fight the good trivia fight …

The only drinking game we need play is to swallow one generous plastic cup-full, minimum, of the lovely cool fruit drink in the communal punch bowls when UEFA Announce that the Champions League is merging with the Europa League and all European Cup/Champions League finals will now go the way of the Mitropa, Latin and Dr Gero Cups: Into the beardy hands of Hipsters.

We need no pleasures of the flesh to enjoy the match day created by the archangel Gabriel Hanot, anointed by brother Alfredo of Stefano and deified by the fat, golden Magyar. The bald stats will be topped up by the end of tonight’s game for another year. So let us enjoy the harvest of another year’s study of the truth and the light. Let us not be swayed by the sponsors nor the naysayers. Let us not be blinded by bland statistics. As the feast day nears, let us glory in a season of coruscating insight into the sacred heart of blessed, holy, truly sanctified European Cup Trivia: HEAR THE WORD OF OUR THREAD!

Big thanks to brother ursus for starting this charitable foundation and thanks all for ministering to my quizzes – even contributing some of your own. But it was never about being right or wrong was it. It was about the shared passion. The quizzes were, if you will, my packet of Worthers Originals – like any good clergyman, all I wanted to do was lure you in for a chat, a heart-to-heart and the cementing of “a special bond”.

Enjoy the final match of the 63rd edition of the best competition in club football, troops.

[elguapo4]

Can someone tell me if I'm right that Liverpool are the only multiple finalists who have never had to wear their change colours in a final

[Alex Anderson]

Forest wore home kit in both their finals, elguapo4. Stade de Reims in their two also. Erm ...

[Alex Anderson]

... Atletico in all three of theirs ... but we might need denishurley for a VAR decision on their sock change between the first game and replay in 1974.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Least time between coming on a sub and scoring a goal?*

*In a EC/CL final in case it needs said - Sheringham for England against Greece would take some beating in generic 'big match' trivia question.

[Alex Anderson]

Bale the third Brit to score in two finals, first to score against another British team in the final (Keegan and Cunninghame had their chances) and, as per 2014, his goal makes it 2-1 to Real, and as per Zidane's strike in the 2002 final - which he has just surpassed as best strike ever in a final - he took it first time from a Brazilian full-back's cross.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Cunningham Alex. Cunninghame is the district council area in which you grew up (before it was swept away in the horror of 1996). Stay focused man, it's your big night. Now get back in there and don't let your guard drop.

[Alex Anderson]

Every reply I try to make, Walt just has me thinking about yer poor mate. Almost as gutted for TRLB as for Karius. Bloody hell. Bursting with the power of the stat here but just feels inappropriate.

Or, in my case, inappropriat.

Great council knowledge, tho! Symbolic of the final being ripped gradually away from cooncil telly.

[Satchmo Distel]

Firsts tonight: first sub to score twice in the final; first one decided by two goalkeeping errors I assume.

General question - in addition to White City, how many European stadia have hosted a WC final match but never a EC match?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Every reply I try to make, Walt just has me thinking about yer poor mate. Almost as gutted for TRLB as for Karius. Bloody hell. Bursting with the power of the stat here but just feels inappropriate.

Or, in my case, inappropriat.

Great council knowledge, tho! Symbolic of the final being ripped gradually away from cooncil telly.

Started my career in a district cooncil Alex, just over two years before it was subsumed into a regional. I was running in Kirkcudbright today and the public buildings still have the signage up from the 1996 rebranding. First in Scotland dontcha know*. Saying that, in 1994 at the district council they were still answering the phone with 'Toon Hall?', and the town councils themselves had been swept away twenty years previously. All of these shenanigans did mean that at one point I shared an employer with Sergei Baltacha, but that's a tale for another time. It's EC/CL final night, ffs.

*Unless entering up the eastern passage, that is.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Firsts tonight: first sub to score twice in the final; first one decided by two goalkeeping errors I assume.

General question - in addition to White City, how many European stadia have hosted a WC final match but never a EC match?

Ayresome Park, Hillsborough and Roker Park for a start (edit - if you meant as in the finals tournament as a whole).

[ursus arctos]

When was the World Cup Final at White City?

In any event, I think the answer is the PNF (National Fascist Party) Stadium in Rome, which hosted the 38 Final but was demolished before the European Cup started.

[Satchmo Distel]

Sorry, typo: should be 'finals match'.

It looks like the answer is loads, in that the 1934, 38 and 54 tournaments will have a few and some stadia are used by clubs who have never got near the EC (not just the 1966 ones but also the Spain 82 ones, for example)

[Alex Anderson]

All of these shenanigans did mean that at one point I shared an employer with Sergei Baltacha, but that's a tale for another time. It's EC/CL final night, ffs.

But, talking of Eastern passages, he did start at Dynamo Kyiv - scene of ...

(one of two CWC winners with daughters who played pro tennis)

[Alex Anderson]

When was the World Cup Final at White City?

In any event, I think the answer is the PNF (National Fascist Party) Stadium in Rome, which hosted the 38 Final but was demolished before the European Cup started.

34 final.

38 was Du Manoir, Colombes.

[Third rate Leszno]

Sake. What a fucking mess. More coherent thoughts later.

Chose to watch the match in Big Jurgen’s local though, which has to be worth a trivia point or two - when was the last time you watched a ECC/CL final from possibly the same seat* as the manager of one of the competing teams watched last season’s edition?


* I’m guessing - there’s about 150 seats in the Freshfield that the big man could’ve been sat in, if indeed he watched the final from the pub at all.

[ursus arctos]

Merci bien, Alex.

Do you know which match holds the attendance record for football at Colombes?

It didn't involve a French team, and occurred in your favourite competition.

[Alex Anderson]

Well you've just owned the trivia thread anyway, TRLB. That's a doozie.

I was feeling guilty about finally seeing Benzema score in this one so that, ten years after declaring him the best young prospect I'd ever seen live, I could add him to my list of final scorers I'd seen scoring in the flesh. But generally genuinely worried for Karius. Poor bastard - kinda ruined the final for me, my concern for the fellah's mental health.

[Alex Anderson]

Merci bien, Alex.

Do you know which match holds the attendance record for football at Colombes?

It didn't involve a French team, and occurred in your favourite competition.

Yeah - I knew that would piss you off.

[SORRY! I'm so sorry! I can't help myself, mate. It doesn't even suit me, that kinda patter. I just need to do it once back to you before I go. Take it as a compliment - like Mane kicking Ramos ... ]

[Third rate Leszno]

After the second Karius brainfart I must admit that the first thought that went through my head was ‘Fuck, I hope we don’t have another Robert Enke here’. Horrible, just horrible.

Was Bale’s first goal really all that? I’d missed it going for a piss and through my Red tinted beer goggles I wrote it off as a wild flail - it felt like he had no idea where it might end up, and it didn’t look a crisp, perfectly directed hit like CR7s earlier in the tournament.

On the plus side, our misfortune earlier in the week meant that we only had 2 stops on the train and a 15” walk to get home, rather than many hours hanging about a park and an airport terminal with thousands of grumpy fellow travelers.

[Alex Anderson]

Put it this way, mate - all three Real goals had me genuinely stunned. Open-mouthed. My fav ever in the final was also against Liverpool but in happier circumstances - the whole move and Crespo's finish for 3-0 in Istanbul - but I'm generally biased towards slick, counter-attacking team moves which end with a subtle finish. But that first tonight from Bale was easily the best open play strike the final's ever seen. Puts Zizou's in the shade for me. Even better than Mueller's two in the 74 replay. Sorry.

Fantastic alertness from Benzema - especially from a guy who has a deceptively lazy demeanour about him ever since he's been at Real - but Mané's was Gerd Mueller-type reactions. World class instinct and pouncing.

No consolation whatsoever, I know - especially right now - but at least you've seen your team in the final, TRLB. Multiple finals. Some of us are so desperate to feel that involved we end up memorising all the factoids we can about those who have been, and then spend a whole season using wee quizzes to coax others into giving us more info and chat about the competition.

And I've fucking loved it. Would have been perfect if you could have had a better result tonight sir.