Originally posted by Satchmo Distel
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Wait ... yup - I've had a think about it - they definitely are.
Feyenoord, Porto, PSV Eindhoven and Red Star Belgrade are, in fact, the only other clubs to win the competition without having actually lost the final before or since (with at least one of those final losses coming not as defending champs*).
And we can all immediately think of at least one match - usually a famous one too - each of these played in the ECCC/UCL in a season other than their competition-winning or title-defending seasons. (we're all struggling to think of a season in which Porto didn't play in the Champions League)
*Ajax's only final loss, in 1996, came as defending champions but, off the top of my head, I remember Celtic beating them in the early 80's, in the middle of their 22-year final hiatus.
Originally posted by tee rex
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Already lost a week on this thread - sometime around September (this year?) - discussing who the next cab off the rank should be in terms of winning the EC/UCL itself (It's Rangers, it's Rangers, it's Rangers for me - but Valencia or Atletico Madrid for anyone not riddled with cancerous sectarian bigotry).
And I've spent the entire morning so far thinking of just Scotland's nomination for this one.
The fact they've hosted it three times might be reward enough for Queen's Park but their lack of a single national league title is drowned out by their colossal contribution to the Scottish, British and international game (Christ, they practically invented international football!) and only the fact they eschewed the professional game - of which the ECCC/UCL is the zenith - is allowing me to be more rational in first considering the Scottish teams who won their only league title/s in the years before the competition was around:
Hibs were the last and sorted that problem out by having their chairman improperly insert them into the first ever edition of the European Cup (see Geoffrey's link, above).
Third Lanark are no longer with us, having been liquidated the year Celtic won the European Cup, winning their only Scottish title in 1904; Motherwell won theirs in 1932 and Dumbarton are the only multiple winner from entirely outwith the era of European competition (well, Hibs too but - yeah - see my last sentence). So, on a technical level, it should be the Sons of the Rock.
That's Dumbarton.
But then I think about their shitty little crowds today - since before the First World War, really - and have a real problem seeing Dumbarton as "first tier", ahead of that cadre of solid, characterful, classic Scottish clubs who've done everything but win the national title: St Mirren, Airdrie, Morton, Falkirk, Dunfermline - from further afar you have East Fife and from too recently you have Inverness and St Johnstone. Scottish Cup-winners is what I'm saying. Clyde! - ahhh - the Bully Wee. Partick Thistle can go fuck themselves - they're too "ironic" to win a Champions League.
Basically, the answer should be Hibs - but Harry Swan already made this wish come true for them. So I have to say Queen's Park for symbolism and most Scottish Cups outwith the Old Firm, Dumbarton for most league titles and St Mirren for most Scottish Cups in the professional era.
But, with St Miren's first Scottish Cup coming in the 1920's, Falkirk and Dunfermline have won as many in the actual era of the European Cup/UCL ... and reached more finals overall.
Yeah - it's the parameters. That's the problem/fun, with these "what if" questions - deciding the criteria.
For Scotland I nominate St Mirren. Just feels right.
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