European Cup Trivia

[Alex Anderson]

Good shouts, Rogin.

What happened during the respective finals themselves certainly boosts the overall shock factor in Liverpool 2005 (I think they were trailing at half-time ...?) and Villa 82 (Jimmy Rimmer - Nigel Spink). The opposition in both cases were certainly regarded as mighty - perhaps even mightier - but English champions are rarely total outsiders pre-match. Like Forest winning their first two goes at the competition, the fact they've overcome the 77 and 78 European champions domestically (and, in their case, in the competition itself) certainly sends out a warning.

Ajax had reached the 69 final but when their biggest domestic rivals played Celtic - champions three years earlier - no-one had any idea what the Dutch were about to unleash on us. Jock Stein famously underestimated Feyenoord - telling his players they had only one guy to beware of. That guy was Wim van Hanegem, who Stein billed as a "slow Jim Baxter". But Stein getting it wrong for once is among the reasons Celtic lost rather than any objective judgement on the shock factor of that 1970 final.

You must be right on the biggest shock of all though, Rogin. Surely it's Steaua in 86. Barca hadn't won the tournament before, admittedly, but they had played in the final and they had won the Cup Winners Cup in 79 and 82 and had a history of European finals ... and came from a domestic league full of sides with big European records ... and their entire raison d'être then, even more than now, was to finally win that European cup which Real had been shoving down their throats for decades.

And Steaua were the first Romanian side ever to reach any of the three main European club finals (they remain the only such side). And the final was in Spain. And Barca had Stevie Archibald.

Hindsight, of course, obscures. We can't make truly sound judgements about how the world felt before a final when we all know what happened during it, but I think 1994 has to be in with a shout.



It was, when you consider how defensively they'd played all season, enough of a "turn up" that Milan won any Champions League final without Baresi and Costacurta - the central defensive lynchpins who'd allowed them to win the 93-94 Serie A by scoring a total of two goals (okay - maybe it was three goals). It was even more "stunningly impressive" to do so against Cruyff's "Dream Team" Barca with Stoichkov and Romario up front.

But to pump them 4-0 and allow them something like three touches of the ball all game (okay - maybe it was four touches) ... no-one saw that coming. No-one.

It's only the retrospective knowledge of how comprehensively they destroyed Barca that night which stops us properly assessing how unlikely any Milan victory, far less that kind of victory, seemed as that game kicked off.

For me it's still the most beautifully dominant performance by any side in the final (Real 1960 conceded three times, for fucks sake!), and it's so dominant it has allowed after-the-fact smart arses to pretend we were all stupid not to see it coming. "Yeah but Boban, Desailly, Maldini, Savicevic, Donadoni - World Class". Yeah but no-one knew just HOW great these players were until that game. You didn't see it coming. No-one did.

Filipo Galli hadn't played first team football all season. Panucci was 12 years old (okay - maybe he was 14) and playing on the wrong side. Maldini was at centre-half instead of full back. ROMARIO AND STOICHKOV ... KOEMAN ... Pep Guardiola ... Barca had won it two years earlier too. Incredible shock. The true depth of that Milan squad - those Milan stars - wasn't revealed until that night. A gorgeous shock. A glorious shock. My favourite shock.

I'd say it's arguably the biggest shock in an ECCC/UCL final.

[seand]

I dunno. Celtic's 1967 win has to be right up there for shocks. Celtic didn't even qualify for Europe until 1962, and had never played in the European Cup. (Okay they'd lost two Cup Winners Cup semis.) No Scottish club had made the final, or realistically come close. To make the final was not trivial of course, but Zurich, Nantes, Vojvodina and Dukla was as pleasant a route to the final as you could realistically hope for. Inter were unquestionably the best team in Europe at the time, 3 Serie A and 2 European Cup titles in the previous 4 years. They beat Real home and away in the quarters. And the final played in southern Europe.

[Alex Anderson]

Missing Luis Suarez, their lynchpin, and run into the ground by Herrera - that Inter team were in the middle of physical collapse and on the verge of a nervous one.

The real shock was that Inter made the final at all or that Celtic took so long to overcome them, and did so narrowly. But no-one knew that at the time so - yeah - there's absolutely a shock factor involved. But to put it in even the top ten, far less top five shock final results, would do a huge disservice to Celtic and Scottish football.

Celtic 66-67 are the only team ever to reach the final by playing teams who had never before or after reached ANY European final. It would have been more of a shock if they hadn't reached that final. The shock from a Scottish POV is that this remains our only win in the big one, even just in the 1960s:

Rangers, Hibs and Dundee had all made the ECCC semis in the previous 11 years to Celtic winning it; Rangers had already reached the first CWC final - were in another the week after Celtic were in Lisbon - and Kilmarnock were in the Fairs Cup semis the same season. Dundee reached the Fairs Cup semi the following season, Rangers the season after that - and 68-69 was the same season Dunfermline reached the CWC semis.

Hibs reached the Fairs semis in 1961, only losing out to Roma after a play-off in Rome - and the Hibees beat Barcelona to get there. They were the first team ever to eliminate Barca from the Fairs Cup. Barcelona were also the fairs Cup holders in 1966-67, when Dundee United beat them home and away to put them out.

It was a hell of an achievement, Celtic winning the European Cup and they absolutely weren't the favourites at Kick-off. But it was weeks after the Scotland national team had beaten the World Champions on their own patch and within an atmosphere of general expectation in Scottish football. Presumption, if you will.

Celtic 67 is the opposite of Milan 94 - the passage of time has allowed us to see exactly how expected it should have been. As has the number of Scots involved in subsequent tournament-winning teams.

[Satchmo Distel]

Was Celtic's 1970 side better than the 1967 one given they beat Leeds, whose goal difference in the three preceding rounds was 24-0? Celtic 70 also beat the 1968 RU Benfica, albeit on a coin toss

http://www.thecelticwiki.com/m/page/...C+European+Cup

Milan's absolute peak IMHO was 1992-1993 up to Van Basten's injury. I think they would have won been the best side of 1991-92 if they'd been eligible, meaning they were Europe's top side across three years in which they were only crowned once. OTOH they were financially doping.

[Sporting]

I wonder if Madrid were heavy favourites before the first ever final. But who would have known much about Reims? Though to be honest, who knew much more about Madrid? Three years later the two teams met again and presumably the Spaniards would have been even heavier favourites, Anyhow, I'm putting these two match-ups (with some residual doubts about the 56 final), along with Ajax-Panathinaikos in 92, Liverpool-Bruges in 78 and the two finals Valencia lost as the finals in which normal service was most obviously observed in terms of the expected winner. But, of course, feel free to dissent.

[ursus arctos]

Would British bookmakers have even opened a book on the first Final? I don't know enough about their history to hazard a guess, though it strikes me as far from obvious.

As far as Spain goes, the quinella didn't become legal until the 70s and betting on football was illegal in France until later than that.

[Sporting]

As far as Spain goes, the quinella didn't become legal until the 70s

I'm pretty sure you're mistaken in this. There's nothing about its illegality on the Spanish wiki page dedicated to the game and I've certainly never heard anything different,

Quiniela, by the way, unless it was a typo.

[ursus arctos]

Autocorrect, sos

My wording was imprecise. My understanding is that the current government-sanctioned version was introduced in the 70s. Do you know anything about the history of betting on individual matches in Spain? Several European countries banned it to protect state monopolies on betting on horse races.

[Sporting]

Would British bookmakers have even opened a book on the first Final? I don't know enough about their history to hazard a guess, though it strikes me as far from obvious.

Football Pools have existed in Britain since 1923, "but back before fixed-odds betting became so popular the pools was pretty much the only choice you had if you wanted to place some sort of wager on a football match - and plenty of people wanted to do just that."

"The Betting and Gaming Act of 1960 was the first moment that additional forms of gambling were legalised across the United Kingdom. It was the result of the Royal Commission on Betting, Lotteries and Gaming, which ran from 1949 until 1951. It allowed the opening of betting shops on public street from the first of May 1960 and within months tens of thousands of such shops sprang up around the country. They weren’t particularly fun or pleasant places to attend, with the venues filled with smoke and the smell of liquor as men, it was virtually all men, cheered on their horses or placed other bets on various sports."

Full article here:

https://www.onlinebetting.org.uk/bet...-football.html

[Sporting]

My wording was imprecise. My understanding is that the current government-sanctioned version was introduced in the 70s. Do you know anything about the history of betting on individual matches in Spain? Several European countries banned it to protect state monopolies on betting on horse races.

I think that in Spain betting on individual matches has only become popular in the digital age, with companies such as Bet 365 leading the way.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I wonder if Madrid were heavy favourites before the first ever final. But who would have known much about Reims? Though to be honest, who knew much more about Madrid? Three years later the two teams met again and presumably the Spaniards would have been even heavier favourites, Anyhow, I'm putting these two match-ups (with some residual doubts about the 56 final), along with Ajax-Panathinaikos in 92, Liverpool-Bruges in 78 and the two finals Valencia lost as the finals in which normal service was most obviously observed in terms of the expected winner. But, of course, feel free to dissent.

I doubt more than 40 per cent of Malmo fans thought they would beat Nottingham Forest in 1979. Although the Swedes are notoriously pessimistic.

[Sporting]

Betting on individual games was common in Britain back in 1964, as this scandal proves:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_B...etting_scandal

[ursus arctos]

Or 1915, for that matter.

It was the relative exoticism of Madrid - Reims that raises doubt for me.

[Satchmo Distel]

Milan 1993-1994 had no wins in their last six Serie A matches; three draws, three defeats.

[Sporting]

^{A bit more to add to the 1957 final penalty controversy.}

Controversy surrounded Real Madrid's first goal after Dutch referee Leo Horn ignored his linesman signalling that Enrique Mateos was offside before awarding a penalty for a foul on Mateos that appeared to have been committed outside the penalty area.

The film of the match doesn't have the build-up (or very little of it):

However, there is an interview with the referee, Leo Horn, in La Vanguardia, the day after the final:


Antes de llegar al vestuario del Florentina, charlamos con el árbitro, M. Leo Horn. Antes de hacerle ninguna pregunta expresó que señaló el penalty, porque estaba siguiendo el juego y no vio el banderín que levantaba el juez de línea. Que ante las protestas de los jugadores italianos, consultó con el citado juez de línea, quien le manifestó que, efectivamente había levantado el banderín, pero que reconocía que el balón que había recibido Mateos venía rebotado del defensa izquierdo Cervatto. «Entonces — siguió diciendo M. Leo Horn — no tuve ya inconveniente alguno en señalarlo.

Para mí, el mejor jugador del mundo, es el extremo Gento. Lo vi jugar las dos veces contra el Manchester United y esta tarde y no he visto en mi vida jugador igual.

Quick and rough translation:

Before getting to the Fiorentina dressing room we spoke to the referee, Leo Horn. Before we had asked him any questions he said that he had given the penalty because he was following play and didn’t see the linesman raise his flag. Due to the Italian players’ protests he consulted with the linesman who informed that he had raised his flag but realised that Mateos had received the ball from a rebound from the left side defender Cervatto. Therefore, Leo Horn continued, he had no trouble in awarding it [the penalty].

For me the best player in the world is the winger Gento. I saw him play twice against Manchester United and I have never seen a player like him.

I love it that the ref was interviewed immediately after the match.

[denishurley]

Can’t be too many to have matched Fernando Llorente’s achievement tonight, playing consecutive CL games (i.e. without a period of years in between) against the same opposition for different teams?

[EIM]

Can’t be too many to have matched Fernando Llorente’s achievement tonight, playing consecutive CL games against the same opposition?

Presumably you mean for different teams?

[denishurley]

Yes EIM, I did, thanks

[tee rex]

Both finalists out in the last 16. First time since 2006/7, apparently.

In the era of simple knockout rounds, how often did that happen, if ever? Of course the losing finalists weren't necessarily in the following year's competition, with no group stage or multiple entrants from one country.

1978/79: Liverpool and Bruges both out in the round of 32.

[Satchmo Distel]

It seems the losing finalist very rarely won its league. Exception: In 1970-71, Feyenoord and Celtic were both out before the semis.

[seand]

Which is the only (I think) club to make their European debut in the group stage of the Champions League?

[Satchmo Distel]

Dunno. It's not Atalanta because they had competed in the CWC.

On the subject of Atlanta, though, I was wondering how many other clubs in addition to them have competed in the EC/ECL group stages but never in the Fairs/UEFA/Europa competitions for also-rans.

[ad hoc]

My first guess was Leicester but it turns out that their EC run was not their first foray into Europe.

Then I thought CFR Cluj but they were in the intertoto once

[elguapo4]

Blackburn?

[Foot of Astaire's]

RB Leipzig?