I have no idea how Manchester United won the European cup in 1968, upon reflection. I think that it shows just how great Best & Charlton really were. Crerand was in decline, Law was probably past it too if not injured, Stiles was never a great player, so many club class footballers in that team. Foulkes, Stepney etc. And to think they nearly won it again in 1969 is incredible, when they were going into freefall. Actually, another odd situation was 1975 when two teams that should have been great on paper, Leeds & Bayern, got to the final, & strugged horribly in their league positions that season.
If one goes by name recognition in the classic era (pre-CL) I think Aston Villa in 1982 is the least impressive team. I wouldn't have thought about Manchester United in 1968 as being a candidate for worst team ever to win the European Cup because as you said with Bobby Charlton and George Best two all-time great players were crucial in that team (and also Denis Law who unfortunately was injured for the final vs. Benfica).
Actually, I would disagree respectfully. The Villa team were a solid blend of experience & youth at a time when I think the english first division was still pretty strong. I think the pity was Ipswich didn't get to win the championship at least once & compete in Europe around 1980 -1982, its just Liverpool were a damned machine, & I think possibly fitter than any other team as they seemed to get an awful lot of match winning goals past 80 minutes. Another attractive team of the time were West Brom. Another strange one was, I was only about 9 or 10 at the time, & I was in love with the jerseys & kit that the British teams had, Admiral & Umbro. It is amazing how prevalent the company insignia was on the kit, just in the years preceding shirt sponsorship. I didn't like the Adidas kit that the few other teams were wearing, Ipswich, Birmingham City, & Nottingham Forest, but in hindsight, it is the Adidas kit that now I think was the nicest, because as we grow older, we get more exposed to the nostalgia of the European game, so Adidas of course bring memories of what was going on on the continent at that time, while Admiral & Umbro kits of late 70's now, seem a little weird to me. (30) Man Utd 3 West Brom 5 - YouTube
When talking about one of the worst teams to win the old European Cup, many refer to PSV Eindhoven since in 1988 they did not win any of their last 5 games (even in the last two matches of the tournament they did not score any goals) and still thus he was proclaimed champion of the tournament. It is also true that of the 9 games he played, he only lost 1 (2-0 against Galatasaray in 1/16 final), the rest were 3 wins and 5 draws. But from there to say that he is the worst champion in history I'm not sure, in fact PSV had magnificent players such as Koeman, Gerets, Van Breukelen or Lerby in addition to contributing 5 players to the Netherlands National Team champion of the Eurocup that same year. It must also be said that in that 1988 PSV not only won the European Cup but also did so in the Cup and in the Netherlands League, becoming the third team to achieve the treble in Europe after Celtic Glasgow in 1967 and the Ajax Amsterdam of 1972. I think they were a very good team, although we must also admit they had some luck in the European competition, luck that in short tournaments and knockouts it is certainly necessary to be champion. On the other hand, I think the most unexpected final may be the 1979 one between Nottingham Forest and Malmoe. It is true that the English league was the main power of the time in Europe but the fact that only two years before the Forest was in the second division I do not think that it placed them among the favorites a priori to win the competition, although in the first round they were already in charge of making their intentions clear by eliminating the team that had won the last two editions (Liverpool). Malmoe may be the biggest surprise in a final together with Panathinaikos in 1971.
Yes, the bizarre duo of Clough & Taylor brought two teams up from division 2 to win division 1 within a season or two, they had done it before with Derby County in 1972! As you say, Forest won the league the season after they came up from division 2! I think it was done before, I'm not sure, but I think Ipswich did the same thing in 1962, winning division 1 in their maiden season after promotion. Yes I just checked, that is true. What a great achievement by Alf Ramsey that was.
Despite producing the european cup winner 3 years running, the English League in 1979 was still way behind the German Bundesliga in UEFA Coefficient ratings. perhaps surprisingly, even Holland and Belgium were ahead of england.
Besides lacking a bit of star-quality, they were also very much the inferior side against Bayern Munich in the final.
i'd have FC Porto of 2004 as a contender. Finished 2nd in their group and in the latter rounds (quarterfinal, semifinal and final) faced up to lyon, deportivo la coruna and monaco.
Winners with the lowest European Club Elo ranking the day after the final. Number one ranked club in brackets. Feyenoord 1970: 15th (Everton - did not qualify) Aston Villa 1982: 15th (Liverpool) Steau Bucharest 1986: 15th (Liverpool - banned) AC Milan 2003: 13th (Manchester United) Liverpool 2005: 13th (Chelsea) Red Star Belgrade 1991: 11th (AC Milan) Nottingham Forest 1980: 9th (Hamburg) Real Madrid 1998: 9th (Juventus) Chelsea 2012: 9th (Real Madrid) Barcelona 1992: 7th (AC Milan - banned) Benfica 1961: 6th (Real Madrid) Porto 1987: 6th (Bayern Munich) PSV Eindhoven 1988: 6th (Real Madrid) AC Milan 2007: 6th (Barcelona) Among others that have been mentioned on this thread, Manchester United 1968 and Porto 2004 were both ranked 5th at the time.
Problem is that apart from Roy of the Rovers, I would buy Shoot! & Matchweekly, we had a totally anglocentric view of football, with not showing continental football the respect we should have shown it - & I wasn't even growing up in England, but Ireland. There was also the home international championships, so if England beat Wales 3-0 & Northern Ireland 4-0, the magazines would be treating England like they were world champions!!! I was only 9 or 10 at the time, so its easy to believe the hype.
I think it might have been Uli Hoeness said, Bayern have won all the EC finals they should have lost, & lost all the EC finals they should've won!!!
It is interesting how PSV reached #1 in ClubElo around 1978 and not ten years later (who knows if e.g. Gullit wasn't suspended for six matches, hurting their chances between 1985-1987). With that it mirrors perhaps the peak and fall of the underlying Phillips Corporation. At the beginning of the 1970s it was one of the largest corporations in Europe, in the 1980s it faced Japanese competition (to this day it has still a good public reputation, in contrast to for example Shell). Then at the early 1990s there were massive lay-offs. Some of their former departments are now as independent firm more valuable as Philips itself. Because Philips was by then (2nd half of 1980s) also a major sponsor of UEFA, they managed to bring down Koeman his suspension (for a remark in the press), lobbied by semi final opponent Real Madrid, from three to one matches. Half of their 1988 team had a past at Ajax (and Cruijff), playing in central positions. P.S. one of the peculiarities in the history of the corporation is the familial and financial relationship of the Philips family with Karl Marx (whose mother came from Holland; and as also people like Voltaire, John Adams and Locke experienced, there was a relatively free publishing climate for that time). https://kunst-en-cultuur.infonu.nl/...president-adams-holland-is-ons-voorbeeld.html