Have to give a shout to Liverpool 1965. Any team that PULVERISED the great Inter Milan team (which Liverpool did in the semi final first leg, unfortunately the 4th goal was disallowed) deserves a nod.
That was the first quality side Bill Shankly produced and they also made the 1966 European Cup Winners' Cup final, only to lose by a goal from extra time which was a from a deflected lob against Borussia Dortmund.
Yes, that was one of the weirdest goals to win a European final. It was more or less an own goal by the Liverpool captain Ron Yeats. It came off the post and hit him then went in. Just before the game there was a tremendous downpour of rain and the pitch was a quagmire. It wasn't a place where good football could be played. Liverpool put out both Juventus and Celtic on the way to the 1966 Cup Winners Cup final. That Liverpool team from 1964 to 1966 was a very very good side.
Hamburg 61 were a very good side and Uwe Seeler was playing for them. In the semi-finals they forced Barcelona into playing a tie-breaking play-off. Here are the results: First Round: Bye Second Round: Young Boys Bern - Hamburger SV 0:5 (0:3) (Stürmer 24, 50, U. Seeler 34, 38, Neisner 73) Hamburger SV - Young Boys Bern 3:3 (1:2) (Stürmer 13, Dörfel 67, (Walker 85 s) - Bigler 22 k, Meier 25, Schneiter 49) Quarter-Finals: Burnley - Hamburger SV 3:1 (1:0) (Pilkington 8, 60, J. Robson 74 - Dörfel 76) HAMBURGER SV - Burnley 4:1 (2:0) (Stürmer 9, Seeler 43, 75, Dörfel 48 - Harris 55) Semi-Finals: Barcelona - Hamburger SV 1:0 (0:0) (Evaristo 46) Hamburger SV - Barcelona 2:1 (0:0) (Wulf 58, Seeler 68 - Kocsis 90) Semi-Final playoff: BARCELONA - Hamburger SV 1:0 (1:0) [in Brussels] (Evaristo 43)
It was proven that before the second leg of that encounter, the referee had been requested, shall we say, by some mafiosi to help Inter, and due to some favourable decisions, and only due to these, apparently, the Milan giants overcame Liverpool and advanced to the final.Well, so I've read anyway.
But look who Red Star Belgrade beat to come to the final. 1st round Crvena Zvezda 1-1 Grasshoppers Grasshoppers 1-4 Crvena Zvezda 2nd round Crvena Zvezda 3-0 Rangers Rangers 1-1 Crvena Zvezda Quarterfinal Crvena Zvezda 3-0 Dynamo Dresden Dynamo Dresden 0-3 Crvena Zvezda - game suspended due to invading German fans, but Red Star was up Semifinal Bayern Munchen 1-2 Crvena Zvezda Crvena Zvezda 2-2 Bayern Munchen Final L'OM 0-0 Crvena Zvezda 3-5 on penalties And yes we were too much of an attacking side to play for the win. I mean Savicevic, Jugovic, Mihaljovic, Prosinecki, Pancev, Belodedic were all attacking even if two of them were defenders! Plus the ironic thing is our captain from earlier in the season-Stojkovic left for Marseille before the CL final! What a mistake...Beating Bayern Munchen was an excellent and probably the best moment in Balkan football for me...
Grasshoppers are a walkover to most people but the other teams were good sides, especially Bayern and Dynamo actually had a decent side at the time.
No team that can't even get out of the group stage over a Swedish team deserves mention here. That ManUtd looked so good against other EPL sides demonstrates how weak the earliest version of the EPL were. Its taken about 10 years for the EPL to be back where it was in the late 80s.
Where was it in the late 1980s? As far as I'm concerned, it has been better the last five years or so than in the times of the European ban. That was when the English game was starting to lose its edge.
Can you please stop trolling my responses just because it is about Manchester United? Cheers. I know you weren't watching football during this period of time (a time period consisting of anything before 2004), so you are probably not aware that English clubs were under the '3 foreigner rule' which meant that only 3 foreign players could play with them in the CL. This was a particularly big problem for the English teams because Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish players were also considered to be 'foreign' under this. Unsurprisingly there are an awful lot of British players playing in the Premiership since almost everyone from Britain with the talent finds their way to the English leagues. That meant that of the '94 double winning side that effortlessly pissed all over Chelsea 4-0 in the FA Cup final (remember that? Nan you don't. I do though ) 8 of the starting 11 were ineligible to start in Europe. Furthermore English clubs were just returning to Europe after the lengthy ban and were out of sync. Arsenal, Leeds and Blackburn from this period also couldn't work it out. Fergie routinely says that he thinks the '94 team were the most talented team he ever managed, better than the '99 treble winners. Believe me, only Arsenal in 2004 could rival them for entertainment. As ever you, and anyone else interested, are welcome to the history lesson, with the plea you please keep quiet about things football related. Why can’t you just be happy watching football? Why do you have to comment on it when you know nothing about football? It’s mystery nicephoras.
Oh and just to add that in 1991 United beat Cruyff's 9-point La Liga leading Barcelona side in the Cup Winners Cup Final. Once again you probably shouldn't comment on a league during a period you've never watched
It's a nice history, just a pity that it's wrong. Although the 3 foreigners rule existed at the time, British players were not counted as foreigners, they were counbted as assimiliated, and you were allowed 2 or 3 of them. The foreigners were no problem to United, Kancheslskis, Schmeichel and Cantona picked themselves. United's problem was that they had a ton of assimiliated players, McClair, Irwin, Giggs, Keane, Hughes. The 1994 team had maybe one assimiliated player too many, you couldn't play both McClair and Sparky together anyway. The simple fact is that United weren't good enough in Europe in those years, and their problems with the rules were self-inflicted.
No but he's having a go at the general league in the early 90's. I think the 3 foreigner rule is pretty widely thrown up as a factor + obstacle to English clubs at the time. As I said, other teams that played in the CL were also getting knocked out poorly. You're probably right about how many 'assimilated' players we had a quick google search I did didn't provide a teamsheet and I was about 8 at this point. No United weren't good enough early on, until about 97. But neither were any English teams. Would that have been the state of affairs had English teams not been banned, of course not. That doesn't really knock the '94 too much though, they were still quality, theres an awful lot of great domestic teams who failed in Europe. Are Arsenal 2004 not one of the great Premiership teams and arguably one of the best not to win the CL? wasn't a paticularly great showing from them either.
Well, I watched that season as well as the Cup Winners' Cup Final. Although Barca went into the match as favorites (after all, ManU had lost the League Cup Final to Second Division Sheff Wed a few weeks earlier ) they had to play the Final without their leading goal scorer Hristo Stoichkov, who was suspended. They also had to do without their first choice 'keeper Andoni Zubizarreta. Can't remember whether he too was suspended or injured. (I have a video of their semi-final 2nd leg tussel with Juventus so I could probably find out from there) Replacing Zubi in goal was the very inexperienced Carlos Busquets. If the CWC final wasn't Busquets' first match with the first team, it had to be one of his first. And 37-year old Jose Alexanco started in place of regular first teamer Miguel Soler. No idea if Soler was injured or suspended. So that's my defense of why Barca lost that final.
Leeds and Blackburn weren't regulars in Europe so there wasn't any surprises that they had failed, especially Blackburn. They got raped in the 1995-96 CL season, finishing on the bottom of their group which included Spartak Moscow, Rosenborg and Legia Warsaw.
From what I've read, the CWC was Busquets' first game with Barca. You have clearly pointed out why Man Utd managed to win. Without Zubi and Stoichkov out of the side, Barca should have known it wasn't going to be an easy match to win. If Sampdoria had managed to defeat Legia Warsaw in Quarter-Finals, Man Utd probably wouldn't have made the Final. Vialli, Mancini, Lombardo, Mikhailichenko and co would have given Man Utd a run for their money. I suppose that Sampdoria were unlucky when they played the Polish. That was one of the few matches where the better side lost.
You can say that about many countries, especially when the Serie A was the best league back in the 1990s. The Serie A had some very good sides who had trouble just to get into the qualifying spots. Arsenal never put in a great showing in the CL, yet alone a good one.
You're saying then that it could've been a Barcelona-Sampdoria 1991 CWC final. I don't know which side would've won (Barca still would've had those player suspensions to deal with) but we all know who won that matchup a year later at Wembley.
Oh you are still such a child. While you're incorrectly recalling the foreigner rules, I suppose I could tell you that I was watching European football in Europe before you were even even a gleam in your mother's eye. Oh, I guess I just did. Duh mother-********ing-uh. That's the point, dipshit. That you happened to find your favorite club entertaining in a very down time for the league in no way means they "deserved" to win any trophy, let alone one for which they couldn't beat out a Swedish side to finish second in the group. I could just as easily construct a reason why Chelsea "deserved" to win the CL last season, but that would be pointless and stupid. Just because you're remembering all those wet dreams you had about your club as a kid doesn't mean I'm willing to agree and get all sticky.
Just getting back to the topic, the best side from a team to have never won the CL must be Spurs 61/62. Adding Greaves to one of the best sides ever says everything.