Innehållsförteckning för Issue 11 från World Soccer Presents

So, at the end of its sixth season, the european cup has left Spain for the first time. Significantly, perhaps, the one occasion that real Madrid were knocked out of the competition, the trophy also went abroad. Barcelona could not have made more strenuous or commendable efforts to retain the european cup for their country, but when the final whistle blew, Benfica of portugal emerged as the “Team of europe” for 1961, luckily or otherwise. probably the finest way to reflect an impression of the game, is to compare it as a whole with the 1960 final which, of course, produced some of the most constructive, entertaining and intelligent football ever played. This time, in Berne, the two sides were more evenly matched. after all, in basic terms, a game…

The European Cup remains in “Latin” hands, though a new name follows that of Real Madrid and Benfica – Milan. That the Italians should win it was, I thought, a little unjust for until the brains of the Portuguese side, left-half Mario Coluna, was badly hurt in the 50th minute, Benfica were never really in trouble and, I felt, likely to retain their trophy. Before the match, it had seemed likely that we would see a hard, tight defensive struggle. Benfica playing in a 4-2-4 formation were the more fluid side, but still obviously unwilling to give anything away, but Milan as expected were being extra cautious. They withdrew Cesare Maldini to lie “free” behind the row of three defenders and played to a strict1-3-3-3 system. In the early stages,…

Internazionale are once more european champions, in my view justly so, but the final tie, the game of the year for me and millions more was a travesty. It could have been a great game, with Luis Suarez, Mario corso and Sandro Mazzola on one side; eusebio, Mario coluna and Jose Torres on the other, but as a spectacle the final was ruined by a combination of events – some of which were unfortunate, but one or two could have been avoided. For Benfica, the odds were stacked high against them, from the moment UEFA decreed that the final should be staged at the San Siro. a totally unjustified decision, unless one agrees that finance is more important than the game itself. one of the better factors about the european…

Sandro Mazzola was granted his wish, to score on the ground where his father played his last match, 18 years and 21 days ago, before Torino’s aircraft crashed into the impassive basilica at Superga. But his meticulous penalty, sent to one corner with ronnie Simpson groping vainly at the other, cut Internazionale’s lifeline as if he had put through his own goal. For Inter, deprived of their master midfield tactician, Luis Suarez, pinned everything on the strength of their defence – an inflexible barrier, lacking even the suspicion of a springboard. Just as a wall defying the pressures of the sea needs constant repair if it is not to leak, so Inter’s strength ebbed to nothing, until the erosion engendered by celtic’s skill brought their stagnant obstacle to ruin. Inter,…

The European Cup final has come and gone once more and it is now clearer than ever that the great showpiece is no longer an event for the purists. Last year in Rotterdam we had Inter producing a drab, lifeless display in the final and this year, when they promised so much more, Juventus went the same way. Ajax, it must be conceded, were worthy winners on both occasions – though they too display their own particular brand of “careful football” – but the responsibility for allowing the final to flop once more rests on the Italians. Writing before the event in last month’s World Soccer, I said that I fancied Juventus to give Ajax their stiffest final yet and perhaps even beat them. In coming to this conclusion I…

The 20th Champions Cup final couldn’t have been a greater disaster if UEFA had sent in official saboteurs. It was supposed to be THE big occasion – not just with all the personalities there, leading politicians, even Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano – but it was meant to carve with pride the fact that the competition had been founded in that same city 20 years before. Yet originally, ironically, Paris had been outsiders for the game. The West Germans wanted it as part of the DFB’s 75th anniversary celebrations. Problems over television and advertising put paid to that. The result was that the Parc des Princes - with its miserable pitch and mere 50,000 capacity - got the game. The way it turned out, Gabriel Hanot must have done…

I can’t remember seeing a team enjoy winning as much as Liverpool’s heroes as they galloped a double lap of honour round Rome’s Stadio Olympico. It said so much about defeats in the past as well as about the grand triumph on the night. And were the celebrations so marked because they had nearly repeated the sins of the previous Saturday and thrown it all away? So, 12 years after Liverpool’s first venture into Europe ended bitterly in defeat at the San Siro, they returned to Italy to claim a crown which proved their reward for persistence. It was a victory too which came just ten years after Celtic made the first British breakthrough in the most prestigious club tournament in Europe. Thus it was appropriate that it should be…

Put aside the glamour of the occasion, the glory of Nottingham Forest’s remarkable victory, the bravery of a Swedish team decimated by injury and you are left with one question. Is the Champions Cup finished? Writing this as I do, with the clamour of the Forest celebrations outside on the pitch still audible, it would be simple to take the easy way out. Easy to say that on the night Forest weren’t at their best because their opponents were so poor – certainly by far the worst team ever to walk up on European soccer’s big night. But I think World Soccer readers have come to expect more than instant hysteria. I’m afraid Forest fans won’t like my viewpoint, but I am sadly left with the impression that the days…

Even the fans behaved themselves on the night Aston Villa and Bayern Munich restored a little of the tarnished glory of the European Cup final. This wasn’t the greatest game in the 26-year sequence, but it was the best since Liverpool’s 3-1 defeat of Borussia Monchengladbach in Rome began the six-season English domination of Europe’s premier club competition. As for Bayern, they are left to kick themselves all the way back to West Germany after failing to take the string of chances which fell their way, particularly during a brilliant 20-minute blitz on the Villa goal at the start of the second half. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Wolfgang Kraus, Bernd Durnberger, Paul Breitner, Dieter Hoeness and Udo Horsmann all had efforts blocked, or saved by the superb work of substitute goalkeeper Nigel…

Sheer ecstasy. A symphony in three movements. Football’s own Ode to Joy. That was Barcelona’s victory over Sampdoria in Wembley’s first Champions Cup final since Liverpool’s defeat of Club Brugge 14 years ago. This, for all those readers and fans who wondered what all the fuss has been about each year before a succession of stultifyingly unimpressive matches, is what the European Cup final is all about. A compelling contest between two fine teams; a scattering of outstanding individuals; ultimately a magnificent strike for the decision. All those readers who were with us in October 1960 will know that this is where World Soccer came in…poised for Barcelona to win the most prestigious trophy in club football. Together we have watched and reported the game’s most outrageous soap opera: wondered…

By the time this issue of World Soccer appears in print, we shall all know whether the name Benfica of portugal or Barcelona of Spain has been added to that of real Madrid in the still very select list of European Cup holders. The time seems appropriate to look back at the previous competitions. The competition as a whole has not been entirely a success, if success is judged purely on the benefit to the game – the material success, the richness of the main prizes to both clubs and players have too often encouraged a “win-at-all-costs” approach that has led to incidents that have besmirched the name of football – but this survey will content itself with facts and figures and leave wider considerations for another time. Certainly, in…

With the Coppa Europa once more installed in the place of honour it has occupied for the past12 months at the Estadio da Luz, Benfica’s only problem is to find a new trainer to replace exiting coach Bela Guttmann. For the losers, Real Madrid, the future looks bleak, and perhaps by the time this appears in print the exodus will have already begun. This really is unlikely though, for Real have Spanish Cup semi-final dates after the World Cup has been settled and only this season’s registered staff are eligible. Even so the deals will have been quietly made, awaiting only the appropriate moment for completion. That they need to prune their staff cannot now be denied, yet strangely enough the man that most people thought would be on the…

The remarkable feat of Milan centre-forward, Jose Altafini, in reaching the top ten places of European Cup goalscorers in only his first season in the competition throws the spotlight on the men whose marksmanship has meant so much to the leading clubs in Europe. Where would Manchester United have been without Dennis Viollet and Tommy Taylor; Red Star Belgrade without Bora Kostic; and Real Madrid without Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas, who have amassed the incredible total of 66 goals in eight seasons? Who, indeed, could have replaced Di Stefano alone, scorer of 44 goals in 48 games? The supremacy of Di Stefano’s marksmanship is unquestionable, and yet it began quietly enough, with five goals in the seven games played by Real Madrid in the first competition of all.…

There can be few more totally satisfying and exhilarating experiences in this world than to witness a personal dream and ambition acquire fulfilment. Matt Busby agrees. The smile on his warm Scottish face after Manchester United had ultimately crushed Benfica and won the European Cup was more revealing of how he felt than any words. Busby, the legendary father figure of Manchester United, had nursed this ambition – almost an obsession – for 11 years. Ever since his club became the first from England to enter the European Cup. Since United had set out on the Champions Cup trail his dream has thrice been shattered when near to realisation; only to be resurrected with renewed hope and inspiration. Busby wanted, more than anything else, to bring the cup to Old…

How sad that a European Cup final which gave Netherlands its second, consecutive winner and Greece its first, astonishing finalist, should peter out in anti-climax. For this, there were two reasons, which might bluntly be summed up by saying that Panathinaikos couldn’t while Ajax ultimately wouldn’t. If the final was saved, it was saved by Johan Cruyff, who affirmed once more both his own transcendent talents, and the prevailing importance of the great individualist. As George Raynor, the little Yorkshireman who managed Sweden for so long, and with such distinction, was wont to say: “There’s no substitute for skill. Ball players create unorthodox situations.” Indeed they do, and poor Panathinaikos never quite knew what Cruyff was going to create. With that marvellous, flowing, serpentine run, those sinuous evasions, those cobra…

It was the right result, West Germany’s first Champions Cup, and a valuable prestige victory on the eve of “their” World Cup. But we needed a replay. And yet, paradoxically, the more significant of the two matches was the remarkable occasion of the original final at the Heysel Stadium, two days earlier. For the re-run both teams were under pressures of fatigue and the morale-sapping effects of the extratime drama. More important still, to my mind, Atletico Madrid’s Javier Irureta was controversially put hors de combat by UEFA’s disciplinary machinery. Either way, what was very clear to all but the most blinkered Briton was that both teams play football on a completely different plane to our homegrown favourites. To an extent environment, weather, pitch conditions, etc. have played their part.…

As one who was present at the Leeds-Bayern match, survived the bottle and other missile throwing, lived and returned in one piece, I feel I can tell the tale. If you saw it on television in inglorious colour with upturned sound let me tell you that it is impossible to imagine the horror unless one is used to crowd violence. The Leeds “fanimals” (truly a cross between fan and animal) went berserk from the moment referee Michel Kitabdjian, wrongly in my opinion, disallowed Peter Lorimer’s “goal” and reached lunatic proportions after Bayern broke away to score their first goal moments later. From the merely docile apple cores and pieces of fruit which had been hurled at the tracksuited guards who stood facing the Leeds fans right from their entry into…

Liverpool may have narrowly missed out on the treble, losing the FA Cup final, but that didn’t stop their jubilant supporters almost literally painting the town red when the Anfield army battered down the defences of Germans Borussia Monchengladbach to commandeer the cherished Champions Cup. You would hardly have known any German supporters turned up, so did the red scarves, hats, banners and flags dominate the eternal city. It all went to prove one thing that though the Beatles and their imitators may be a far-off part of pop music history, the Liverpool sound survives…in the Kop End at Anfield, the most fanatical collection of all. You might hear more gentlemanly, fair-minded applause at a number of other British grounds. But for fervour, wit and (generally) good behaviour all rolled…

The European ban imposed on England’s top clubs after the Heysel Stadium disaster was unprecedented but totally appropriate. Certainly the Belgian authorities were at fault in allowing indiscriminate ticket sales; certainly UEFA were themselves at fault for permitting this; certainly the riot police were at fault for the under-manning of the Liverpool section which allowed trouble to flare between rival fans. But the name of this particular, horrific game, is no longer punishment. As we said in World Soccer after the Celtic-Rapid Vienna affair last year, what matters most is protection. And it is clear that the only secure way to protect European cities, stadia, supporters and private citizens and their property in general, is to keep the English hooligans well away. Those of us who were in the Heysel…

PSV’s win in the Champions Cup final was not much of a victory. They battled hard for it and they deserved the luck of the penalty shootout. But it’s hard to get too excited about a team carrying off a trophy from a competition in which they have not won a game since a 2-0 victory over Rapid Vienna in November last year. Both Bordeaux in the quarter-finals and Real Madrid in the semis were beaten on the away goals rule after close draws. But if the Stuttgart final were all that European football is about then England’s clubs should not worry too much about whether they are a part of it. Of course, European competition is about much more than a flat concoction of Dutch over-anxiety and Portuguese pragmatism.…

L’etat, c’est moi,” said the Sun King, Louis XIV, when he ruled France. The state, it’s me. By the same token, albeit centuries later, in football, Alfredo Di Stefano was surely entitled to say: “Real Madrid, it’s me.” The blond, tireless, deep-chested Argentinian was the inspiration and implacably dominant influence in the astonishing Real Madrid side that won five European Cups in a row – the first five – a record that will hardly be equalled let alone surpassed. Yet to the eternal embarrassment of Barcelona, eternal rivals of Real, standard bearers for Catalonia against the ruling hierarchy of Castile, they could at least have shared the services of Di Stefano. He had arrived in Spain in 1953, in his mid-20s, not from his native Buenos Aires, where he claimed…

Benfica’s record in the early years of the European Cup was extraordinary, surpassed only by Real Madrid, who had half a dozen victories. The Lisbon club appeared in three finals in a row between 1961 and1963 – winning the first two – and were finalists again in 1965 and1968. The key figure in their two successes was surely veteran Hungarian coach Bela Guttmann. How well I remember meeting him for the first time in a trattoria in central Rome one lunchtime in 1955. He had just, bizarrely, been dismissed as manager of Milan, even though they were still leading the championship. He said bitterly that in all future contracts he would insist on a clause: “Not to be dismissed when the club is top of the league.” He also recounted…

The ghosts of Real must be smiling now. One could see them, in the mind’s eye, flitting across the field… Di Stefano, Dominguez, Marquitos, Zarraga and Vidal…as the youths who once idolised those heroes brought back the cup. But for those present, it was tough on the nerves. Miguel Munoz, captain turned coach, sat biting his nails on the Brussels touchline. Jose Santamaria and Ferenc Puskas sprawled in the stands with seething impotence as Real tottered on the brink. They could have lost the cup in the first quarter. Partizan Belgrade, with Milan Galic recalled from the army, moved sweetly and dangerously into attack. The Spaniards looked in dire distress within five minutes, when Pedro de Felipe turned a free-kick wide of his own post with Jose Araquistain nowhere. The…

Milan, renowned for their defensive strategy, switched tactics and crushed ajax 4-1 in a thrilling display of attacking football to win the european cup. Inspired by left-winger pierino prati, who scored three goals, the Italians ripped the Amsterdammers’ defence to shreds with their darting bursts. prati scored both the goals which gave Milan a 2-0 half-time lead and completed the scoring with a cheeky header late in the game. centre-forward angelo Sormani netted Milan’s other goal soon after ajax hopes had briefly risen when centreback Velibor Vasovic netted a penalty. Milan’s victory brought them europe’s most coveted trophy for the second time, adding to their 1963 Wembley triumph. They had the morale-booster of an early goal when a header by prati left ajax keeper Gert Bals stranded in the seventh…

Superior in all departments of the game, Ajax retained the European Cup they won last year with a confidence and maturity that suggest they will be very difficult for anyone to beat next season. But without wishing to detract anything from the superb performance of the Dutchmen, this was not the great game many critics claimed it was. How could it be with Internazionale so clearly bent on defence and destruction? Right from the start Ajax were pushing forward with seven and eight men, which showed not only their determination to play an attacking game but also their confidence in themselves and their ability. Time after time they strung together moves of real quality in approach only to find that when they reached the Italian penalty area there were always…

If ever the value of sheer class was perfectly demonstrated, we saw it as Bayern Munich’s 7∞/Π men held at bay the honest endeavours of Saint-Etienne in the first half at Glasgow’s Hampden Park. That’s the enigma of Bayern. And it’s led to so many people writing them off time and again. In Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Muller and Sepp Maier they have players in a class of their own. Yet alongside these are boys such as Udo Horsmann, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Bernd Durnberger whom you might worry sometimes about playing in the reserves. Add to this the fact that for most of the first half Uli Hoeness was anonymous and you have my basis for talking about the 7∞/Π men. It would be facile to say Dettmar Cramer ought to…

The Champions Cup final is like a drug. In the minutes, hours, and maybe even days immediately after the action you think it’s better than it was. Then, with time and perspective, come the withdrawal symptoms. Trying to fix a perspective right on top of the game is hard. It is doubly tough when the winners have been an English team and criticism is taken as a sign of betrayal of some misunderstood cause. The 1984 Champions Cup final was a poor game, not a patch on 1977, even though the rival teams were potentially the best-matched pair since Liverpool’s first victory in the Stadio Olimpico. One expected too much, perhaps, but was it too much to expect Kenny Dalglish on the one side, and Falcao on the other, to…

In1986, Milan were scandalridden and bankruptcy-bound. Silvio Berlusconi, a lifelong fan of the club that had built his initial millionaire’s empire through a media conglomeration based on regional commercial television channels, decided to step in. His father Luigi did not approve, warning: “The only return on your money will be the bad publicity that comes to every president of that club.” Berlusconi, however, was not so much on an ego trip as a commercial voyage. He was the personification of the aggressive commercialism that swiftly revolutionised European club football and led directly to the creation of the Champions League. Berlusconi went out to win friends through football. So successfully did his business expand – and his ego along with it – that he employed his corporate pre-eminence in Italy as…

Red Star Belgrade took the most prestigious club trophy to Yugoslavia for the first time. For that much they deserve praise. The ultimate emotion, however, from the Stadio San Nicola in Bari was one of regret that the manner of their crowning glory did not match the setting or the atmosphere. The San Nicola is a futuristic stadium; this was not, one hopes, a triumph for futuristic football. At times the chess game plotted by Slav coach Ljupko Petrovic looked a very old one indeed. When Marseille stars such as Chris Waddle and Carlos Mozer reflect on repeated penalty heartbreak (Waddle was a World Cup loser with England in 1990, Mozer a Champions Cup loser with Benfica in 1988) they will feel they were swept to one side, rather than…

By winning the first European Cup in the club’s history in their own classy style, Johan Cruyff’s masterful side of the early 1990s provided the benchmark for future Barcelona teams. It was at England’s national stadium, in May1992, that La Blaugrana lifted the trophy, albeit in their distinctive alternative orange strip. It was their third attempt – having lost in the1961 and1986 finals – beating Sampdoria in extra time with a spectacular Ronald Koeman free-kick and making them the second Spanish side to lift the trophy. Much credit for the triumph was due to Cruyff, who had returned to the club in1988 and was to enjoy more success as a coach with Barcelona than he had done as a player in the1970s. Before his arrival, Barca had won just one…