rondwisan
01-08-2009, 09:57 AM
Warnings from history for Manchester United
Defending the indefensible?
ESPNSoccernet - May 1, 2009
http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/design05/images/jb2/floodlight_get275.jpg
1991: A floodlight failure in Marseille gave Milan a get-out. Or so they thought.
Protecting a slender advantage, Manchester United will travel to Arsenal on Tuesday. Their ultimate aim is to defend the title they won last year in Moscow. They are two matches from an achievement not emulated since 1990, when the AC Milan of Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Baresi and Maldini beat Sven Goran Eriksson's Benfica in Vienna, to follow 1989's crushing of Steau Bucharest at the Camp Nou.
Milan's defence of their title was the first since Nottingham Forest, in 1979 and 1980, had repeated Liverpool's twin triumphs of 1977 and 1978, the seventies being a decade in which both Bayern Munich and Ajax won three titles in a row. Previous to that Inter Milan had been consecutive continental champions in 1964 and 1965 while Real Madrid lifted the outsize trophy in every one of its first five years.
Since 1990 all those who have attempted to defend their greatest triumph have eventually come a cropper, the joys of the previous year turning to disappointment. What befell them and at which hurdle did they fall?
AC Milan 1990-91 (Exited in semi-final)
1991: A floodlight failure in Marseille gave Milan a get-out. Or so they thought.
Having been given a bye in the first round, Milan had squeaked past FC Bruges to reach the quarter-finals. They came up against French champions Marseille, in their imperial phase of Jean-Pierre Papin, Abedi Pele and Chris Waddle.
The first leg saw Papin poach an away goal and back in the Stade Vélodrome, Marseille were leading 1-0 through a Waddle goal when, with two minutes to play and the tie ebbing away from the champions, the floodlights failed. Milan director Adriano Galliani took the step of leading the Rossoneri players from the pitch and, when the lights came back on, then refusing to play out the last three minutes in the hope of a replay. UEFA took a dim view of such unsporting chicanery and, after awarding the game 3-0 to Marseille and thus eliminating Milan, chose to ban the former champions European competition for a year.
Red Star Belgrade 1991-92 (Exited in last-eight group stage)
The gloomy final of 1991 ended in a penalty shoot-out after Red Star abandoned the flowing football of previous rounds to stifle Marseille and then beat them on spot-kicks. The following season had seen the arrival of a new group stage for the tournament yet this was the least of Red Star's problems. Yugoslavia was wracked by a bloody civil war of partition, with several of the Red Star players being from a variety of the newly formed countries locked in battle with each other.
In the circumstances, the team mounted an admirable defence of their crown, having to play all their home matches on neutral venues in Hungary and Bulgaria. They reached the group stage set up for the last eight teams left in the competition but had little chance of reaching the final, contested by the winners of two groups, after twin opening defeats to a Gianluca Villa-inspired Sampdoria. Red Star's players soon went their separate ways and a great team was confined to history.
Barcelona 1992-93 (Exited in second round)
Ronald Koeman had realised Catalan dreams at Wembley. Johan Cruyff's "Dream Team" was in the middle of a run of four consecutive Liga titles. Yet the defence of their most awaited crown ended prematurely. A narrow first-round win over Viking Stavanger was followed by the tough assignment of a trip to face CSKA in Moscow. A 1-1 draw seemed to hand Cruyff's team the advantage yet the second leg was catastrophic as the Muscovites won 3-2 in front of a disbelieving Nou Camp.
Olympique Marseille 1993-94 (Banned from competition)
Basile Boli's goal in Munich had made OM the first French club to win a European trophy. Within days of that triumph, the club's name was mud. The testimony of midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie that he had bribed three Valenciennes players to "go easy" in a Championnat match a few days before their journey to Germany saw the club stripped of its domestic crown, relegated and banned from defending the European Cup, though not stripped of their title.
AC Milan 1994-95 (Lost in final)
Milan's destruction of Barcelona in the 1994 final may just be the greatest performance in a European final of all time. The scene seemed set for a repeat when they travelled to Vienna to face a very young Ajax side in the following season's final. Despite Ajax twice beating Milan in the group stages, few could see past the Italian giants.
Ajax featured Frank Rijkaard, one of the Dutch trio who been key in 1989 and 1990. His marshalling of the defence kept his old team-mates at bay until coltish sub Patrick Kluivert, just 18, seized on a Rijkaard pass, held off the attempts of the fabled Milan defence to put him off his stride and scored the winner with just five minutes to play.
Ajax 1995-96 (Lost in final)
http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/design05/images/jb2/ajax_get275.jpg
1996: Ajax players suffer the outrageous fortune of the penalty shoot-out.
Coach Louis Van Gaal had restored Ajax to a pinnacle they had not reached since Johan Cruyff quit to play for Barcelona in 1973. Ajax had a chance to emulate their forbears by winning a consecutive title when they reached the final in Rome where they faced Italian opponents once more in Juventus. When Litmanen equalised a Fabrizio Ravanelli goal, an injury-hit Ajax seemed likely to prevail. Yet the game moved into stalemate and extra time failed to separate the sides.
Penalties exposed the callowness of Ajax's team as Edgar Davids missed their first kick. Juve veterans Ferrara, Pessotto and Padovano gave Edwin Van Der Sar little chance in the Ajax goal before full-back Sonny Silooy missed. Vladimir Jugovic confirmed Italian football had its revenge.
Juventus 1996-97 (Lost in final)
Marcello Lippi had been able to add Zinedine Zidane to his midfield as Juventus powered to their second successive final. In Borussia Dortmund they were facing a team granted far fewer riches. Yet for the third successive year, the champions perished at the final hurdle. Ottmar Hitzfeld set Scotsman Paul Lambert on Zidane, and he stuck to him like a limpet.
Lambert temporarily unpeeled himself to set up Karl-Heinz Riedle's opener, the striker soon following up with a header. Juve's expected surge came after Del Piero snapped in a back-heel with 24 minutes to play. Yet the "Old Lady" was left sobbing when 20-year-old sub Lars Ricken, on the pitch for a matter of seconds, conjured a delectable chip to settle matters in Munich.
Borussia Dortmund 1997-98 (Lost in semi-final)
Having been shock winners, Dortmund put up a decent fist of their title defence. The first round group stage was negotiated with ease, nerve was held in a very tight quarter-final with compatriots Bayern Munich, a late goal from Swiss striker Stephane Chapuisat being the first goal of the tie as extra time in the second leg ticked on.
Resurgent Real Madrid, led by Jupp Heynckes, were the semi-final opponents. Dortmund nerves were hardly settled by a 45-minute delay to the first leg after fans ripped down fencing behind the goal. When the game arrived, goals from Fernando Morientes and Christian Karembeu gave Real a telling advantage to take to Westphalia. A second leg 0-0 stalemate ended Dortmund's reign.
Real Madrid 1998-99 (Lost in quarter-final)
Despite the club's first triumph in 22 years, Jupp Heynckes paid for a lack of domestic success and the egos of some of his players with his job. He was succeeded by Guus Hiddink, who had coached PSV to the 1988 title. Yet Hiddink was not the panacea to the Bernabeu problems. Continuing domestic toils were followed by a shock exit from the Champions League.
On reflection, the personnel who ended Real's season were not to be dismissed. Legendary coach Valeri Lobanovsky's Dynamo Kiev team featured Andriy Shevchenko and Sergei Rebrov in attack. Shevchenko grabbed an away goal in the first leg of the quarter final and then followed that with a brace back in the Ukraine. Hiddink did not last much longer at Real.
Defending the indefensible?
ESPNSoccernet - May 1, 2009
http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/design05/images/jb2/floodlight_get275.jpg
1991: A floodlight failure in Marseille gave Milan a get-out. Or so they thought.
Protecting a slender advantage, Manchester United will travel to Arsenal on Tuesday. Their ultimate aim is to defend the title they won last year in Moscow. They are two matches from an achievement not emulated since 1990, when the AC Milan of Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Baresi and Maldini beat Sven Goran Eriksson's Benfica in Vienna, to follow 1989's crushing of Steau Bucharest at the Camp Nou.
Milan's defence of their title was the first since Nottingham Forest, in 1979 and 1980, had repeated Liverpool's twin triumphs of 1977 and 1978, the seventies being a decade in which both Bayern Munich and Ajax won three titles in a row. Previous to that Inter Milan had been consecutive continental champions in 1964 and 1965 while Real Madrid lifted the outsize trophy in every one of its first five years.
Since 1990 all those who have attempted to defend their greatest triumph have eventually come a cropper, the joys of the previous year turning to disappointment. What befell them and at which hurdle did they fall?
AC Milan 1990-91 (Exited in semi-final)
1991: A floodlight failure in Marseille gave Milan a get-out. Or so they thought.
Having been given a bye in the first round, Milan had squeaked past FC Bruges to reach the quarter-finals. They came up against French champions Marseille, in their imperial phase of Jean-Pierre Papin, Abedi Pele and Chris Waddle.
The first leg saw Papin poach an away goal and back in the Stade Vélodrome, Marseille were leading 1-0 through a Waddle goal when, with two minutes to play and the tie ebbing away from the champions, the floodlights failed. Milan director Adriano Galliani took the step of leading the Rossoneri players from the pitch and, when the lights came back on, then refusing to play out the last three minutes in the hope of a replay. UEFA took a dim view of such unsporting chicanery and, after awarding the game 3-0 to Marseille and thus eliminating Milan, chose to ban the former champions European competition for a year.
Red Star Belgrade 1991-92 (Exited in last-eight group stage)
The gloomy final of 1991 ended in a penalty shoot-out after Red Star abandoned the flowing football of previous rounds to stifle Marseille and then beat them on spot-kicks. The following season had seen the arrival of a new group stage for the tournament yet this was the least of Red Star's problems. Yugoslavia was wracked by a bloody civil war of partition, with several of the Red Star players being from a variety of the newly formed countries locked in battle with each other.
In the circumstances, the team mounted an admirable defence of their crown, having to play all their home matches on neutral venues in Hungary and Bulgaria. They reached the group stage set up for the last eight teams left in the competition but had little chance of reaching the final, contested by the winners of two groups, after twin opening defeats to a Gianluca Villa-inspired Sampdoria. Red Star's players soon went their separate ways and a great team was confined to history.
Barcelona 1992-93 (Exited in second round)
Ronald Koeman had realised Catalan dreams at Wembley. Johan Cruyff's "Dream Team" was in the middle of a run of four consecutive Liga titles. Yet the defence of their most awaited crown ended prematurely. A narrow first-round win over Viking Stavanger was followed by the tough assignment of a trip to face CSKA in Moscow. A 1-1 draw seemed to hand Cruyff's team the advantage yet the second leg was catastrophic as the Muscovites won 3-2 in front of a disbelieving Nou Camp.
Olympique Marseille 1993-94 (Banned from competition)
Basile Boli's goal in Munich had made OM the first French club to win a European trophy. Within days of that triumph, the club's name was mud. The testimony of midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie that he had bribed three Valenciennes players to "go easy" in a Championnat match a few days before their journey to Germany saw the club stripped of its domestic crown, relegated and banned from defending the European Cup, though not stripped of their title.
AC Milan 1994-95 (Lost in final)
Milan's destruction of Barcelona in the 1994 final may just be the greatest performance in a European final of all time. The scene seemed set for a repeat when they travelled to Vienna to face a very young Ajax side in the following season's final. Despite Ajax twice beating Milan in the group stages, few could see past the Italian giants.
Ajax featured Frank Rijkaard, one of the Dutch trio who been key in 1989 and 1990. His marshalling of the defence kept his old team-mates at bay until coltish sub Patrick Kluivert, just 18, seized on a Rijkaard pass, held off the attempts of the fabled Milan defence to put him off his stride and scored the winner with just five minutes to play.
Ajax 1995-96 (Lost in final)
http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/design05/images/jb2/ajax_get275.jpg
1996: Ajax players suffer the outrageous fortune of the penalty shoot-out.
Coach Louis Van Gaal had restored Ajax to a pinnacle they had not reached since Johan Cruyff quit to play for Barcelona in 1973. Ajax had a chance to emulate their forbears by winning a consecutive title when they reached the final in Rome where they faced Italian opponents once more in Juventus. When Litmanen equalised a Fabrizio Ravanelli goal, an injury-hit Ajax seemed likely to prevail. Yet the game moved into stalemate and extra time failed to separate the sides.
Penalties exposed the callowness of Ajax's team as Edgar Davids missed their first kick. Juve veterans Ferrara, Pessotto and Padovano gave Edwin Van Der Sar little chance in the Ajax goal before full-back Sonny Silooy missed. Vladimir Jugovic confirmed Italian football had its revenge.
Juventus 1996-97 (Lost in final)
Marcello Lippi had been able to add Zinedine Zidane to his midfield as Juventus powered to their second successive final. In Borussia Dortmund they were facing a team granted far fewer riches. Yet for the third successive year, the champions perished at the final hurdle. Ottmar Hitzfeld set Scotsman Paul Lambert on Zidane, and he stuck to him like a limpet.
Lambert temporarily unpeeled himself to set up Karl-Heinz Riedle's opener, the striker soon following up with a header. Juve's expected surge came after Del Piero snapped in a back-heel with 24 minutes to play. Yet the "Old Lady" was left sobbing when 20-year-old sub Lars Ricken, on the pitch for a matter of seconds, conjured a delectable chip to settle matters in Munich.
Borussia Dortmund 1997-98 (Lost in semi-final)
Having been shock winners, Dortmund put up a decent fist of their title defence. The first round group stage was negotiated with ease, nerve was held in a very tight quarter-final with compatriots Bayern Munich, a late goal from Swiss striker Stephane Chapuisat being the first goal of the tie as extra time in the second leg ticked on.
Resurgent Real Madrid, led by Jupp Heynckes, were the semi-final opponents. Dortmund nerves were hardly settled by a 45-minute delay to the first leg after fans ripped down fencing behind the goal. When the game arrived, goals from Fernando Morientes and Christian Karembeu gave Real a telling advantage to take to Westphalia. A second leg 0-0 stalemate ended Dortmund's reign.
Real Madrid 1998-99 (Lost in quarter-final)
Despite the club's first triumph in 22 years, Jupp Heynckes paid for a lack of domestic success and the egos of some of his players with his job. He was succeeded by Guus Hiddink, who had coached PSV to the 1988 title. Yet Hiddink was not the panacea to the Bernabeu problems. Continuing domestic toils were followed by a shock exit from the Champions League.
On reflection, the personnel who ended Real's season were not to be dismissed. Legendary coach Valeri Lobanovsky's Dynamo Kiev team featured Andriy Shevchenko and Sergei Rebrov in attack. Shevchenko grabbed an away goal in the first leg of the quarter final and then followed that with a brace back in the Ukraine. Hiddink did not last much longer at Real.