European Cup Trivia

[Alex Anderson]

Fuck it. As no-one else is watching, and coz it's been a bit Rossoneri-centric so far today, have some more of the only team to win the European Cup/Champions League in an away kit on their home ground (with AS Roma the only one to lose...):



... even though I preferred how they looked (and how they played) the previous year:





... and while Il Mago's Grande Inter looked as great in black and white as they did in black and blue ...



... ye cannae whack the previous year's champs from Milan in all-white ...



Real, Ajax and Bayern all won it three-in-a-row ... but so did the city of Milan.

And, remember, Milan's "lucky" strip only became so because Benfica's had just been cursed.

I love the all-white but there's also plenty black magic afoot in the European Cup.

Jose Altafini, (middle of front row) scorer of Milan's two goals at Wembley in 63, was nicknamed "Mazzola" in his native Brazil, after Valentino Mazzola, father of Sandro Mazzola of Inter who scored in the 64 final and won it with Inter again in 65 and scored a penalty in the final against Celtic in 67 but lost - in Lisbon's Estadio Nacional, the ground on which Valentino had played his last game before he and his Torino team-mates were killed, in the Superga Air crash, on their return journey.

Nah. That's not black magic. That's just horrible coincidence and life being shit.

[Satchmo Distel]

I agree that Milan 1994 is the best performance I have seen in a final, but for the competition as a whole, maybe their 19/04/1989 SF demolition of Real just wins out. Internationally I dunno, maybe Italy 3 Brazil 2 in 1982 or Spain beating Italy in Euro 2012.

[ursus arctos]

I seem to recall Sacchi describing that match as the pinnacle of his career.

[Alex Anderson]

I agree that Milan 1994 is the best performance I have seen in a final, but for the competition as a whole, maybe their 19/04/1989 SF demolition of Real just wins out. Internationally I dunno, maybe Italy 3 Brazil 2 in 1982 or Spain beating Italy in Euro 2012.

I seem to recall Sacchi describing that match as the pinnacle of his career.

Aye, see I'm being totally subjective in my objectivity.

(1) Obviously I've seen a whole lot of Rangers games in the European Cup/Champions League which I've enjoyed more than I'll ever enjoy a game in which I'm a largely neutral observer, irrespective of the quality. I was at both legs of the last 16 tie v Villarreal - probably the most personally intensely exciting football watching experience of my life. And the moment Pieter Huistra skipped down the wing and inside left channel at the Velodrome in 1993, when one more Rangers goal would put us in the final, will probably remain the most singularly intense football moment of my life - and I watched it live from an armchair in my parents and it barely even qualifies for the right to be a highlight in a highlights package far less anything anyone non-Rangers would ever remember.

(2) And I think the 2005 final is probably the best final I've ever seen in the ECCC/UCL (and Milan's first-half display in Istanbul is the final footage I've watched second-most after 1994) ...



(3) And by "seen" I mean watching the entire game live. Not necessarily in the stadium - in fact, usually not when it comes to the final. So the Milan semi second leg v Real in 89 may well be better but I've never seen the entire 90 minutes of that game - only saw Sportsnight highlights which is probably more than I would ever have seen if the Heysel ban on English clubs wasn't still in place - and even if I could find it now on YouTube the passage of time might have eroded it in a way me watching the whole of the 1994 final live at my girlfriend's means it won't age anytime soon. (and what about Van Basten's goal in the first leg of that semi in 89?! - geometrically miraculous)



(4) I'm talking most dominant performance - best win. And, of course, I mean most dominant performance of a game against top quality opposition; domination of a game which wasn't supposed to be easy in any way. The 1994 Champions Leeague final was never the most classically exciting game, ala Italy v Brazil at the Sarria in 82 (which I also watched live and still hate - I was in love with that Brazil team) or that 2005 final in Istanbul, or even the two seriously intense all-Madrid finals... but I'm focussing here on just the sheer brilliance of the display by one side. Barcelona in 2011 v Man U came close. But not really. It's Milan 94 for me.



I've watched the BBC video of the Real v Eintracht final and it is glorious. But it's just too much before my time. It's the football equivalent of Bogey and Bergmann in Cassablanca - you can't fail to love the artistry but so much of it seems hackneyed now. You needed to be there (at Hampden or the local flicks) or watch it live on't telly for it to have really got under your skin.

Germany's semi-final destruction of Brazil at the last World Cup was even more earth-shattering than what Milan did to Barca - and was much more of a cataclysm for the losing side's institutional idea of itself. But Brazil had as many disadvantages going into that game as Milan did going into the 94 final and, as I said above, it's the whole context - as well as the relentlessly, ruthlessly, mesmeric and artistic footballing assault of Boban, Donadoni, Massaro, Desailly, Savicevic and co - which gives that Milan battering of Barca the decisive extra lustre for me.

Worth bearing in mind, finals at that time were largely shite. What Milan did to Barca in Athens had two or three "out of the blue" factors going for it. As well as those I've already mentioned, the final poetic brilliance was them winning that season's Serie A by scoring barely more than one goal per game before losing their central defensive pillars for a European final against a team with Romario and Stoichkov up front and the living embodiment of Total Football in the technical area ... and then playing them off the fucking park. Lots of clubs have assembled great teams. But this showed a depth and an adaptability of epic proportions. This was the Milan apotheosis - this was their 7-3 v Eintracht at Hampden.



When Savicevic makes it 3-0, Barca know the game is up and start trying to kick the shit out Milan. This is partly why the Newspeak, post-Tiki-taka appointing of Barca as purer-than-pure martyred purists is such a hysterically malevolent insult to our intelligence it makes you less able to enjoy their Messi-inspired genius. Barca sides from at least the 70s, up to Guardiola becoming manager, were as physically vicious as they were skilful. Koeman liked giving an elbow to the face and in 94 he is on the pitch, with Guardiola - key components of the side which kops four bookings from shitbag ref Philip Don immediately after they go 3-0 down.

But instead of kicking back, instead of retaliating with fouls, Milan up the football a gear. Their play immediately preceding and during Desailly making it 4-0 in the 58th minute isn't so much creatively beautiful as monstrously driven and wholly unstoppable. They're everywhere and they're rabid. They will go through walls for that ball and when they get it you will have to kill them to get it off them. It's so collectively focussed it's more frightening than any elbow to the mandible or boot to the scrotum. It's the apex - not of a football lesson but a sporting slaughter.



The last Barca booking is in the 58th minute. They've realised all they can do is make things worse. Koeman, Guardiola, Stoichkov, Romario, Bakero ... they have to give in, for their own good. They need to keep playing the football which will always be inferior to this opponent's, lest they concede double figures. If they kick these guys they'll just score more on them.

Never seen anything like it.

[Alex Anderson]

Today's Champions League Groups:

A,D and G include repeats of previous European Cup/Champions League finals.

Only B and F consist entirely of teams to have previously reached at least one European final (all eight teams in those two groups have actually won a UEFA title - and each group can boast winners of all three competitions).

[Wouter D]

Thanks to yesterday's abysmal performance, this season will be the first in which Ajax does not manage to qualify* for a European tournament since 1965-66.

*careful formulation to encompass the suspension in 1990-91.

[Alex Anderson]

went through same thing in 2008, Wouter D - Rangers losing the UEFA Cup final then being knocked out the following season's qualifiers by Kaunas of Lithuania. My thoughts then (other than "fuck, fuck, fuck - shite") were on Newton's Third Law of motion. We'd excelled ourselves by reaching a final and then, like a big overstretched elastic band, had come pinging back to smack ourselves in the eye. In future years all you'll remember is the final.

And then you'll get liquidated and pumped out of Europe by teams from Luxembourg and ... and ... and I'm getting carried away now, aren't I.

Sorry.

[Alex Anderson]

NAME THOSE TEAMS (Friday quiz):

SEVEN clubs have won the European Cup/Champions League without ever winning any of the other two main European club competitions.

THREE of that seven have won the European Cup/Champions League without ever reaching the final of any of the other two main European club competitions.

[Lang Spoon]

All I got is Celtic

[ursus arctos]

Celtic, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Steaua Bucuresti, Crvena zvezda, Olympique Marseille and one that is evaded me at the moment.

[G-Man]

Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa for both categories. And possibly Steaua Bucharest.

[ad hoc]

Celtic, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Steaua Bucuresti, Crvena zvezda, Olympique Marseille and one that is evaded me at the moment.

Benfica

[ursus arctos]

Curious that, isn't it?

[ad hoc]

Very. It's that Bela Guttman's fault

[Alex Anderson]

All I got is Celtic

You sound like Scottish football.

[Alex Anderson]

Very. It's that Bela Guttman's fault

Bloody fascinating. Chicago Cubs finally beat the curse of the Goat man but will Benfica ever beat the curse of the Gutt...

Yeah - sorry. I've tried that before. No takers then either. Talking of which:

And, remember, Milan's "lucky" strip only became so because Benfica's had just been cursed.

When they lost two straight Europa League finals to two different teams in two different countries, that really was confirmation.

My maternal grandmother went by Bella. She hated her name, did old Isabella. She bought me, at age eight, the Rangers scarf I still have today. The one I took to Villarreal, Porto, Bratislava, the Nou Camp ... the one I've worn to most Champions League matches I've ever been to ...

... WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE!

[Alex Anderson]

Congrats on first question, ursus, ad hoc. Great poaching there, ad hoc after some serious midfield graft from the bear.

Congrats on second question, G-Man. Spot-on.

[Alex Anderson]

Winners who "only" played the European Cup final:

Steaua Bucharest: winning the big one in 86, runners-up in 89.

Nottingham Forest: two straight European Cups in 79 and 80 and never another final before or since (SUPER CUP DOESN'T COUNT! NEVER HAS, NEVER WILL!)

Aston Villa: just that one piddling, miserable stingy European Cup win in 1982. Don't know why they bothered, really...

Honourable mentions to Stade de Reims (x2), Partizan Beograd, Panathinaikos, St Etienne, Malmo FF and Sampdoria, all of whose only appearance in any European final was losing the big one.

Winners who never won any other final:

Benfica: Yup. Won their first two European Cup finals in 61 and 82 but the Guttman curse started instantly:

Lost the final in 63, 65, 68 - Anderlecht done them in the 83 UEFA Cup final and then, before the 2013 and 2014 Europa League final defeats (to Chelsea and Seville, repectively) they lost another two European Cup finals:

1-0 to Milan in Vienna in 1990 was sore enough, but losing the longest penalty shoot-out in any final, to PSV in Stuttgart two years earlier was another of those "Bella is watching us" moments. Bayern have since equalled them and Juventus, with seven, have lost more European Cup/Champions League finals than anyone but those guys are at least spreading the losses around the odd winning finals.

Crvena Zvezda Beograd: 1991 European Cup winners, runners-up to Borussia Moenchengladbach in the 1979 UEFA Cup final.

Olympique de Marseille: First ever Champions League winners (1993, not allowed to defend their title), lost that 1991 European Cup final to Red Star, the 1999 UEFA Cup final to Parma in Moscow and the 2004 UEFA Cup final to Valencia in Gothenburg.

Celtic: Can't remember what year they won it (they should really publicise an achievement like that) - but lost the final after extra time to Feyenoord in 1970, at the San Siro, and then the UEFA Cup final to Porto in 2003 (no idea where that final was played. Again - Celtic PR department! Get the finger out!).

[Satchmo Distel]

There must be a number of one or two time European Cup runners-up who never played in the other tournaments' finals. For example, Stade de Reims (1956, 1959) although they won the Latin Cup (European Cup precursor?) in 1953; Panathanaikos (1971); Malmo (1979). Panathanaikos, Athletico Madrid, Juventus, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Malmo replaced the champions in various Intercontinental Cups of 1971-79 having never previously won the European Cup but had contested a final and all except Panathanaikos and Malmo had won the CWC and/or UEFA.

[Alex Anderson]

Yup. As I was saying in the previous post, Satchmo (it's almost like you have something better to do than read all 15,000 words of a chatrooms-arent-dead-as-long-as-I-keep-breathing post from an angry, sad, old, fat solipsist stuck in his shrinking Glasgow bedsit like a balding ginger godfish expanding to the size of its tank, amid a pile of Nestle sharing-size Milky Bar and £1 multipacks of Golden-Wonder-Are-BACK! Salt 'n' vinegar and cheese 'n' onion wrappers coz the never-ending rain plays havoc with my mobility scooter), honourable mentions to those you've cited as well as Partizan Belgrade (1966), St Etienne (1976) and Sampdoria (1992) - those that confined their Euro final appearances to losing the big one.

And - yeah - I love the fact the mattress-makers have been champions of the world but never of Europe. It's like when I was a kid and couldn't work out how West Germany could win the Euros when Europe was in the world and Argentina were clearly the best in that world (and, of course, coincidentally, that 1974 Atletico squad was full of Argies ... and were taking the place of FC Bayern Muenchen ze bitte... and against Independiente too).

Well, I say "kid" ...

[Satchmo Distel]

There was also the FIFA 50th anniversary event, the Mundialito of 1980, that Uruguay won, which made no sense because in WC terms they had been shit since 1954, excluding a thuggish 1970 SF. Then they stayed shit again until 2010.

And it's just taken me 37 years to realize that Mundialito means Little World Cup.

[Alex Anderson]

I was shit at physics so in my first physics class at secondary, circa 1982, I kept staring at this pic on the wall, obviously taken from a mag, of what was clearly a recent South American footballer on his team's shoulders, lifting what looked like a kinda World Cup in a clearly packed stadium (teacher must have been a footie fan ... or the way the pressure of the trophy pushing down versus the joules of energy required to lift it up multiplied by the spread of weight in the base of the trophy... ).

I knew it wasn't Argentina and it wasn't the actual World Cup but it all looked very, very similar. In fact, the winning captain was Uruguay's goalie so I may well have also been getting the parallels with Dino Zoff at the Bernabeu in 82 by then.

Took me years to figure out what the hell I had been seein but, though I'd known Uruguay won those two World Cups since I had my first World Cup wallchart, in 78, I think that physics class (it was a Friday too - I was always knackered - I would just fall into that picture) may have been the first time I realised there was something about Uruguay that just won't fucking die. And that their strip was majorly cool.

Despite what they did to Scotland a few years later, I fucking love them. Two million less people than Scotland and yet they've won two World Cups - plus a mundialito! - and kicked Argentina and Brazil's ass in Copa Americas for decades. That 1950 World Cup "final" win is the ballsiest football performance ever, rivalled only by what Sylvester Stallone did versus the Nazis.

Uruguay make a major mark - even if it's just a bite-mark - on a World Cup every 20 years. Three million: They're a lesson to the whole of the UK, far less a country of 5 million which also has a laughably duopolised domestic scene and spends all its time talking about football but can never get out a bloody group stage coz it would rather feel sorry for itself than risk international ire by actually trying to win.

Name one decent physicist from Montevideo though ...

[ad hoc]

Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia.

Oh, physicist. You said physicist.

[Alex Anderson]

Anyway, the first guy to score in the final of both the World Cup and the European Cup was Uruguayan...

Yes, I'm counting the Maracanazo as a final. Everyone does, don't they?

[Alex Anderson]

Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia.

Oh, physicist. You said physicist.

Brilliant. Literally. Like I say, never lay down a challenge to Uruguayans ... though I hear he was sent off at the Stockholm ceremony for hair-pulling and spitting...