On this day in football
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Dartfrog
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Re: On this day in football
The real disappointment here is whatever happened to the Daily Sketch?
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Knots & crosses
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On this day in football
THE FA Cup. The oldest cup competition in the world. As English as warm beer, cricket and celebrity-based tittle-tattle magazines.
Today in 1997 the Cup was won by a foreign manager for the first time ever (which we found a tad surprising given the oft-peddled assertion that all players, managers and owners have been from abroad ever since Rupert Murdoch began running the game in 1992).
The victorious man in question was Rudd Gullit who was then the gaffer at Chelsea. In those heady pre-Abramovich days the Stamford Bridge regulars were not quite as spoilt as they are now and Chelsea were looking for their first FA Cup win since 1970.
Their opponents were those heroic failures Middlesbrough who, under the able stewardship of Bryan Robson had not only managed to get relegated, but had also already lost the League Cup final.
The portents were not good for Robson’s band of merry men and they didn’t get any better when the match started.
It was took just 42 seconds for the ‘Boro defence to be breached when Juninho gave away the ball and Dennis Wise passed to Italian midfield maestro Roberto Di Matteo who carried the ball unopposed into the ‘Boro half and let rip from fully 35 yards. Ben Roberts in the ‘Boro goal was beaten and the Smoggies season just got that little bit worse.
Even worse was to come when Fabrizio Ravanelli limped off injured after just 20 minutes, but they were spared when a goal by Gianluca (Uncle) Festa was chalked off for offside.
But late in the second half Gianfranco Zola superbly back-heeled the ball in midair to Eddie Newton who blasted home the winner.
Newton said later the team had been raring to go before kick-off. “In the final itself, we were very confident going into the game. We honestly believed we would win if we stuck to our gameplan, and we did,” he said.
“I played in 1994 when we lost to United. We had a lot of young players who hadn’t experienced the big-time games yet. This was a totally different scenario. We had such a good blend of youth and experience, and of English and foreign players. It just seemed the perfect mix. We got the best possible start through Roberto Di Matteo’s goal and the rest is history as they say.”
Today in 1997 the Cup was won by a foreign manager for the first time ever (which we found a tad surprising given the oft-peddled assertion that all players, managers and owners have been from abroad ever since Rupert Murdoch began running the game in 1992).
The victorious man in question was Rudd Gullit who was then the gaffer at Chelsea. In those heady pre-Abramovich days the Stamford Bridge regulars were not quite as spoilt as they are now and Chelsea were looking for their first FA Cup win since 1970.
Their opponents were those heroic failures Middlesbrough who, under the able stewardship of Bryan Robson had not only managed to get relegated, but had also already lost the League Cup final.
The portents were not good for Robson’s band of merry men and they didn’t get any better when the match started.
It was took just 42 seconds for the ‘Boro defence to be breached when Juninho gave away the ball and Dennis Wise passed to Italian midfield maestro Roberto Di Matteo who carried the ball unopposed into the ‘Boro half and let rip from fully 35 yards. Ben Roberts in the ‘Boro goal was beaten and the Smoggies season just got that little bit worse.
Even worse was to come when Fabrizio Ravanelli limped off injured after just 20 minutes, but they were spared when a goal by Gianluca (Uncle) Festa was chalked off for offside.
But late in the second half Gianfranco Zola superbly back-heeled the ball in midair to Eddie Newton who blasted home the winner.
Newton said later the team had been raring to go before kick-off. “In the final itself, we were very confident going into the game. We honestly believed we would win if we stuck to our gameplan, and we did,” he said.
“I played in 1994 when we lost to United. We had a lot of young players who hadn’t experienced the big-time games yet. This was a totally different scenario. We had such a good blend of youth and experience, and of English and foreign players. It just seemed the perfect mix. We got the best possible start through Roberto Di Matteo’s goal and the rest is history as they say.”
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Knots & crosses
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On this day in football
The final played today in 1994 is perhaps the only one to rival the great Madrid performance of 1960 and is certainly the best final played in modern times when, with so much at stake, the final can often be terribly boring as neither side wants to make the crucial mistake.
None of that today when Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona ‘dream team’ were favourites against Fabio Capello’s AC Milan. Barca had marched to the final with an aplomb and were confident of a winning the cup for the second time in three years.
By contrast, Milan were not in great shape coming into the game. In the 3-0 win over Monaco in the semi-final at the San Siro, key defenders Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta both received yellow cards that ruled them out of the final. Worse still, Capello was forced to leave out Florin Raducioiu, Jean-Pierre Papin and Brian Laudrup as well because of the Uefa rules about fielding a maximum of three non-nationals.
One of the non-nationals Capello did pick was Marcel Desailly, the Frenchman who, the previous season, had been in the Marseille team that had beaten Milan in the final.
Despite all the changes Capello had been forced into, his side quickly began to take a hold on the game, denying highly-fancied Barca the chance to impose themselves on it.
After 22 minutes Milan made their pressure pay when Dejan Savicevic ran down the right flank and passed to Daniele Massaro who tapped the ball into an empty net. 1-0. It was 2-0 just before half time when Massaro bagged his second of the night after being set up by Roberto Donadoni from the left wing.
Barca went in 2-0 down at the break and hoping to re-group. But any hopes of a famous come-back were surely snuffed out just two minutes after the re-start when Dejan Savicevic capitalised on a defensive error by Miguel Angel Nadal to lob goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta for the third goal.
Eight minutes later and Desailly, who Capello, in a tactical masterstroke, had played in front of the back-four, made it 4-0 when he beat the offside trap to score.
It was a crushing victory and Capello’s finest hour as coach and Desailly became the first man to win the European Cup in successive seasons with two different clubs.
None of that today when Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona ‘dream team’ were favourites against Fabio Capello’s AC Milan. Barca had marched to the final with an aplomb and were confident of a winning the cup for the second time in three years.
By contrast, Milan were not in great shape coming into the game. In the 3-0 win over Monaco in the semi-final at the San Siro, key defenders Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta both received yellow cards that ruled them out of the final. Worse still, Capello was forced to leave out Florin Raducioiu, Jean-Pierre Papin and Brian Laudrup as well because of the Uefa rules about fielding a maximum of three non-nationals.
One of the non-nationals Capello did pick was Marcel Desailly, the Frenchman who, the previous season, had been in the Marseille team that had beaten Milan in the final.
Despite all the changes Capello had been forced into, his side quickly began to take a hold on the game, denying highly-fancied Barca the chance to impose themselves on it.
After 22 minutes Milan made their pressure pay when Dejan Savicevic ran down the right flank and passed to Daniele Massaro who tapped the ball into an empty net. 1-0. It was 2-0 just before half time when Massaro bagged his second of the night after being set up by Roberto Donadoni from the left wing.
Barca went in 2-0 down at the break and hoping to re-group. But any hopes of a famous come-back were surely snuffed out just two minutes after the re-start when Dejan Savicevic capitalised on a defensive error by Miguel Angel Nadal to lob goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta for the third goal.
Eight minutes later and Desailly, who Capello, in a tactical masterstroke, had played in front of the back-four, made it 4-0 when he beat the offside trap to score.
It was a crushing victory and Capello’s finest hour as coach and Desailly became the first man to win the European Cup in successive seasons with two different clubs.
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Knots & crosses
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On this day in football
END of season matches in Serie A have a bit of a reputation for throwing up the occasional ‘surprise’ result, so Bari’s 2-1 win over Milan today in 1991 probably didn’t raise too many eyebrows.
Arrigo Sacchi’s men bounced back however, as this would be their last league defeat for 58 games, as the ‘Incredibles’ went on one of the most barnstorming runs ever seen in European football.
Milan had spent the early 1980s in the doldrums, suffering demotion in 1980 thanks to their part in one of Italy’s many match-fixing scandals. Although they won Serie B the next season they suffered their worst ever campaign the year after, being relegated at the end of the 1981/82 season.
With the Rossoneri reeling both on the pitch and financially it took the arrival of the not-so-shy-and-retiring media mogul Silvio Berlusconi to bring around a change in the clubs fortunes.
The future Italian Prime Minister brought in up-and-coming coach Arrigo Sacchi who signed up Dutch trio Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten and Italian leading lights Roberto Donadoni and Carlo Ancelotti. Throw in legendary defender Franco Baresi and some kid named Paulo Maldini and all of a sudden Milan’s future was looking rosy.
Despite trailing Diego Maradona’s Napoli side for most of the 1987-88 season, Sacchi’s men picked up their first Scudetto for nine years and would win their third European Cup the following season.
Sacchi left to coach the Italian national side in 1991 and the reigns were handed over to Fabio Capello who raised the bar even higher, with the likes of Marcel Desailly and Croatian national hero Zvonimir Boban joining the party.
Capello was the man in charge during Milan’s unprecedented 58-match run, as he led them to three consecutive scudetti and also the spellbinding performance that we brought to you yesterday in the 1994 European Cup final.
Their undefeated Serie A run finally came to an end on 21 March 193, where a Faustino Asprilla goal gave Parma a 1-0 win over the Rossoneri.
Capello left to join Real Madrid in 1996 and Milan would lose their aura of invincibility, falling to 11th place in 1996/97.
These days, the only Invincible that remains is the peerless 40-year-old Paolo Maldini, although he assures us this will be his last season. But we’ve all heard that before.
The only other link to that famous team is the owner, but since returning to the office of Prime Minister last year, Berlusconi has had to step down as club president. In recent months he has filled this void by making a play for the George W. Award for Funniest/Stupidest World Leader, describing Barack Obama as ‘tanned’, trying to play hide and seek with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a summit and telling those that had lost their homes in the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake that they should view the experience as a camping weekend.
Arrigo Sacchi’s men bounced back however, as this would be their last league defeat for 58 games, as the ‘Incredibles’ went on one of the most barnstorming runs ever seen in European football.
Milan had spent the early 1980s in the doldrums, suffering demotion in 1980 thanks to their part in one of Italy’s many match-fixing scandals. Although they won Serie B the next season they suffered their worst ever campaign the year after, being relegated at the end of the 1981/82 season.
With the Rossoneri reeling both on the pitch and financially it took the arrival of the not-so-shy-and-retiring media mogul Silvio Berlusconi to bring around a change in the clubs fortunes.
The future Italian Prime Minister brought in up-and-coming coach Arrigo Sacchi who signed up Dutch trio Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten and Italian leading lights Roberto Donadoni and Carlo Ancelotti. Throw in legendary defender Franco Baresi and some kid named Paulo Maldini and all of a sudden Milan’s future was looking rosy.
Despite trailing Diego Maradona’s Napoli side for most of the 1987-88 season, Sacchi’s men picked up their first Scudetto for nine years and would win their third European Cup the following season.
Sacchi left to coach the Italian national side in 1991 and the reigns were handed over to Fabio Capello who raised the bar even higher, with the likes of Marcel Desailly and Croatian national hero Zvonimir Boban joining the party.
Capello was the man in charge during Milan’s unprecedented 58-match run, as he led them to three consecutive scudetti and also the spellbinding performance that we brought to you yesterday in the 1994 European Cup final.
Their undefeated Serie A run finally came to an end on 21 March 193, where a Faustino Asprilla goal gave Parma a 1-0 win over the Rossoneri.
Capello left to join Real Madrid in 1996 and Milan would lose their aura of invincibility, falling to 11th place in 1996/97.
These days, the only Invincible that remains is the peerless 40-year-old Paolo Maldini, although he assures us this will be his last season. But we’ve all heard that before.
The only other link to that famous team is the owner, but since returning to the office of Prime Minister last year, Berlusconi has had to step down as club president. In recent months he has filled this void by making a play for the George W. Award for Funniest/Stupidest World Leader, describing Barack Obama as ‘tanned’, trying to play hide and seek with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a summit and telling those that had lost their homes in the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake that they should view the experience as a camping weekend.
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Knots & crosses
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On this day in football
FOR a club so steeped in history that it is seen as a social and political phenomenon, it comes as a surprise that Barcelona’s first European Cup only came today in 1992, when Barça sent Catalonia into raptures by downing Sampdoria to lift the trophy first made famous by their bitter rivals in Madrid.
The early 1990s saw one of Barça’s golden ages, as club legend Johan Cruijff brought in players such as Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Gheorghe Hagi, Hristo Stoichkov and current Barcelona boss Josep Guardiola.
Cruijff led the Catalan side to the 1991 La Liga title, their first since 1985, ending Real Madrid’s run of five consecutive top-placed finishes in the process. This gave Barça a place in the final edition of the European Cup before Uefa got their re-brand on and conceived the Champions League format.
This meant that teams such as US Luxembourg, Hamrun Spartans and Portadown were all thrown into the first round, without any of this group stage malarkey. Obviously, they all lost heavily, but there’s something romantic about the early-round European Cup ties of old.
Barça almost came unstuck as early as the second round, when they snuck past German champions Kaiserslautern on away goals, but progressed into a newly-thought up group stage that would soon catch on, where the winners of two groups would meet in the final.
Pitted against Sparta Prague, Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv, Barça were taken to the wire by the Czech side, but would go on to make it to the final at Wembley Stadium against a classic Sampdoria side that featured the likes of Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Mancini and Attillo Lombardo.
Barça remain the only club on the continent to have played in European competition in every season and were desperate to pick up the trophy that Real had made their own in the 1960s. They fell one step short in 1986 when they suffered penalty shoot-out heartache in the final against Steaua Bucharest under Terry Venables’ stewardship and also tasted defeat in 1961 to Benfica.
Having beaten Samp in the 1989 Cup Winners’ Cup final, Cruyff and his so-called ‘Dream Team’ fancied their chances, but the match itself was a tense affair that looked destined for penalties until the Catalan side won a free kick with only eight minutes left in extra time.
As a wise man (or a bad ITV commentator) once said, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Up stepped Dutch defender Ronald Koeman who hit one of the sweetest free-kicks to ever grace such an occasion to give Barça the cup and ensure that they were dancing in Las Ramblas and with the 1992 Olympics about to be held in the city there probably wasn’t many better places to be that that night.
Barça would have to wait another 14 years before they picked up the trophy again, but will have a chance to make it 4 titles next week when they take on Manchester United in London.
The early 1990s saw one of Barça’s golden ages, as club legend Johan Cruijff brought in players such as Ronald Koeman, Michael Laudrup, Gheorghe Hagi, Hristo Stoichkov and current Barcelona boss Josep Guardiola.
Cruijff led the Catalan side to the 1991 La Liga title, their first since 1985, ending Real Madrid’s run of five consecutive top-placed finishes in the process. This gave Barça a place in the final edition of the European Cup before Uefa got their re-brand on and conceived the Champions League format.
This meant that teams such as US Luxembourg, Hamrun Spartans and Portadown were all thrown into the first round, without any of this group stage malarkey. Obviously, they all lost heavily, but there’s something romantic about the early-round European Cup ties of old.
Barça almost came unstuck as early as the second round, when they snuck past German champions Kaiserslautern on away goals, but progressed into a newly-thought up group stage that would soon catch on, where the winners of two groups would meet in the final.
Pitted against Sparta Prague, Benfica and Dynamo Kyiv, Barça were taken to the wire by the Czech side, but would go on to make it to the final at Wembley Stadium against a classic Sampdoria side that featured the likes of Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Mancini and Attillo Lombardo.
Barça remain the only club on the continent to have played in European competition in every season and were desperate to pick up the trophy that Real had made their own in the 1960s. They fell one step short in 1986 when they suffered penalty shoot-out heartache in the final against Steaua Bucharest under Terry Venables’ stewardship and also tasted defeat in 1961 to Benfica.
Having beaten Samp in the 1989 Cup Winners’ Cup final, Cruyff and his so-called ‘Dream Team’ fancied their chances, but the match itself was a tense affair that looked destined for penalties until the Catalan side won a free kick with only eight minutes left in extra time.
As a wise man (or a bad ITV commentator) once said, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Up stepped Dutch defender Ronald Koeman who hit one of the sweetest free-kicks to ever grace such an occasion to give Barça the cup and ensure that they were dancing in Las Ramblas and with the 1992 Olympics about to be held in the city there probably wasn’t many better places to be that that night.
Barça would have to wait another 14 years before they picked up the trophy again, but will have a chance to make it 4 titles next week when they take on Manchester United in London.
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Knots & crosses
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On this day in football
JOSE Mourinho seems like such a big figure in the football universe that it seems hard to remember a time when he wasn’t there, dishing out his pearls of wisdom like a cool, modern-day version of Brian Clough.
But it was today in 2003, just 8 years ago, that the Portuguezzer pricked the collective consciousness of British football fans for the first time when his Porto team took on Martin O’Neill’s Celtic in the Uefa Cup Final in Seville.
The Bhoys were hoping for a triumph to add to the famous 1967 European Cup win and 80,000 of their fans descended on Seville for the game.
But standing in their way was Mourinho and his team who took the lead just before half time thanks to Derlei. Henrick Larsson equalised soon after, and had to do so again on 56 minutes after Dmitri Alenitchev had put Porto ahead again just two minutes earlier.
The match went to extra time and with just five minutes before penalties, Derlei scored the winner to break Celtic hearts.
Martin O’Neill was unhappy at some of Porto’s tactics. “I will probably get into trouble for this, but it was poor sportsmanship,” he said. “The rolling over, the time wasting. But they have beaten us, well done to them and it’s up to us to learn from this.
“It is a steep learning curve, but this was a wonderful, wonderful experience. The players put everything into it and the fans have been fantastic.”
Predictably, Mourinho begged to differ with O’Neill. “I’d prefer to ask whether the behaviour of the Celtic players was normal in your country,” he said. “What Balde did to Deco in front of me could have ended his career. The referee didn’t affect the result, in that there were no doubtful decisions, but I think Balde could have had a direct red for his foul and Thompson could also have seen a second yellow card on two occasions.
“There was a lot of commitment in Celtic’s game, commitment, toughness and aggression. I’m tempted to use another word – but I won’t.”
“We have given a great example to the world and those who love football and we have also made history by taking the Uefa Cup to Portugal for the first time ever,” he added.
The following season Mourinho led Porto to the European Cup, making more history in the process and paving the way for his move to Chelsea.
But it was today in 2003, just 8 years ago, that the Portuguezzer pricked the collective consciousness of British football fans for the first time when his Porto team took on Martin O’Neill’s Celtic in the Uefa Cup Final in Seville.
The Bhoys were hoping for a triumph to add to the famous 1967 European Cup win and 80,000 of their fans descended on Seville for the game.
But standing in their way was Mourinho and his team who took the lead just before half time thanks to Derlei. Henrick Larsson equalised soon after, and had to do so again on 56 minutes after Dmitri Alenitchev had put Porto ahead again just two minutes earlier.
The match went to extra time and with just five minutes before penalties, Derlei scored the winner to break Celtic hearts.
Martin O’Neill was unhappy at some of Porto’s tactics. “I will probably get into trouble for this, but it was poor sportsmanship,” he said. “The rolling over, the time wasting. But they have beaten us, well done to them and it’s up to us to learn from this.
“It is a steep learning curve, but this was a wonderful, wonderful experience. The players put everything into it and the fans have been fantastic.”
Predictably, Mourinho begged to differ with O’Neill. “I’d prefer to ask whether the behaviour of the Celtic players was normal in your country,” he said. “What Balde did to Deco in front of me could have ended his career. The referee didn’t affect the result, in that there were no doubtful decisions, but I think Balde could have had a direct red for his foul and Thompson could also have seen a second yellow card on two occasions.
“There was a lot of commitment in Celtic’s game, commitment, toughness and aggression. I’m tempted to use another word – but I won’t.”
“We have given a great example to the world and those who love football and we have also made history by taking the Uefa Cup to Portugal for the first time ever,” he added.
The following season Mourinho led Porto to the European Cup, making more history in the process and paving the way for his move to Chelsea.
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DrZoidberg
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Re: On this day in football
fuck you derlei!
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Knots & crosses
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On this day in football
I posted that with trepidation.
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DrZoidberg
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Re: On this day in football
its ok. i'm over it. just about.
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Knots & crosses
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On this day in football
You are, but the other 55 million Celtic fans who were in Seville might be struggling.
To them, I say sorry.
To them, I say sorry.
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hang the dj
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On this day in football
Seville was one of the greatest experiences of my life, loved every minute of it
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