European Cup Trivia

[seand]

From Romania - FC Vaslui are the only ones - twice went into the third qualifying round and lost immediately

Vaslui.... spectacular rise, spectacular fall... runners-up in 2012, CL and now back in Liga IV

[Satchmo Distel]

Played in a final and coached at a World Cup finals for a different country than supplied the club he represented? Katanec is my starter.

[jwdd27]

Fabio Capello, a loser with Juve in 1973 and with England in 2010.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Udinese, Chievo, Toulouse (great spot.... and now in Division 3), Hoffenheim, RBL, Bayer (5 times league runners up), and Istanbul all fit the bill for never-champions to play in the CL

Are you a Bordeaux supporter by any chance? (and getting carried away with a bit of wishful thinking…).

Toulouse have been in Ligue 1 since 2003, against the odds some might say, the "Téfécé" having experienced their fair share of Sunderland-type brushes with relegation in recent seasons. (Toulouse & the whole south-west is of course a rugby heartland, ergo low average attendances, ~16,000 in last few seasons, in a 33,000 capacity stadium).

Let’s hope for them that they don’t do a Sunderland this term but without their goal machine Wissam Ben Yedder* they may really struggle to stay up, yet again.

(*sold to Sevilla in the close season – already 8 goals in the Champions League, had a second-half blinder vs Liverpool this week, partly thanks to ex-Sevillista Alberto Moreno who had a shocker)

[seand]

Sacre bleu! I've no idea how that Toulouse nonsense got in my head... my hasty research may have been too loose to lose Toulouse

[Alex Anderson]

Played in a final and coached at a World Cup finals for a different country than supplied the club he represented? Katanec is my starter.

Kevin Keegan? ... nope - that was a Euros.

Paul Lambert at Qatar 2022 ...?

Luis Suarez. The original. For his two finals with Inter (64 and 65). And managing Spain at Italia 90.

(although a lot of Barca fans would obviously like to think Spain is a different country - so they'd count his 61 final too)

[ursus arctos]

Cesare Maldini for Milan and Paraguay is another

[seand]

Van Basten Milan and Holland
Deschamps Juve and France

[Alex Anderson]

Jean Vincent. Stade de Reims and Cameroon.

[1974ddr]

Jean Vincent. Stade de Reims and Cameroon.

Ah, sweet Jean Vincent.

[Alex Anderson]

Nice.

Not Nice; nice.

[Satchmo Distel]

There was never anyone as beautiful as him.

[ursus arctos]

They were a good looking bunch in their prime, and everyone looks better with the champions' collar and cuffs

[seand]

They were a good looking bunch in their prime, and everyone looks better with the champions' collar and cuffs

Oooh, was the champions collar a 'thing'?

[ursus arctos]

It wasn't used by every champion club, but was a feature of St. Etienne's 70s kits, as M. Rocheteau can illustrate



and in a more restrained pinstripe version as late as OM 1993

[Alex Anderson]

Quatre couleurs: vert is the sequel Kieślowski would've made if he hadn't died so young. Credit to denishurley, curator of Museum of Jerseys - until he told me about it earlier on this thread I had thought the red, white 'n blue collar 'n cuffs was purely a St Etienne thing.



I saw Marseille twice at Ibrox in 1992-93 and never even twigged. Not so much coz the OM champions collar was subtler but because I'm so European Cup-obsessed and Old Firm-centric it can be blinding: Les Verts home top (at Hampden) in the 1976 final - same as at Anfield in the pivotal 1976-77 quarter-final - is one of the most iconic and beautiful of all time. Although I preferred it with the black shorts worn for the Glasgow final ...



... it's one of those pieces of kit that tell me it's only Celtic green I have an unnatural dislike for (Ooh - Imagine a Rangers fan being swayed by a red, white and blue collar??!! - or preferring green and black to green and white!!! How bloody original. But sadly true). And the previous and subsequent editions of their strip ursus mentions, in their championship-winning days, just burned it into my brain as a feature unique to St Etienne.



When I saw them in recent years without a red, white and blue collar I lamented it as part of the same universal trend towards uniformity of colour and simplification which has been going on since Shankly, Revie - and whoever was in charge of Cologne at the time - changed their home kits to all-red or all-white (inspired by Real Madrid's iconography), carried on through Spain losing (temporarily) their black socks with the red and gold on the fold, and has reached its nadir with whatever the fuck Atletico Madrid and Juventus have done to their crests.

But it wiznae. St Etienne just huvnae won Ligue 1 for aaaaaages!.

Sexy dudes for their day, that 1970s St Etienne team; especially when coming over to Britain: Our teams were more "Slade" in their contemporaneously hirsute glam - St Etienne were pure Led Zep (yeah, yeah - Robert Plant's a Wolves man. But ye know what I mean). Very clingy, very shiny tops on very exotic, very muscular foreign dudes - totally tricolour-tastic:



But it would have meant nothing if their football hadn't been so sexy. You HAVE to check out these highlights of their 1975-76 quarter-final against Cup-Winners' Cup holders Dynamo Kiev, for whom reigning Ballon d'Or Oleg Blokhin is at his mesmeric best.

If you're short of time, flick straight to the 9 minute mark on the YouTube clip, which is the 65th minute of the second leg, 0-0 on the night, with ASSE still 2-0 down on aggregate. Les Verts have a corner, Blokhin goes on an incredible one-man counter attack and the commentator is growling "Oh, attention! Attention!" just waiting for him to pull the trigger and finish the tie ... cue a literal "Ooh la la!" and a counter-counter attack from Les Verts who score and ... well, the rest is history.

But the stadium, the football, the ad hoardings, the flash bulbs, smoke, fog and the haunting, echoing, downright goosebumpy "Allez Les Verts! Allez Lest Verts!" sounding through the night ... ach, the whole thing is so gorgeously, excitingly chic (Yes, I said chic. My patter about all things French is as original as my blue = good, green = bad appreciation of colour). And right, dead at the centre of it is one of the greatest strips in the history of the European Champion Clubs Cup/UEFA Champions League.



Still expect to see it on the cover of a Smiths single.

[Geoffrey de ste Croix]

Still expect to see it on the cover of a Smiths single.

If I'm not mistaken, Osvaldo Piazza appears on the inside cover of St Etienne's Foxbase Alpha walking up the players tunnel wearing the greatest European club shirt of all time.

[Alex Anderson]

Yeah? Suppose that makes sense. But not much else.

Like I was saying. Stuff that matches too well just creates bland.


EDIT: Sorry - that reads as a bit snotty. Never been a fan of the group but never really gave them a chance so - ye know - I should shut up.

[ursus arctos]

Unfortunately, the commemorative Subbuteo figure inexplicably failed to reproduce the key element of Piazza's kit

[Kevin S]

Savecevic and Platini both failed to get their nations to qualify for the World Cup after featuring in a final for a club from another country, though in the former's defence he took the job on halfway through the campaign.

[Kevin S]

Thierry Henry's cheating prevents the inclusion of Giovanni Trapattoni.

[Alex Anderson]

And Martin O'Neill's incompetence prevents the inclusion of Martin O'Neill.

And Di Stefano's bullying prevents the inclusion of Didi.

[Alex Anderson]

Unfortunately, the commemorative Subbuteo figure inexplicably failed to reproduce the key element of Piazza's kit

Jeezus. I take back my last edit - I wasn't snotty enough. What a pretentious pile of wank. Typical of that kind of Belle and Sebastian, patronising "I love football when I'm with music people but I love music when I'm with football people" crap I've had flung at me in more pub and function introductions than I care to recall over the last 20-odd years. Self-consciously twee, rampantly passive aggressive and as you say, ursus - as always with these punters - just plain wrong.

It's like they only saw the cover of My Perfect Cousin - and assumed it was a fucking Stoke City strip - never listened to the lyrics or they might have seen into the mirror.

It reeks of "Pele t-shirt in the beer garden".

[Satchmo Distel]

Deschamps will coach France in Russia having won the CL with Juventus.

[Alex Anderson]

Doh! Damn! Nice one Satchmo - right under our noses too.