No you weren't mate. your some yank who's been following for about a year. go on, post another comment about how Vieira isn't a defensive midfielder or something. I didn't read most of this but the point was this thread is full of teams that were excellent domestically or had great players, but didn't win the CL. The clue is in the topic title. The United side of '94 DOMINATED English football. The fact that you then throw your toys out the pram " English football back then must have suuuuucked even though I weren't watching it" means f*** all you moron. Fergie has said the '94 team were more talented than the '99 team. Goodbye.
The only reason they didn't make the final was that Spurs had to face Benfica in the semi-finals. Spurs did put up a good fight though, lost only 3-4 on aggregate. It could have possibly have been a Barca-Doria final or even an all-Italian encounter between Sampdoria and Juventus. If Barca still had to deal with those suspensions and Doria had a full team, Sampdoria probably would have won but in that era, whenever Barca and Sampdoria clashed, the Catalans always won. In 1992 though, it wasn't like Barca had it easy. They took 112 minutes to score a goal, which was thanks to a Ronald Koeman free-kick and from what I've read, Sampdoria were on the attack.
*yawn* What an interesting comment to make to someone who was born in Europe. I can make exactly the same claim for last year's Chelsea side. Go easy on the meth buddy. If ManUtd dominated a league you admitted had teams that weren't good enough, what does that make them? Gosh, is that the same Fergie that thought Massimo Taibi was an answer to his goalkeeping problems?
Yeah you could, and if I trolled it purely because "it was Chelsea" I'd be a prat like you. The difference is of course the United side won 3 League titles, 2 FA Cups, 1 League Cup between the early-mid 90's until the team has almost completely changed by 97. Chelsea haven't had sustained success yet despite spending more in the last 3 seasons that United have since the Premiership started. In fact if you consider how low transfers were in previous decades I wouldn't be surprised if Chelsea have spent more in 3 seasons than United have in 125+ years Doesn't make any sense. You could say the same about Chelsea now. Bar United, and Liverpool once, English clubs have still generally struggled in Europe the last 8 years. We've already covered the ban and 3 foreigner rule. Almost any history of English football and many articles in newspapers etc will talk about how long its taken for English football to recover. Stupid strawman. Grow up.
We're talking about 1994. Pay attention. Ritalin helps your ADD. Again, 1994. What's this got to do with it? Nothing. What, no more brilliant "yank" comebacks, because you realized they don't work on someone who - *gasp* wasn't born in the US? No, you couldn't. Chelsea have reached the CL semis two years running; United couldn't get out of the group stage. See a difference? And yet their coefficient is second in Europe over five seasons. Whoops. And what the hell does this have to do with anything else? I didn't say the reason English football went through a decline was poor players. I simply said it was in decline. If you want to blame the lack of foreigners, you're more than welcome to. Doesn't change the fact that the 94 United team were big fish in a small pond. Very good team, but there were plenty of other better teams that haven't won but should have. Hell, Juventus of two years ago has a much better claim, but for Nedved's suspension. If you can't get past a Swedish team in group phase, you don't deserve it. No, your argument was stupid. Well, if Fergie says so, it must be true. Fergie, like most people, says lots of incorrect things. I don't see why I have to take his opinion as gospel when he's clearly been wrong before.
Yah, and those titles were won by the 1994 team. they were not one off, but sustained winners over years with 94 being their best achivement. are you really so thick i needed to explain that fully. lol it was you who went off on a tangent about Chelsea. so I compared the relative successes of the two teams to illustrate the '94 teams credentials. ie. sustained success. which qualifies them for this thread. most children can get from Point A to Point B in a discussion without having every single thing logically mapped out for them. it's like talking with a 5 year old not really. liverpool just won the CL within the same time span. would that qualify them for a GREATEST TEAM EVER thread. Once again -> United '94 was apex of years of dominance and achivement -> Chelsea spend 100's of £££ and win 1 league so far and make a few semi finals but get knocked out by mighty Monaco and Liverpool -> United 94 were out of touch with European football due to the ban, as illustrated by years of failings by English teams in the CL, only remedied in recent years with the influx of foreign players and coaches are they now competing appropriately again. Your going to love this next point champ. That ^^^ above ^^^ is thanks to United who have the second best win/loss/draw ratio in the tournament after Madrid. The English league has always been strong. Even during the ban years. The quality of football throughout the 90's was good and like I said before when it comes to fast, exciting attacking football only Arsenal 2004 can rival United around the early-mid 90's. I agree there are teams even more worthy to be called "the best ever not to win the CL" however most of them have been name dropped multiple times in this thread and the United one in question is more than comparable to the majority mentioned and I thought someone should give them a mention. Since you troll any thread with any United or Arsenal bigging up obviously you had to jump in there like a little jack russel. what-ever. come back when your glory-support teams have actually won it. It's his team you goober. '99 was his finest moment. You'd think one of the greatest and most successful managers in football history could look at his teams and say "THAT was the best." If the '99 team was by all accounts pretty f***ing good, and Fergie says the '94 team were better, than they must have been pretty god damn good.
Speaking of not watching other leagues, I have a feeling that anyone pointing to Manchester United's CWC win over Barcelona wasn't watching the Liga Primera during the time period in question, or else they wouldn't be using that match as evidence of United's prowess because they'd know just how bad Carles Busquets actually was. Seriously. Barcelona have struggled to find a goalkeeper that they're happy with since Zubizarreta left for Valencia in 1998 - in fact, I think they've gone through more goalkeepers post-Zubi than Manchester United have post-Schmeichel - and have turned up some real stinkers over the years. Even alongside such luminaries as Richard Dutruel, Busquets is still clearly the worst of the lot. In fact, he's arguably the worst professional goalkeeper I've ever seen. On the topic at large, it's almost criminal that Valencia haven't managed to win the European Cup in the last five years. They've put together some of the most consistent sides in Europe.
Spurs absolutely battered Benfica in the second leg as well. Spurs should have won the game, all the reports about it say that Spurs were cheated.
The 1994 team is the 1994 team. Period. But, remind me, how did those next couple of teams fare in Europe? No more than it would Porto or United of 94. Yes, in other words, they were a great side in England, but not a great side in Europe. Christ, what is so ********ing difficult to understand about this concept? You admitted it, and then you turn around and claim the opposite. If United were so good, why were they so "out of touch"? Perhaps.......because they were made to look better by a weaker league. That's part of my point, dipshit. When ManUtd were the only English side doing anything of note in Europe it demonstrated that they were the big fish in a small pond. You're a fan. I get it. Really. Everyone does. Quit slobbering. Get over yourself. If someone posts that a team who couldn't get second in a CL group over a Swedish club were one of the best sides not to win the CL, you'd deserve this and more. Gosh, you'd think spending 28M on a midfielder must mean he'd be pretty damn good at United, right? Managers get quoted a lot, and say dumb things. If the 94 team were so great, by the way, it must have taken a crappy coach to make them finish third in their group.
In the 1999-2000 CL season, Chelsea reached the quarter-finals with Zola in their team. Sadly, it was his only CL campaign with them.
Easy or not, the final result read 1-0 to Barca. They say a win is a win is a win. But I agree. Doria had great chances to score in the '92 Final. (I thought Vialli's chip that just went past the far post was going in) And having watched quite a few Serie A matches during the '91 campaign I could've seen them beating even a full strength Barca side had they met in the final. Re the Juve-Barca semi 2nd leg from the 91 CWC: I didn't watch the full match, just sped through it and watched certain parts. Zubi, Stoickov and Eusebio all came into the tie on yellow cards. Stoichkov gained a yellow for a stupid challenge and was later subbed. I never noticed Zubi get a yellow though there were instances where the referee was gesturing to him to stop the time wasting. So I'm guessing he missed the CWC final through injury. But I'll tell you, Koeman should've been sent off for a vicious elbow he gave to Roberto Baggio as the 'Devine Ponytail' made a run from halfway inside the Barca half of the field. Koeman's action wasn't too dissimilar to that horrific play in La Liga this past season where Sevilla's Javi Navarro took out Mallorca´s Juan Arango. Baggio was able to continue, but incredibly the ref didn't even whistle for a foul. As play continued, Guillermo Amor took out the legs of (I think) Thomas Hassler which earned him his second yellow. So not only did the sending off put Barca down to ten men for the remaining 20 minutes or so, but add Amor to the list of those who missed out against Man Utd through suspension. Juve had many chances to snatch a winner but Barca's stop-them-by-hook-or-crook tactics along with Zubi's outstanding saves put - I regret to say - the wrong team into the final. Easy for me to say now, of course. Okay, back to the thread topic. Sorry to have beaten a dead horse.
Sounds surprising but nice to hear. By the sound of things, Barca weren't as innocent as Cryuff thought they were. Stoichkov did have that reputation for occasionally losing the plot.
They're great in the Premier League but they're not up to it in Europe. They were shocking in the first three matches, it took them 88 minutes to score against Dynamo at Highbury and their only good performance was against Inter. In the second round, they were lucky to be drawn against Celta Vigo, who were novices in the CL.
As was the team that beat them. Borussia Dortmund with players like Reinhard Libuda (the German Stan Matthews), Siegfried Held and Lothar Emmerich. They destroyed Benfica 5-0 in 1964, just as an example. Something similar had occurred in the 1963-64 European Cup winners semi final between Inter and Borussia Dortmund.
Red Star was an excellent side with excellent players, but it has to be mentioned their elimination of Bayern in the semi was bit lucky, as Bayern were leading 2-1 in the return leg in Belgrade up to the 89th minute when Augenthaler scored a freakish own goal which sent Red Star through to the final.
Bayern Munich 1986-87. One team not mentioned so far. They beat PSV Eindhoven 5-0 in the quarters and Real Madrid 4-1 in the semi. Their lineup included players like Matthäus, Augenthaler, Pfaff and Brehme. Unfortunately in the final vs. Porto they missed their defensive chief Augenthaler as well as top scorer Wohlfarth. They won three Bundesliga championships in a row from '85 to '87 and remained unbeaten away in the league for two years straight (1985 to 1987). I am not claiming this team was the best ever not to win the European Cup, but seeing which teams are getting a mention in here, this mid-80s Bayern edition deserves it as well.
Someone did mention it somewhere. I think on the first page. This team actually did go into the Final as the favourites to win it but in 1987 just like the events in 2004, Porto had an exceptional year.
What was the difference between the 1964 Dortmund side and the 1966 Dortmund side. Was Tilkowski a good keeper for Dortmund? He was erratic in the 1966 World Cup for West Germany.