May 20 – Barça Break Their Duck
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 a hat-trick of titles next week when they take on Manchester United in Rome.
Until then you’ll have to make do with some footage of assorted Barça legends from back in the day below and a look at what else was going down today in the crazy world of football here. Until tomorrow you lucky people…
No related posts.
Loading ...
