The lights are bright and the anthems roaring.
From the Faroes to France and Cyprus to Spain,
they come. They face off against the best. In
Europe's greatest theatres they duel. The Camp
Nou, the San Siro, Anfield and the Estadio de
Luz. One by one they fall until two remain. But
there can be only one. Die Meister, die Besten,
Le Grande Equipe, the Champions. They walk in
footsteps of legend. Of controversy. Of miracle.
Of genius. of awe and heartbreak contained in
a single moment. This is the Sporting Almanac
Podcast. morning Ben yes good morning good morning
yeah bright and early on the morning after the
night before where Arsenal won the Champions
League yes in the ladies yes it was it was good
actually I watched it yeah rear guard it was
uh I say rear guard rear guard but comfortable
it wasn't a backs against the wall you did what
you have to do to win yeah yeah and also fuck
Barcelona ladies Fair enough. Well, they're like
dominant at the moment in European women's football.
Them and Lyon. And we've done them both. Yeah.
And when you deal with Chelsea at home, who are
just as dominant in the domestic game, it's nice
to have a different name on the trophy. Exactly.
Leah Williamson just adding to the trophy pile.
You'll love to see it. It's like the female version
of Tony Adams, that woman. Mrs. Arsenal. to go
with Mr. Arsenal. Anyway, sorry, I could do that
all day. As much as, yeah, I was going to say,
as much as we'd love to talk about that all day,
that is not the Champions League competition
we're here to discuss. We're here to discuss
the men's competition, formerly the European
Cup. Yeah. Yeah, the men's final being this coming
Saturday and it is Inter Milan or Internacional
versus Paris Saint -Germain PSG. Inter versus
PSG. Yes, to give them their full title. Which
is easy to say. Somewhere between there, there
were two teams. We're in a bit of a purple patch
of the footballing calendar, aren't we? All the
European finals come thick and fast. Obviously,
begrudgingly, congratulations to Spurs having
won the Europa League. And then you've got Chelsea
coming up in the Conference League. Not commiserations
to Man United. That's just funny. And then he
goes straight into the Champions League final
as well. And also all the seasons crescendo at
the same time. There's been some good ends to
that. But yes, we've got the champions of France
going up against, they're now runners -up in
Italy. Only just, but yeah. They got done by
Napoli, but they were the champions last year.
McSource. putting the sword to Inter, but yes.
Who'd have thought Scott McTominay would be one
of the best players in Europe? But here we are.
But yeah, so yes, just a couple of days, like
the build -up, yeah, it's a good patch for the
footballing calendar. And this is the cherry
on that cake. yeah and just to add to that congratulations
to Aberdeen for winning the Scottish Cup yesterday
and congratulations massive congratulations to
Sunderland for getting promoted I'm delighted
by that yes I forgot this has been a good weekend
of football actually and we're actually recording
this as the Premier League wraps up so we can't
comment on who is in the Champions League next
year with certainty yet But it looks like it's
going to be... Other than Arsenal and Liverpool.
Yeah, five... Probably Manchester City. Yeah,
it's going to be five from seven, by the looks
of things. So, yeah. It's about the only exciting
thing left in the Premier League to decide. Indeed.
But, speaking of the Champions League, shall
we dive into that? Yes. Formerly known as the
European Cup. Straightforward. Head first. And
you're our historian, our resident historian,
so... I do have some history on this, yeah. Why
don't you just introduce us? So I am going to
apologise, first of all, to our non -English
listeners today for the approach I'm going to
take here, which is going to be really Anglo
-centric, but that's deliberate and it's not
necessarily in defence of England, Britain, English
football, the Football Association and various
other things. So I'll apologise further to our
English listeners for what I'm about to say,
because I have. Many opinions on it. But essentially,
the history of how the European Cup came to be
stems heavily from British exceptionalism and
how the game developed at home after its initial
creation. Is this because a lot of it's pre -war?
Because the European Cup only came about after
the post -war, right? Yeah, 1955. Because we
were colonialists and empire builders. I imagine
that we had a world championship that consisted
of an American style. you're uh you're getting
ahead of me ben but you are absolutely spot on
oh really so yep go on then uh first of all i'm
going to be i'm going to refer interchangeably
a little bit to british exceptionalism and english
exceptionalism today you can essentially assume
they are one and the same thing for this context
the british press will lord a Scottish team when
they win something or a Scottish player when
they win something so see Andy Murray for that
in tennis generally speaking the prestige of
the nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland has generally rested in
the press's eyes at least and the powers that
be's eyes with the England team English teams
and the England national team in this case First
of all, I'd like to give a heads up to the Sporting
History podcast, just calling out another podcast
because I got a lot of this information from
one episode of them with Aaron Hicks speaking
about Wolves and Arsenal playing European teams,
which is quite interesting and I'll get to. But
yeah, just a shout out to them. It's a very good
podcast if you like your pure history. And we
do here on the Almanac, as people have probably
gathered. We do. I very much enjoy their podcast.
It's a good endorsement. It's quite intellectual,
but it is good. As we know, and anyone who listened
to our FA Cup episode will know, the sport of
football as we know it was sealed in England
with the foundation of the FA in 1863. And from
that point forward, the FA and the men in charge
of the game in England and the press and the
powers that be could not bring themselves to
hold any belief other than English superiority
for the best part of the next 100 years, no matter
what the evidence showed. 100 years, Jesus. The
best part of, yeah. So, as you correctly mentioned,
there were a number of matches and events declared
world championships in the early days of the
sport, involving English and Scottish clubs competing.
and we wonder where the Americans get it from.
I was going to say, I was literally just about
to say, for all my castigating of the NFL and
world championships, perhaps I should have looked
closer to home in the first instance. Well, there's
a lot of parallels you can make about modern
American exceptionalism and British exceptionalism
around the early 1900s, the last vestiges of
a waning empire perhaps, but let's not get into
that. The most notable of these world championships
was an 1895 match between Heart of Midlovian,
better known as Hearts, and Sunderland. Oh, nice.
Topical. A lot of people who are Sunderland fans
are probably quite hungover at this particular
moment. The state of Trafalgar Square would suggest
so. Excellent. You'll love to see it. That match
was won by Sunderland, 5 -3. Both of those teams
were the respective champions of their nation,
so it was the first time the two champions of
two European leagues met officially, which is
obviously relevant to this story. Different competitions
developed from there, most notably the Sir Thomas
Lipton Trophy. which was held in Turin, involving
clubs from Germany, Italy, Switzerland and England.
Twice in 1909 and 1911 it was held, funded by
Sir Thomas Lipton. I think I read about this.
I'm sure you're going to summarise some of them,
but there was quite a few multi -state cross
-championship tournaments, weren't there? But
none of them were official. Yeah, there was a
few early on. So the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy
was an invitational. held in Turin, as I say,
so teams from Turin. There was a Torino team
originally. Juventus took part in the second
tournament. The FA, establishing a pattern they
would maintain until both wars had passed, pretty
much, refused to send a team. I personally speculate,
in my cynical nature, that was because they were
worried about losing that air of superiority
they had by losing to Johnny Forerunner, essentially.
That sounds probable. Yeah. Instead of the FA
sending a team from the Football League. They,
for some reason, which are completely unclear
even to this day, West Auckland Town FC, a Northern
League side from County Durham in the north of
England, were sent to represent English interests
in that tournament. And as it turns out, the
FA needn't have worried. This plucky group of
amateur coal miners defeated a team from Stuttgart
in the semis and Vinterfer from Switzerland to
win the trophy. And two years later, they went
and won it again, this time defeating Juventus
6 -1. in the second and last final of the tournament.
So that's a boss story, but it kind of is a shame
that it endorsed the views. I know, it is, isn't
it? However, I'm never unhappy about a bunch
of amateur coal miners going halfway across Europe
on their own buck as well. They paid their way
there and winning a tournament. Exactly, it's
a hell of a story. Obviously, this is very early
days of Italian football, 20 years before Italy
were one of the best teams in the world, which
we'll come to. So further pan -European competitions
followed. The Mitropa Cup, which started in 1927
and actually ran until 1992, which included teams
from Central and Eastern Europe, including Italy.
These were teams, this competition started in
1927. I don't think it's any coincidence that
1934 and 1938 World Cups, teams from this competition,
these countries, dominated the World Cup. two
of the early world cups italy won 1934 and 1938
and beat czechoslovakia and hungary in those
finals and having this go very far to explaining
why uruguay did so well early on though well
uruguay did so well early on because barely any
teams from europe went to uruguay for the first
competition because it was about you know three
weeks on the boat and a large expense to get
there so i think it was Belgium, France, Romania
and Yugoslavia were the only teams to go there.
Egypt were supposed to go there and miss the
boat. Oh yes, good knowledge. Anyway, digressing
into the World Cup. They went out 16 teams, only
13 teams took part. Nevertheless, so actually
it was in 1930 at the same time as the first
World Cup in Uruguay that the first proper pan
-European competition for league champions was
made called the Coupe des Nations. Coupe des
Nations? Coupe de Nation. My French pronunciation
is terrible, so I apologise. It was held in Geneva.
I bet you got the coupe right. I got the coupe
right. So it was hosted by Servette FC, a Swiss
club. And as I said, held at the same time as
the 1930 World Cup, which only four countries
went to. I didn't just pluck those names off
the top of my head. I did have them written down.
So not that much of a smart arse. So it was won
by Uyepest. FC of Hungary, and I think I've got
the pronunciation of that right because I had
to Google it, winning out of 10 European nations
competing, notably absent, this will shock you,
were the home nations, as England had, unsurprisingly,
quit FIFA in 1928. Well, you know, there's something
to be said for that if they did it now. Indeed.
So, the FA were reluctant to initially join FIFA
when it was formed in 1904. with the new organisation's
state of purpose firstly being to promote international
football, which the FA weren't keen on, save
the Home Nations Championship, between England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland, later Northern Ireland.
And secondly, their state of purpose was to help
standardise the laws of the game, which the FA
considered their job. Yes, well, that's not surprising.
This has been ongoing. That's still something
that actually happens in cricket, very, like,
influentially. With the MCC. Yeah. I think they're
still the lawmakers, technically. Yeah. Or if
they're not, they certainly think they are. Anyway,
I won't get into how it works in football, but
nevertheless. Eventually, the new organisation,
FIFA, clearly was going to become powerful, so
it made more sense to be in it than out of it.
So reluctantly, in 1906, they joined, the FA
joined, and as was the custom at the time, brought
the other home nation FAs with them, because
they all acted as one body pretty much in the
early days. However, this accord didn't last.
In 1928, a dispute over amateurism. FIFA wanted
to relax it to allow better players to play in
the Olympics, which they were in charge of. The
FA being run by probably the children of the
original founders of the game, the inheritors
of the estates and the lordships of the original
founders of the game, weren't so keen on distilling
amateurism because they believed in the principles
of sport being for bettering yourself. Cracking
the whip. The amateur system suited their needs.
We can call it what it was. Yeah, I mean, the
fact that the professional players were largely
made up of working class men, obviously nothing
came into it. The opportunity for working class
men to bear themselves obviously wasn't a disgusting
concept to them at all, but let's not get too
political about it. So as a result of this, they
left FIFA in 1928 and they also... believed continental
football at this point, as I mentioned before,
to be inferior and tactically lacking, which
was fairly rich coming from a nation whose only
real tactical development in the past 40 years
had been to put a centre -half in defence rather
than midfield, courtesy of Herbert Chapman. That
was about it. I mean, that's still about it.
Pretty much, yeah. It's an awfully English thing.
I could go off on a tangent. Yeah. about english
tactical inflexibility the oh if anybody wants
to know our genuine opinion on this is that there's
a reason that england have been unsuccessful
internationally and if you look into it even
like a you know paying a fucking passing notional
amount of attention then you'll realize that
it's because we're completely and utterly inept
like functioning as a strategic tactical footballing
structure. As an elite sporting outfit. Yeah,
exactly. We're not unlucky. This idea that England
haven't won anything for a long time is not born
out of luck. It's because we are arrogant and
think that our way is the best way. The amount
of criticism Alf Ramsey got for his wingless
wonders system. in the 1966 World Cup for not
playing the quintessentially English setup. So
this is all linked. Honestly, this is all linked.
So this English exceptionalism and the... the
early struggles of the England national team
and these English teams in continental competitions
and the later development of the English team
firstly the England national team into world
champions and English clubs into the dominant
clubs in Europe in the 70s and 80s came off the
back of being involved in these competitions
and seeing more ways to play the game and learning
from it it's no coincidence that I'm going to
go into this about these friendly matches soon
these friendly matches between the likes of Wolverhampton
Wanderers and Arsenal and Soviet teams and Eastern
European teams and seeing different tactical
setups and teams mimicking that essentially.
So famously, Dom Rivi, who later had fame as
Leeds United's manager, I think he played for
Man City, although I will apologise if I'm wrong
on that, but they started utilising him as essentially
a deep -lying forward, like a false nine, what
we would call today, having seen the Hungarians
do it. in both the 1954 World Cup and when they
came over and played Wolverhampton Wanderers,
a Hungarian team, in 1954. And they got a lot
of success from doing that, from playing in a
different way. And it just broke this tactical
rigidity. But only in individual form. They were
still criticised in the press for not playing
the British way. They were still criticised by
the FA for doing so. English sides or England
has had any success is effectively outliers bucking
the trend temporarily. Yeah. Like there has been
no systematic evolution or change in the way
in which like English football and England, it
plays. It makes the league kind of exciting sometimes.
But anyway, I know I'm taking this down like
rabbit holes. I just want to quash this idea
that it's bad luck. I think this is a good rabbit
hole because I don't think we're going to get
a better opportunity than this to just slag off
the English establishment. Which is, it needs
to be done because they've held the England national
team and English teams generally backed by their
rigid conservatism and their unwillingness to
appreciate the fact that other countries are
doing it better than us. Way better. And they
always have. And the reason that we're good at
the moment, if you can call us good, and I think,
you know, two finals and a semi is worthy of,
like, you know, it is good by our standards at
least. It's also because we have a series of
talented managers from around Europe who have
come over to the UK and developed... Precisely.
Yeah, and Arsene Wenger changed Arsenal's academy
and its culture and produced, obviously, a lot
of good players. Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola
are two of the greatest managers possibly ever.
Yeah. And that's the reason that we've got these
good technical guys. And yet we still try and
shoehorn them into a fucking traditional English
style of play and wonder why Spain turn up with
some technical ability and some tactical nous
and do the same with Italy. God, it drives me
mad. I would highly recommend for anyone who
is into football history and football tactics.
I would highly recommend Inverting the Pyramid
by Jonathan Wilson. It is the best book on football
I've ever read in my life. It's fantastic. But
one thing from that book which always stood out
to me is that there was analysis done by, I've
forgotten his first name, but a man whose surname
was Reap, that it was into, it's basically statistical
analysis of football. And he worked out that
91 .5 % of moves in the game he studied had three
passes or fewer. and logically took that to mean
that 91 .5 % of all goals would come from moves
with three passes or fewer. However, his analysis,
and I'm sorry, this is very statistically heavy,
but some people might find this interesting.
His analysis also showed that fewer than 80 %
of goals came from moves with three passes or
fewer. Therefore, his own work shows that moves
with three passes or fewer are less effective
than those with four or more. But the top line
was the one that was taken. I mean, these figures
don't even take into account goals scored after
long chains of passes have led to a breakdown
or a corner or something like that. But nevertheless,
it is... I'm just going to quote Jonathan Wilson
entirely. It is frankly horrifying that a philosophy
founded on such a basic misinterpretation of
figures... could have been allowed to become
a cornerstone of English coaching. Anti -intellectualism
is one thing, but faith in wrong -headed pseudo
-intellectualism is far worse. And he's talking
about the long ball game that became the norm
in the English game on the basis of this analysis.
You saw it as recently as the last FA Cup final
when in commentary, Sean Dyche, like... Because
Palace knock it up to Matetu, holds the ball
up and play it out to Munoz and he whips it across
and Eze scores. He's sat there waxing lyrical
about the long ball game because it pays off
very occasionally. And don't get me wrong, there's
a time and a place for switching up your tactics,
but this notion that you should be wedded to
it, it's a self -fulfilling prophecy if you always
look at it after the fact and say, oh, it worked
this time. There's a reason Man City are more
than Palace. It's not because they're both playing
long ball. Obviously, there's other factors,
but tactically speaking. The reason the long
ball game and that type of football went out
of popularity in England, at least in the Premier
League and the Championship, the higher levels
of English football, because it is still more
prevalent the lower you go, is because the Premier
League, obviously... led to more money coming
into the game. More money coming into the game
led to more opportunities to make money through
the Champions League, through European qualification.
And as a result of that, these private companies,
Premier League clubs, started hiring the best
managers for the job, which was Arsene Wenger
and Jose Mourinho and the like that had preceded
them, obviously Klopp and Guardiola and many,
many others. These managers who had a completely
different way of thinking. Anyone who's managed
Chelsea, basically, as well. Yeah, I mean, the
launch list of... Yeah, Ancelotti. They've had
a lot of very good managers for not a whole lot
of success unless Mourinho was in charge. Conte.
Conte, yeah. Who did win a league, to be fair.
And has just won the league again in Italy with
Napoli. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. I dragged us onto
a pummeling England, practically. It needs to
be done. Anyway, just to give everyone who's
not English a laugh, this idea of British -English
superiority was dealt a very heavy blow. Having
rejoined FIFA in 1946, England went to the 1950
World Cup and lost 1 -0 in one of their games
to the United States of America. Yeah, shocking.
Anyway. But you read the press reports on that.
They're blaming individuals. They're blaming
referees. They're blaming poor pitch conditions,
wherever it might be. They're not blaming the
dated tactics and the approach that's being defended
all the way through. It's this notion of we do
it right because it's our game. And this exceptionalism
is just present for everything. I'm going to
get on to why this is relevant to the European
Cup soon, I promise. Go ahead. Anyway, 1948.
In fact, I'm going to do it now. 1948, South
America brought out their own continental competition,
which was called the South American Championship
of Champions, which is an excellent name. Obviously,
that's translated from the Spanish. Is that now
the Copa Libertadores? It's now the Copa Libertadores.
The Copa Libertadores. God, my penultimate...
I really... Anyway, a French journalist at Le
Keep, a sporting newspaper, called Jacques Ferrand,
who, very interestingly, bear in mind this is
1948, only actually died six years ago. He died
in 2019 and he was, I think, 98 years old. So
he became fascinated with the idea and obsessed
with it being replicated in Europe. He had a
colleague named Gabriel Hano, who was a very
influential man in early European Cup football.
They began making inquiries about this becoming
a thing. But it was events in 1953 and 1954 which
saw this accelerate due to, as always, British
exceptionalism pissing the French off, essentially.
Well, fair enough, yeah. Yeah, and I don't blame
them. I actually quite like the fact that the
French have got a long -standing history of doing
these weird things in football as well, like
the Ballon d 'Or. Yeah, so I think they get it
in a way that English authorities don't. I think
the French culture is a bit less... Challenges
the status quo frequently. Yes. shall we say
not concentrated in a small number of individuals
who are all wealthy and have a similar mindset
they love a rebellion or a revolution no matter
how trivial in fact yes they got rid of a lot
of those people in one fell swoop in the late
18th century so So at this time, it wasn't uncommon
for, as I mentioned, teams across Europe to play
high -profile friendlies against opponents from
other countries, these often serving as diplomatic
occasions as well as sporting ones. So after
the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union
became a bit more open about playing these sort
of games. And notably, Arsenal went on a tour
there in 1954, post -Stalin's death, with the
British government very openly questioning the
FA on their choice of touring side. Because Arsenal's
reputation at that point exceeded their ability
at the time. Because they had been the predominant
team in the 1930s. By the 1950s, they weren't
quite as dominant. And perhaps unsurprisingly,
they ended up losing 5 -0 to a Dinero Moscow
team. The Foreign Office was disgusted. They
put out a memo beforehand requesting Arsenal
not to participate too heavily in the pleasantries
that hosts put on for them. Essentially, don't
get drunk on vodka before the match. But even
then, the English papers were quick to blame
Arsenal being sluggish from travelling rather
than worse than their opponents. Basically, Arsenal
were tired and bad. Their opponents weren't good.
It repeats itself every time. The two played
again in England later that year with the result
a closer one. It was 2 -1 to the Russians then.
And this time the papers blamed the referee.
The idea that a foreign team could simply be
better than the English never crossed their mind,
obviously. That's an absurd proposition. Absurd.
Yeah. And now here's the other side of reporting
because the best team in England at that time
in 1954 was Wolverhampton Wanderers. They just
won their first Division 1 title with two more
to follow later in the decade. They had a remarkable
run of success in these foreign friendlies beating
a South African XI wrestling club of Argentina
and Spartak Moscow and then most notably played
Honved of Hungary in a televised game. Honved
had a lot of Hungarian international players
who were the best team in the world at that time.
albeit they had just lost the World Cup final
against West Germany, but were considered unfortunate
to do so. And they had beaten England 6 -3 at
Wembley the previous year, which was probably
the single... Yeah, Ferenc Puskas being the key
player in it, but many other brilliant players
too. That was the single probably biggest blow
to England's feelings of superiority in the history
of football. So in appalling conditions at Molyneux,
Wolverhampton Wanderers' home stadium, Wolves
won 3 -2. And all of a sudden, the English press
cared about the result of these games, praising
Wolves as the champions of the world, lauding
English football as dominant and failing to mention
the fact that the pitch was a quagmire, which
suited Wolves' long ball game and not Honved's
passing game. And there was a couple of dodgy
penalties given as well in that game, which of
course is irrelevant when it's the English team
winning. So headlines went out, Wolves champions
of the world. These reached France. And in France,
two French journalists who have been previously
mentioned saw this. thought it was intolerable
and it provided the last straw. Hanno wrote,
Before we declare that Wolverhampton are invincible,
let them go to Moscow and Budapest. And there
are other internationally renowned clubs, AC
Milan and Real Madrid to name but two, a club
world championship, or at least a European one,
larger, more meaningful and more prestigious
than the Mariposa Cup and more original than
a competition for national teams, should be launched.
They took the idea to the Congress of the newly
formed UEFA in March 1955 and approval was given.
The first tournament, the first ever European
Cup, was planned for the 1955 -1956 season. So
there we go. There is the path from English exceptionalism
to the European Cup starting in 1955 -56. It's
only taken us about 25 minutes to get here. I
mean, can I keep the tone low then and keep whinging?
Do it. I have a bit of an issue with the Champions
League, less so the European Cup as it once was,
but the Champions League. But let's compare it
to the FA Cup. The FA Cup we wax lyrical about
because of its romance and how it gives everyone
a route to the top and how you can get there
if you want to with enough drive, determination,
resource and talent. There is a trophy that can
be won by anybody in the footballing system.
I think the exact opposite is true of European
football. I think it is designed and manipulated
to ensure that a handful of clubs retain stranglehold
over football. I think FIFA is exactly the same
as well, just to throw that in. As in the world
competitions, the World Cup, and this World Club
Cup that's coming up as well. But I digress.
No, it's true. These things are designed to ensure
that certain clubs always have a seat at the
top table and always have a shot at... well,
not just a shot, like basically have almost a
monopoly on winning it, subject to a few anomalies.
Yeah. Not to defend the European Cup, but that
was true from the beginning as well, which I'll
come to, but carry on. Well, no, I was going
to say like the European Cup, like the first
10 years, the 70s, and you'll probably want to
talk about some of these, but like that was dominated
by... um sorry the first 10 years for 55 or whatever
it was through to 65 and then the first half
of the 70s are dominated by basically like five
clubs they like they win all all of the all of
the tournaments but after that yes yeah and after
that you have 13 different winners from the from
the other 21 tournaments before it comes to champions
league so you're getting like a different winner
once every other season essentially with the
with those if you remove those exceptions and
i guess yeah and some Some not well -known winners
as well, quite often, like Red Star Belgrade
winning it. Yes. At a time when Yugoslavia was
going through, shall we say, quite a lot of troubles,
which was a good story. But yeah, anyway, carry
on. No, no. It was in about 1990, I think, 1989
maybe. 1991? Sometime around there. Yeah. It
was, I think it was, oh, was it 1991? When did
Marseille win it? marseille won at 92 93 and
red star beat marseille two years before that
so 1990 91 it would have been red star okay 91
yeah the reason i know that about marseille is
because i want to talk about marseille later
and how they're a bunch of wrong ones but um
please do but like 33 there's been 33 tournaments
of the champions league this is by comparison
154 teams have entered the Champions League and
it's only had 15 winners. That's less than 10
% of the teams that have entered it have ever
won it. And that is not an accident. That is
by design. And one other thing... Go on, sorry.
I was just going to say, I think you can only
really point to a couple of them where it was,
I would say, shock wins, like Porto. Winning
in 2004 was probably a bit of a shock with Jose
Mourinho in charge. And then, I don't know. I
don't think Borussia Dortmund was that much of
a shock when they won it. Or Marseille for that
matter, especially given Marseille's circumstances,
which obviously you'll come to. Other than that,
it's a laundry list of the biggest and best clubs
in Europe. Yeah, no. I can tell you who's won
it. Basically, it's Barcelona, AC Milan, Manchester
United, Inter Milan. Chelsea, Bayern, Real Madrid,
Liverpool, Man City, Borussia Dortmund, Ajax,
Juve and Porto and Marseille. Oh, Ajax maybe.
That was probably a good one. Ajax was a very
young team. They won it in the mid -90s. The
thing that really starts to stink though is that
since the emergence of the oligarch era, You
basically have to either be state -funded, the
richest team in your league, and therefore by
default Europe, or lucky enough to essentially
have... like one of the greatest managers or
best players in like the world's ever seen in
order to in order to win it because since since
2000 i've taken an arbitrary date of like 2005
because chelsea were brought out in 2003 i think
then since then barcelona have won four and they
had the greatest player the world's ever seen
and the greatest manager um the world's ever
seen for three of those several of the greatest
players the world's ever seen actually yeah well
they had one in particular Yeah, so... Xavi and
Iniesta as well. AC Milan won one in that period,
but in the late 2000s, I say late 2000s, mid
to late 2000s, but that AC Milan team was one
of the great footballing teams of Europe and
they haven't won one since that club. So read
into that what you will. Manchester United have
won one and they had a generational manager and
were the richest club in the world at the time.
Or... Yeah, off the back of that wealth, at least.
Into 1 -1, and they have Mourinho. He's one of
the greatest managers of all time. Chelsea have
won two, and they're an oligarch -backed state.
Bayern have won two, richest club in Germany.
Real Madrid have won six. They're just state
-funded. Like, let's get that right. Same with
Barcelona, like, for different reasons. But it
is true. Like, let's just call it what it is.
Like, they're very rich. Nothing's changed. Real
Madrid won the first five in 1956 on to 1960.
And there's a lot of links between them and the
Franco regime at the time. It's obviously a dictator
in Spain at the time. A lot of preferential treatment
being given arguably to Real Madrid over Barcelona,
for example, or Athletic Bilbao, who are these
regional clubs that were calling for more autonomy
for their regions. And obviously, therefore,
very much disliked by the Castilian -supporting
Franco regime, of which Real Madrid were their
biggest, most worldwide brand, essentially. And
stuff like Alfredo Di Stefano, when he was moving
from, I think he was playing in Colombia, but
he's an Argentinian player, moving to Europe
for the first time. Real Madrid and Barcelona
both had separate agreements to sign him. And
they went to FIFA and they arbitrated basically
a sharing system where you'd play for one year
for one team, one year for the next team, until
they could resolve it between themselves. And
apparently the Franco regime put so much pressure
on Barcelona, they just were like, this isn't
worth it, sold up their share. And he went to
Real Madrid. And between him and Ferenc Puskas
as well, ending up at Real Madrid, they were
the best team in Europe by a mile. At that point,
won the first five European Cups. So nothing
changes, really. This is it, right? This is exactly
the point. The politics of some of these clubs
is obviously more complex than me simply saying
that they're owned by a billionaire. But nonetheless,
they have an enormous advantage over their competitors.
And that's the point that I'm trying to articulate.
And then to finish off this list, you've got
Man City, Oligarch. And then, well, not oligarch,
but state oil. And then the only team, to be
fair, that bucks the trend is Liverpool, built
off a longstanding history, but you still needed
a buyout to get there. Yeah. I think that was
a question less of wealth and more of competence
in our owners, but nevertheless. I agree completely.
It's not like Liverpool are a poor team. No,
Liverpool are not. One of the richest clubs in
the world. No, right. That's the only asterisk
that I'm bringing to that table. I think Liverpool
are there on merit. Still won the 2019 Champions
League with a £75 million centre -back and a
£63 million goalkeeper, etc. I'm not saying Liverpool
didn't spend a lot of money to get there. No,
and nor am I trying to diminish the achievement.
I'm just saying that... In order to get to this
top table, you need to have an excellent manager,
which you had, and a very, very strong playing
squad that can normally only be built by very
heavy expenditure. And then if you want to, like,
so this year you've got Inter versus PSG. I want
Inter to win for all of these reasons. Me too.
Because if PSG win it, it's just another oligarch
state, like, run. sorry, a funded side that are
going to go and, everyone's going to claim this
romantic story because they've never won it before.
They've spent as much as Arsenal spent under
Arteta in two and a half years. and and like
that like so arsenal like people taking the piss
obviously and i get it like don't get me wrong
like it's you know part of the the discourse
and it's just normally fun and games and things
but people just like suggesting that arsenal
spent so like crazy amounts of money and like
look at the lack of success or what have you
like arteta's going into his seventh season is
it or his sixth season i can't remember off the
top of my head something like that yeah and he's
you know he's spent x amount uh i think it's
like 650 mil maybe 700 mil which obviously is
a heap of money, don't get me wrong, but it averages
at like 100 million a year. PSG have spent that
in two and a half years and in doing so, we're
replacing Messi, Neymar and Mbappe. It's not
a fair playing field. It's this fairytale they've
reached their first Champions League final having
failed to do so, having spent hundreds and hundreds
of million on Neymar, Messi, Mbappe. Like, it
was only a matter of time. Even all these youngsters
that they've got, like Due and people like that
that they brought in, they spent like 40, 50
million pounds on each one. Like, they are not
a romance story. Like, it's symptomatic of the
problem with this tournament now. The problem
with it is, while a lot of teams have money,
more so than... I think women's football is a
good comparison. Because there's a smaller pool
of players, there ends up to be less dominant
teams, so you end up with Barcelona and Chelsea
and Lyon really dominating. Whereas, at least
the good thing about men's football is that pool
of players is spread more thinly and there are
more rich clubs, so you end up with this almost...
a bit of balance by the fact that they're all
rich, but that just excludes anyone from below
it from realistically having a chance of winning
it. There's not really any chance of anyone from
Scotland or Belgium or even the Netherlands nowadays
having a chance of winning it. Although Ajax
did get very deep in the competition in 2019.
The Spurs to somehow beat them. The only one
-time winners of the Champions League, I'm including
sort of The European Cups as people having already
won one. Otherwise, you'd include Ajax in this
list for that reason. But the only one -time
winners of the Champions League. So the people
that have won their first trophy, Porto won the
European Cup as well. So they've won two. Oh,
did they? Yeah, they won it in the 80s or something.
But this is the point. The only one -time winners
of the Champions League. The only people who
have made their debut victory. in the European
Cup or Champions League, since the Champions
League came into fruition, are Marseille, who
we'll talk about, Chelsea, and Manchester City.
So, like... Yes. So, when people sit there taking
the piss out of sides for, like, not having won
this stuff, they're just... It's willful blindness
to the problem. Willful blindness. Like, you're
only... The irony is you're not serving your
own interests by taking the piss by doing that.
Like... if people really want their club to have
a shot at like the top table and they really
want to experience some of the glory days then
they should really take a look at what the actual
fundamental problem is which is it's a completely
inaccessible tournament now there's lots of good
things about it and we'll talk about some of
those soon but like again like just sorry i know
i'm off on one here but basically in the premier
league era the only um premier league champions
that haven't won the Champions League, Arsenal,
Blackburn and Leicester, right? No other club
has qualified without winning. No other club
who's qualified for the Champions League from
England has ever won it. So like basically anyone
coming in those positions, second, third, fourth
and now fifth this year, who haven't won the
Premier League at some point have ever won the
Champions League. So getting into it's a waste
of time. You're doing it for financial reasons
only. So therefore, if you remove the Oligarchs,
it's only Liverpool and Man United that have
ever actually won it. Because Chelsea and City
are the other two. And those two clubs have obviously
got a very long -standing, rich footballing history
in England and in Europe. And so that makes sense.
Spurs, Villa, Leeds and Newcastle are the other
sides to qualify. And out of the ones that I've
mentioned, so that's Arsenal, Blackburn, Leicester,
Spurs, Villa, Leeds, Newcastle, five of them
have been relegated in England after. after qualifying
for this tournament because it fucking cripples
you. Two of them. Two of them ended up in League
One as well. I think Leicester did as well, didn't
they? Yeah, yeah. I'm not wrong in saying. To
be fair, not after they won the league. That
was before they won the league. So ignore that
comment. But Leeds ended up right in the doldrums
in the third tier of English football and have
built themselves back up a bit and will be in
the Premier League again next season. Yay for
Leeds. And if you think I'm being partisan about
this because I'm an Arsenal fan and it serves
my interest to say other stuff and because I'm
just trying to endorse what Wenger said and this
and the other about like qualifying for the Champions
League being impressive. I think it's absolutely
astonishing that Arsenal and Spurs have been
in this tournament multiple times repeatedly
having not won it and not having had the resources
of some of their competitors. Like I think it's
to their credit. I don't think it's anything
worthy of mockery. I think it's a thing that,
yeah, sure, from a pure sporting perspective,
it's disappointing when you can't go over the
line and you're always looking like, how can
you take the next step? But both of those clubs
in the last 10 years and longer for Arsenal have
been in and out of the Champions League, being
competitive in the Champions League, both made
finals in the Champions League, haven't quite
got over the line. But look what you're up against.
Why is it a surprise? I know. So, I mean, just
to provide some balance here, I'm a Liverpool
fan. There's no competition. I mean, obviously,
the Premier League, First Division, Liverpool
have a proud history of winning, but there's
no competition that Liverpool fans pride themselves
more on than the European Cup slash Champions
League. Won it six times, more than any other
English time, something like fourth on the all
-time list of winners overall. And I agree with
every word you're saying. I think it's a wholly
inaccessible competition. realistically there's
only about 10 clubs any season who win it I would
love to see a team from smaller nation. Porto
winning it from Portugal was fantastic. That's
about the level. Portugal's not a small league.
Portugal's probably about the 7th or 8th biggest
league in Europe, if not higher than that. And
they still needed Mourinho. With three really
good clubs. And they needed Mourinho to do it,
exactly. And a relatively fortuitous final in
the Monaco with their opponents in the final.
Again, a good team with loads of good players
at that point, but not quite the same as playing
Barcelona at that point. Chelsea or Arsenal at
that point who were very strong teams. That's
the one that got away for us I think in all seriousness
because we went out to Chelsea, Wayne Bridge
and then Chelsea got dumped by Monaco and that
was the season that the Arsenal went invincible
so we were good at that point and we should have
probably won that one but yeah. It's absolutely
insane. I was just looking at the stats and it
just started to enrage me more than I thought
it would because I already knew I had my suspicions
about this tournament. But I didn't think that
they would be so emphatically proven to be right
if you just look at the stats. It's no way a
criticism of these leagues when I say teams from
the Romanian league won it in 1986. As we mentioned,
Red Star Belgrade won it in 1991 from Yugoslavia.
Dutch teams won it, PSV Eindhoven in 1988, as
well as Ajax three times in a row in the early
70s, as well as Feyenoord, who won it in 1970
as well, and Celtic winning in 1967. Not a criticism
to these leagues, they have a lot of history
and a lot of good teams, but realistically, can
you see a team from maybe the Netherlands, but
you're not going to see a team from any of the
old Yugoslavian... any of those countries winning
it and you're not going to see a team from Scotland
winning it anytime soon it's just closed ranks
as a competition because of where the money is
and it's it just compared to the FA Cup it doesn't
have that level of romance what's the equivalent
of a Crystal Palace winning it in Europe that
would probably be an Ajax winning it hasn't happened
for 30 years and I only really got close once.
And this leads on to the point that you were
making, mate, earlier when me and you were just
chewing the fat generally like we do outside
of these podcasts. When you were talking about
how the impact of the expansion of this tournament
and how it's only served to fuck people over
even more. It hasn't made the situation better.
Say that to a Spurs fan, to be fair. Well, you
explain why, because I think it's a very good
point. And again, there's been a lot of criticism
about, obviously, Spurs and Manchester United,
their position in the English League. They are
16th and 17th in the English League, bearing
in mind that 18th, 19th and 20th get relegated.
It just so happens that the three teams who got
relegated this season have had very bad seasons.
So there's not really been any risk of Spurs
or Man Utd getting relegated. But nevertheless,
they ended up as the Europa League final and
got a lot of probably fair criticism for the
competition and for... themselves in doing so
the problem I have with the Champions League
continue being expanded it's 36 teams currently
it's in a format where it'd be very easy for
them to expand it further and I thoroughly expect
them to do so it just keeps watering down the
quality of the Europa League for a start making
the Champions League this top tier competition
obviously you've got a bit of control over who
plays who and you end up with these high profile
games where you've got these top teams PSG play
Man City or whatever else in the big group stage
and there's always a game for UEFA to put on
and sell stuff but it makes the Europa League
a worse competition makes the Europa Conference
League an even worse competition still with Chelsea
facing very little competition to reach the final
of that realistically speaking you've lost you've
lost four four teams that would have been in
the Europa League now in the Champions League
for no reason. And they're not just small teams
because you've expanded the qualifications of
the big nations. So you've lost four big teams,
arguably, from going into the Europa League.
You also don't have the third place teams from
the group stage in the Champions League dropping
into the Europa League anymore. So you lose another
eight teams. So you've lost 12 good teams from
the Europa League. And people are like, oh, isn't
it amazing? No, it's not amazing. No. I understand
how much of an old man this makes me sound like
when I say this, but I'm at the point now I believe
the Champions League should be for champions.
I think it would make it a better competition
and it would make the Europa League a better
competition. You should have a Champions League
much smaller. I would say 12 teams, two groups
of six, something like that. made up purely of
people who've won something so i've got no problem
with the europa league winners getting in it
in that context obviously the previous year's
champions league winners getting in it and then
the rest just being champions of their countries
with some of the lower ranked nations having
to qualify for it and if they fail to qualify
for it they then drop out into the europa league
further further strengthening the europa league
i'd also make it so if you come fourth in you
two groups of six or something like that, you'd
still drop then out into the Europa League. Further
strengthening the Europa League and making it
a real achievement to win that and worthy of
its spot in the Champions League. You end up
with a great concentration of teams still. Exactly.
Next season it would be Liverpool in it, it would
be Napoli in it, it would be Bayern Munich in
it, it would be PSG in it, it would be Barcelona
in it, it would be maybe Inter in it if they
win the Champions League. Spurs in it, just to
undermine my point. No, but there's a serious
point to that, which is firstly Spurs wouldn't
be in it if the system that you're saying it
would be in place because they wouldn't have
won the Europa League. But without being sour
about that, even if they had, they would be there
on merit because they would have won a very hard
tournament. Absolute merit. It used to be, mate.
It used to be. And I know you know this. There
used to be three European tournaments. People
make out like the Conference League is like some
novel idea. There used to be the Cup Winners'
Cup, the UEFA Cup and the Champions League or
the European Cup. Cup Winners' Cup, you had to
win your domestic cup to get in it. So everyone
who was in it had won something. The UEFA Cup
was exactly like... For the most part. For the
most part, sure. Unless they won the double.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, yeah. When the
runners -up were getting it. But still, I mean,
you still got to the final. You still got to
the final of a tournament, exactly. And then
your point about the UEFA Cup was true. The UEFA
Cup was really fucking hard to win. Yeah. Arguably
harder than the Champions League because you'd
have two or three teams from England, from Spain,
from Italy in it. And in the Champions League,
the European Cup would just have one team, just
the champions. And then the Champions League
or the European Cup would have been exactly as
you say it is, which is it's really hard to qualify
for because you have to win your domestic trophy.
But if you do win your domestic trophy, then
you get a shot at being considered the best.
Yeah, and it's this other argument that how many
of the teams have won it in the past 30 -odd
years since it became the Champions League have
actually won their league the year before. Chelsea
did it in 2020, Liverpool did it in 2019, 2021,
sorry, for Chelsea. Well, Chelsea didn't win
the Premier League in 2020. Liverpool didn't
win the Premier League in 2018. I'm sure there's
plenty of other teams in that list that were
the same. Real Madrid, one, two, three, four,
five times they've done it. AC Milan twice. Liverpool
twice. Barcelona twice. Chelsea, both of theirs.
Bayern Munich once. But look at the names of
those clubs. That's my point about being exclusivity.
There's nobody that's qualified. Like, Brest
didn't win it this year, did they? For fuck's
sake. The level of bad season that Real Madrid
would have to have to not qualify for the Champions
League is just almost... I mean, almost... The
worst season Real Madrid could realistically
have with the relative strength of them compared
to other teams in Spain is coming third. Maybe
coming fourth if someone like... Athletic Bilbao
had a cracking season. It's just not going to
happen. They'll still qualify for the Champions
League, which always gives them a chance of winning
it because they can focus their resources towards
it. And they've obviously got plenty of resources.
I just find it really disappointing. I just think
that if you really want to dream big and you
want your side to have... chance like you know
winning the major trophies and getting in the
mix then like then then start getting on board
with the argument like put aside your own concerns
that your rivals might go and win this tournament
if it is to be like loosened and start focusing
on the fact that the only way your side is going
to win it is if that happens as well like stop
being so self -serving about it like All football
fans seem to feel so much more comfortable taking
the piss out of their rivals for not having won
something than they are concerned with when their
team's going to go and win something next. The
same argument applies to refereeing decisions
as well. We talk about this all the time. The
Premier League referees aren't going to get any
better whilst fans are more than happy for a
bad decision to go against their rival or a team
that aren't them. overrides the you know actual
benefits it would have to the league as a whole
or to your team in question football fans were
just collectively behind positive change and
things not being about money things about being
sporting you know the ideals of sporting competition
then maybe things would actually change. But
the irony in this as well, though, and this is
the reason it won't change, is because the clubs
that I've just been mentioning, Barcelona, Real
Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Paris
Saint -Germain now in particular, all of these
huge clubs that have a monopoly on this, Chelsea,
they're also the best supported. Yeah, and therefore
the most hated as well. there's always going
to be one or two of them every year who get screwed
over or lose or someone can take their schadenfreude
about not winning but there's always going to
be one that ends up winning it as well and yeah
I think the collective of football fans just
need to This is the thing. These people have
the most influential boardrooms and they have
the biggest fan bases. And so the people who
are in the boardrooms can go into these meetings
where they might have the opportunity to open
this forum up to a wider pool of clubs. And they're
able to fall back on, but look at all these fans
that actually support the current status quo.
And so it's just a circular, self -fulfilling
issue. Meanwhile, whilst your club's in the championship
or whilst it's in the mid -table, like the lower
end of the premier league you don't give a shit
because it's not currently affecting you but
then you're leicester city one year and you qualify
and then you realize you don't have a fucking
hope in hell and you're like really disappointed
about it for a whole 12 months and then you get
relegated three years later and you forget all
about it again it's like imagine if you could
have won that like leicester why couldn't leicester
have won it No reason whatsoever. But they had
a 0 % chance. They had a 0 % chance. And they'll
sit there going, oh, we made the quarterfinals.
We had a great run. We played Atletico Madrid.
All true. Don't get me wrong. Well played you.
Good effort. But you could have actually had
a shot at this tournament if it was actually
accessible. You wouldn't have had to have sold
Riyad Mahrez and N 'Golo Kante. You could have
kept them and said to them, one more year, let's
go for the Champions League. Mate, drives me
insane. Drives me insane. And it all started
with fucking Olympic Marseille. All started with...
Go ahead, talk about Marseille. You've been threatening
to do so. Yeah, well, the reason I've picked
them out to bully them is because I think that
the timing of it is just so ironic. It was the
first... They won the first Champions League
in its newest format. And it was shrouded in
controversy because basically there was a huge
bribery scandal that broke after they won Ligue
1 in 92 -93, which is also this. They also won
the Champions League same year. And in the lead
up to the final where they were playing Milan,
was it Inter or AC? AC. AC, when they were playing.
So they were in the lead up to the final where
they were playing AC. It was a great, great AC
Milan team. With Maldini and co. Yes. They were
playing Valenciennes. I think that's how you
say it. But I said it with a Spanish accent rather
than a French one. And accent is a generous interpretation
of that. I'm mispronouncing it. Everybody probably
knows who they are. They were playing them in
the final. Not the final game of Liga, but like,
oh, it might have been actually. Up to the game
preceding the final, the Champions League final.
But importantly, Marseille still needed to win
that game in order to win Liga. And in the build
up to it, their president who had bought out
Marseille and was a modern day billionaire. So
he was a millionaire back in the relevant time,
I think. you know much of a muchness same very
rich man yes financial power he approached his
captain who knew who previously played for Valenciennes
and told him like you need to make sure that
they don't basically play us properly and they
throw the game and let us win and very long story
short I think about three players are offered
a bribe one of them refused it two of them accepted
it and I I think by extension, influenced some
of their other teammates. And in the game, Marseille
won, I think they won 1 -0 or 2 -0. But anyway,
the upshot of it all is that the referee became
quite suspicious because two of the players for
Valenciennes, who normally give him quite a hard
time, were like not, like we weren't talking
to him at all. and weren't complaining about
decisions. That is suspicious. You know anything
about footballers? Yeah, it's a bit like saying
Roy Keane was really polite to me. That would
be a red flag. And so he was suspicious, but
obviously didn't have any reason to believe that
the game was necessarily being chucked. He just
thought it was odd. And then there was one player
who was running around like a headless chicken
trying to prove a point, who was the guy who
refused the bribe. So he was clearly trying very
hard. Props to that guy. Yeah, he went to his
manager at the time, Boro Primaric, who went
on to be Arsenal's assistant for like six years
or something under Wenger, and told him at halftime
that he'd been offered a bribe and he had refused
it. This then set the wheels in motion. The game
finishes. Marseille win. But obviously the police
then go enter into the Marseille dressing room
at the full time whistle. They're like interviewing
people. I don't know if anyone was arrested on
the day, but it obviously turned into a big breaking
scandal. Marseille win the league, but it remains
under investigation. They then go and play the
Champions League final the following week and
they win 1 -0 and they win the Champions League.
But this thing rumbles on. Investigations become...
more and more intense, more and more forensic.
And the police find like 250 grand in one of
the players' back gardens. The president of Marseille
tries to say that, you know, he offered it to
him as a loan, which, you know, yeah, because
we all keep our loans in our shed. And then it's
essentially proven. against Marseille at a domestic
level. They are relegated. They're stripped of
the title. It gets offered to PSG, who came second.
They refuse it. I think they refused it because
they had a big viewership with Canal +, maybe,
and they were worried about profiteering from
someone else's title. It all stank a little bit.
But basically, there's no official winner of
Ligue 1 in 92 -93 as a result. But the reason
it's interesting is because as the years have
gone by, as these things tend to, More and more
people come out of the woodwork and they start
telling you about suspicious things that happened
when they were playing or goings -on around them
that they became aware of but didn't really have
enough to substantiate. But obviously once Marseille
get convicted, they start coming out of the woodwork.
And Rangers were fucked hard in the group stages
by Marseille. They lost out by a goal going through
to the final. I think it actually is a point
in the end because the goal changes the results.
But Rangers drew with Marseille maybe twice in
that group. I can't remember the precise results.
But anyway, it all came down to the results against
CSKA Moscow. Rangers beat CSKA Moscow and then
drew with them. And CSKA Moscow drew with Marseille
and then lost 6 -0 in the return game against
Marseille. 6 -0. If you look at the results in
the group, mate, they're all like 2 -1, 1 -1,
0 -0. And then CSKA lose 6 -0. And yeah, again,
long story short, there's been basically allegations
that the CSKA Moscow players were bought off
in order for Marseille to get through. And then
in the lead up to the final, so between the Valenciennes
game and the AC Milan final, there were reports
that certain Marseille players were given suspicious
injections to get them through the final. So
there's a doping element. Some vitamin injections,
classic. Yeah, there's a doping element to it.
In inverted commas. There's a bribery element
to it, but not just a bribery element at a domestic
level. There's allegations that it was happening
in the Champions League as well. And just to
sort of complete this circle, you mentioned Red
Star Belgrade. They beat Marseille two years
earlier on penalties and there were allegations
in the lead up to that game that the same president
of Marseille had offered the Red Star players
money to chuck the game so that Marseille could
be European champions. And thankfully, Red Star
said, go fuck yourselves. Which you would in
a European final. You might not in a group stage
match. Exactly. Such as CSKA. Just to speculate.
Nothing to base that on. Just to speculate. I'm
aware, right, that my tone has struck a frustrated
one throughout this episode. And I've spoken
about this competition in a very negative light
for a little while. And I would like to talk
about it positively at some stage. But before
we do make that transition, is there anything...
Do you want to mention Heysel and other aspects
of the Champions League? Refereeing issues? Yeah,
refereeing issues. I'll get into this early,
because early in the competition there was a
few question marks around refereeing of Real
Madrid games for a start, perhaps unsurprisingly.
The 1957 final, Real Madrid -Fiorentina, there
was a penalty apparently awarded to Real Madrid,
where the player who was fouled being both offside
and outside the box when the foul occurred. The
line's been flagged for offside and was ignored
by the referee. Di Stefano scored the penalty.
which is the opening goal in a 2 -0 win. Speculation,
obviously, around political interference by Franco
in that. There's a couple of other... The famous
one that's been doing the rounds recently of
a very, very soft penalty given to Real Madrid
in the 1960 final against Eintracht Frankfurt.
That being said, I think that made the score
4 -0 or 4 -1 or 5 -1 or something at the time
and ended up being 7 -3 to Real Madrid that day.
So I'm not sure it would have necessarily affected
the result, but nevertheless. There was other
controversial refereeing in the competition.
There was a 1965 semi -final Inter Milan versus
Liverpool. Liverpool's first foray into the European
Cup, having won the league in 1964 and, you know,
only promoted just before that under Shankly.
Yeah. So Liverpool were 3 -1 up from the home
leg but lost the second leg 3 -0. Two of the
goals were controversial. The first sort of free
kick goes straight in, allegedly having been
given as indirect. And the second was Liverpool
goalkeeper had a ball in hand. He was bouncing
it, ready to kick it. And he got barged off the
ball and the ball was tapped in, which was even
in the 1960s. That's a foul. That's a foul. But
it was given as a goal. And Liverpool also had
an Ian St John goal disallowed controversially
for offside as well. All that on its own. I mean,
we know what the English press are like. Always
quick to blame. when an English team loses to
defend English honour. But that being said, there's
no smoke without fire in this case because Italo
Alodi, the Inter Milan secretary at the time,
was repeatedly linked to match -fixing scandals
during his career. An Italian match -fixing?
We haven't heard that before. Oh, yes. So Derby
County got to the 1973 semi -final and played
Juventus and that was the away leg in Italy was
marked with controversy there. A quote from...
One of our favourite managers, Brian Clough,
who was Derby manager at the time. I'm not going
to do the accent, although it's a fantastic,
immutable accent, but the lousy stench still
fills my nostrils when I think of the attempts
at corruption. UEFA later carried out some sort
of inquiry, but the truth has remained somewhere,
swept behind the carpet in the corridors of power.
And this is another problem with the Marseille.
I was going to say this as well. I bet UEFA probably,
quote unquote, investigated. and deem there not
to be enough evidence. There's no will for these
governing bodies to actually fight any of this.
We've investigated really thoroughly, but there's
just insufficient evidence on this occasion.
Oh, that's convenient. It's always insufficient
evidence, regardless of the fact that that implies
there was some. There should be no evidence.
I mean, I guess no definitive evidence, I guess
they'd say. As you mentioned, Italy does have
something of a reputation for match -fixing.
The Calciopoli scandal in the 2000s, Juventus
ended up getting relegated for that, although
not as far relegated as they were initially done.
They only went down to Serie B on appeal and
quickly re -established themselves as... dominant
team in Italy after that. Isn't it AC Fiorentina
and someone else got a points deduction as well?
Yeah. So Liverpool ended up, it was 11 years,
no, sorry, 12 years later, Liverpool finally
won a European Cup, 1977, winning their first,
which they followed up with four more until 1984,
in a period where English clubs were completely
dominant in Europe. They won six competitions
in a row, English teams between 19... 1977 and
1982. We have Liverpool winning three of them,
Forest winning two, and Aston Villa winning one.
So yeah, very dominant time for English teams.
And Liverpool won again in 1984. One more refereeing
controversy, because my dad would not forgive
me if I didn't mention this. The 1975 final by
Munich versus Leeds United. The referee was Michel
Kitabdijan. He was a French referee. Just to
put a bit of balance into it, there was some
controversies both ways in the match. Early in
the match, Leeds' Terry Yoroff broke an opponent's
leg but was not sent off. But more importantly
than that, in this case, there was two penalty
appeals for Leeds which were ignored. One for
a handball and one for a foul. Franz Beckenbauer
being involved in both. And then Leeds had a
goal disallowed. Peter Lauren was scored, but
the referee disallowed it after Franz Beckenbauer
spoke to him. And the referee cited passive offside
against Billy Bremner and watched the goal. It
is available. It is nonsense that that goal wasn't
given. And the linesman had not flagged for offside.
The referee just overruled it after Franz Beckenbauer
spoke to him. The match restarted, obviously.
Bayern capitalised and won 2 -0 in the end. And
Leeds fans rioted, unsurprisingly. There was
a lot of poor fan behaviour. Yeah, there was
a lot of poor fan behaviour from English teams
at the time, from English fans at the time. Spurs
had some incidents as well. Manchester United,
I think in 1977, played, I think 1977, sometime
around there, played San Etienne and there was
big crowd trouble around that time as well. So
it was very common for English clubs. Hooliganism
generally. In the 80s, late 70s and the 80s,
it was like at its peak, wasn't it? I would say.
Yeah, so it wasn't a solely English phenomenon,
but English teams were probably slightly disproportionately
punished for it, but also probably slightly deserved
it for being worse than others. The socio -economic
situation in the United Kingdom during the late
70s and early 80s was not exactly a positive
one. No, and again, I don't want to get into
another... I don't think we've got enough time
to go off on another tangent. but the way the
Thatcher government particularly, there was this
concept of the enemy within, which was largely
linked to the miners' strike. So the miners'
strike, which was around a sort of similar time
in the early 80s, that the idea that these working
class people who were against what Britain stood
for and against the direction Britain was moving
in or wherever else, and another sector that
was largely... or heavily put in that category
as well were football fans with the hooliganism
that was going on. Albeit it was obviously a
minority of fans who were making a lot of noise
but all football fans were sort of thrown in
together and it was a political thing by Thatcher.
She was a very, very, very smart politician and
knew probably ahead of her time if you look at
sort of the modern age of divide and conquer
politics or behind her time if you look at the
past age of divide and conquer politics. Whatever
way you look at it, she knew how to divide and
conquer, and football fans were thrown into that
particular mould as well. But anyway, I'm getting
slightly off topic. I'll talk more about that
when we get around probably April next year,
talk about Hillsborough. Made a big impact on
that. But Leeds got banned from Europe for it.
Obviously, there was massive negative media portrayal
of English fans, as you'd expect, and politics
as well. And this all leads to... The darkest
day in the European Cup's history and certainly
probably the most shameful day in Liverpool Football
Club's history. Liverpool have been involved
in two tragic events in the mid to late 80s.
The second one being Hillsborough, which was
simply not the Liverpool fans' fault in any way,
shape or form. I don't care what anyone says
about it. That was a game that was... poorly
policed and no matter what happened afterwards
eventually the truth was found due to a lot of
incredible work by the families I'll get into
that in more detail one day but Heisel was a
very different story for Liverpool it's something
that to the club shame I would say hasn't been
acknowledged enough or certainly wasn't acknowledged
enough until maybe 20 years later when Liverpool
and Juventus next played in 2005 Champions League
when Liverpool made some acknowledgement of it
happening. But 1985, Liverpool, Juventus, European
Cup final. Liverpool at this point had won three
out of the last eight competitions, hadn't ever
lost a European final. still one of the best
teams in, well, were the best team in England
and still one of the best teams in Europe, were
expected probably to win on balance. But they
were playing at Heysel, a stadium which was,
it had already been deemed, it was fundamentally
unsafe. It was fundamentally unsafe. It's a very
interesting case because I don't want to, the
last thing I want to do is sound like I'm making
excuses for Liverpool fans' behaviour that day,
which wasn't good. Obviously, it was very, very
bad. But if you're going to attribute blame for
what happened at Heysel and why those 39 fans
died, I think there's other people that should
certainly be looked at and who were looked at.
The stadium had already been condemned, essentially,
before this final even took place. Arsenal played
in the 1980 Cop Winners' Cup final there against
Valencia. And there were complaints from both
teams, from the Valencia and Arsenal boards,
about the condition of the stadium, about the
way the fans were treated and how unsafe they
felt in the stadium. The Arsenal fans called
it a dump. I think that's being generous. It
was falling apart. Yeah, it was dilapidated,
yeah. Yeah. So before the match, both teams pled
to UEFA to change the venue and it was ignored.
The Liverpool chief executive had written to
UEFA and the Belgian FA and asked them, please,
could we change the venue of this stadium? This
is not safe. And he got ignored, got no response
to his letters. Yeah, so it was in severe disrepair.
The game just should not have been played there.
It shouldn't have been played there. So UEFA
went and inspected the stadium. The inspection
lasted 30 minutes and the venue was not changed.
The placement of fans was questionable, so the
stadium was divided into six blocks. Three of
those blocks were given to Juventus, two of the
blocks were given to Liverpool, and one of the
blocks was given to neutrals, but the reality
was that that block was mostly full of Juventus
fans, or heavily full of Juventus fans, and because
it was deemed a neutral section... The policing
that was present between the Liverpool fans and
the Juventus fans wasn't present between the
Liverpool fans and the neutral fans. And that
had been brought to light by the chief executive
beforehand as well. So the day had been a warm
day in Brussels that day. And a lot of English
fans, the consensus was that European beer was
weaker than English beer. And so those men who
was quaffing pints in Belgium. Sorry, in Belgium?
We well know. Yeah, that is fundamentally inaccurate.
Yeah. So quaffing what they thought was beer,
the strength of sort of mild, like 3 % beer,
which actually turned out to be about 7 % beer
because it's Belgium. And were very, very drunk
as a result. So around 7pm. Fans began throwing
objects over the fence, separating X and Z. Sections
X and Z. Section X was Liverpool fans. Section
Z was the neutral section, which contained largely
Juventus fans. Liverpool fans then charged the
section. And again, I'm not defending the actions
of the fans at all. The Juventus fans fled. Largely
Juventus fans. Juventus and neutral fans as well.
A lot of Belgian fans in there as well. And I
believe one fan from Northern Ireland was killed
as well. So they fled towards a poorly maintained
wall, which crumbled under their pressure and
collapsed upon them, causing the fatal crush
injuries and killing 39 people and hundreds more
were injured. Juventus fans retaliated, as you'd
expect, clashing with police for two hours. The
kick -off was delayed, but authorities decided
to proceed with the match to prevent further
violence. It's always the case, isn't it? Both
teams' captains went out on the pitch to appeal
for calm and eventually... Juventus won 1 -0
via a Michel Platini penalty. The Liverpool players
only learned to the true scale of disaster after
their match. They departed the stadium under
heavy police protection and on the 30th of May,
UEFA observer Gunther Schneider blamed Liverpool
fans solely for the disaster, as you'd expect,
which is fucking disgusting. I cannot abide that,
given everything that happened before the game.
I appreciate a knee -jerk reaction. I appreciate
that would be in the best interests of UEFA to
do so, but to blame it solely on Liverpool fans
after they were warned repeatedly that this was
going to happen and then it happened is disgusting.
So, an investigation found shared culpability
between the fans, Belgian police and UEFA. Belgian
police captain Johan Machu was charged with involuntary
manslaughter. Multiple Liverpool fans were charged
with the same. Many of them acquitted. Many of
them found guilty. Some served proven sentences.
Some had suspended sentences. Stricter rules
were implemented in English football post -Heisel,
which had contributory factors towards Hillsborough
happening three years later. The reaction was
political. It was political more than it was
practical. It was, again, an opportunity to paint
fans as thugs. And, you know, in a sporting sense,
the most notable outcome, obviously insignificant
compared to other aspects, but in a sporting
sense, English clubs were banned from European
competition. For five seasons after that, Liverpool
were banned for six, which had obviously an effect.
Many teams missed out on the opportunity to play
in the European Cup. Arsenal missed a couple
of opportunities to play in Europe. Everton missed
an opportunity because they were champions that
year. and they missed the opportunity to play
in 1985 -1986 when they had a very, very strong
team, including Gary Lineker up front. And after
the UEFA coefficient rules meant that it took
a long time up until the late 90s before England
regained the coefficient points they lost, meaning
other teams then subsequently missed out on European
places that would have got them. So the impact
from a sporting sense was pretty vast. Like 15,
20 -year legacy, wasn't it, really? Yeah. I can't
abide the amount of warnings that were given
and that being UEFA's initial reaction. That's
the thing that really disgusts me. I mean, football
stadiums were unsafe. All of them were unsafe
by modern standards, but some were. particularly
unsafe and Heysel was the chief unsafe stadium
so to speak out of all of them so like yeah it
was a disaster waiting to happen it should have
been anticipated as well like 1984 final Liverpool
were in the final as well in Rome against AS
Roma so effectively an away game for Liverpool
and there was a lot of crowd trouble that day
from both sides and included I think a Liverpool
fan got stabbed by a Roma fan as well. So it
wasn't so much that Liverpool fans were out for
revenge as much as they were... I think the consensus
was that they were going to be on the front foot
and not allow themselves to be put in a weak
position and throw some beer into the mix and
throw a crumbling stadium and it should have
been anticipated. The point for me would be,
yes, well... The Liverpool fans caused obviously
the panic which led to the wall collapsing and
that could happen in any stadium. There could
be unfortunate situations with mass crowd movement
in any stadium, however safe or unsafe it is,
especially when terraces are involved. But if
that had been played in a safe stadium, those
fans wouldn't have died. at least the vast majority
of deaths and injuries would have been avoided.
It's not to forgive the Liverpool fans what they
did, but to say they should have been aware of
their surroundings. They're just two separate
issues, aren't they? They're just two separate
issues. Yeah, I think so. You have a fundamental
safety issue in terms of the integrity of the
building, and then you have a behavioural issue.
And it is not okay to say, if you weren't behaving
badly, the stadium wouldn't have collapsed, because
the stadium shouldn't collapse. In the same way
that it wouldn't be okay for Liverpool fans to
say, well, if the stadium was safer, then our
rioting wouldn't have made a difference. The
point is you don't take one without the other.
You look at it holistically and the building
should have been safe. And they knew it was unsafe.
Yeah. It was institutional failing in UEFA and
the Belgian authorities to not allow the final
to play there. which was unforgivable, and especially
in the light of the comments afterwards. And
yeah, that's all I'm going to say on the matter.
But there's also an institutional failing of
Liverpool Football Club to acknowledge it afterwards.
And Juventus fans in 2005, Liverpool unveiled
a banner basically saying friendship in Italian.
And a lot of Juventus fans just turned their
back on that. I don't blame them. Liverpool as
a football club. had not stepped up to the plate
and apologised and made amends anywhere near
as much as they should have done for platitudes,
doth butter, no parsnips. Exactly. So, yeah,
not a proud day in Liverpool Football Club history,
but there's been a lot of... There have been
a lot of proud days in Liverpool Football's history.
Tragedy chanting and everything like that that
goes along with it is disgusting and it's a whole
separate matter and I'm not going to dive into
that, but... Should we try and be uplifting?
Disappropriation of blame, shall we say. I tell
you what, I can be... Can we pivot from Heysel?
I think we need to go back in time a bit and
talk about one more thing involving an English
club in Europe. And it's not uplifting, but it
leads to something uplifting. And it's a team
that neither of us particularly like, but it's
a wonderful part of it. Well, a terrible part
of English football history, but a wonderful
recovery from that. And that is... Yeah, so as
I mentioned, no English clubs took part in the
first competition. The first English club to
take part in the European Cup was in the 1956
-57 tournament. The 1956 and 1957 league champions,
Manchester United. So they reached the semi -finals,
I think, in 1957, but were knocked out. I think
by Real Madrid? Or was that 1958? Anyway, they
reached the semi -finals, a very good team, but
didn't quite get all the way. 1958 tournament,
they were considered the favourites to win it.
They started at the canter and had advanced to
the quarterfinals and they won their quarterfinal
and were on their way back from their quarterfinal
match where they played the away leg in Belgrade
and they had to stop off in Munich on their way
back. British European Airways Flight 609 crashed
on its third attempt to take off from Munich
Reim Airport in West Germany. The signs, Jesus
Christ. Killing 23 people on board, including
multiple Manchester United players, officials,
journalists. 21 people survived the crash, some
of whom were seriously injured, some of whom
never played again. Due to being seriously injured,
Harry Gregg, goalkeeper, was a hero that day.
Rescued many people from... the from the wreckage
saved a lot of lives the takeoff attempt so it
was the third attempt to take off two attempts
were aborted due to engine boost surging The
third attempt was made despite the weather worsening
to that point. Snowfall caused slush to form
at the end of the runway, which when the plane's
wheels hit, it slowed it, prevented reaching
takeoff speed, but also prevented, obviously,
they were over a safe speed to stop. Just look
at the photos of the weather conditions and ask
yourself, would you try and take off a commercial
airliner in those conditions? The answer is just
no. So the initial investigations blamed the...
Captain James Fane, I'm not saying he's not to
blame for this in any way, but it wasn't his
fault entirely. He was originally blamed for
failing to de -ice the wings. But a later inquiry
cleared Fane, concluding the crash was due to
runway slush, which it should have been the air
traffic controllers who reported that. I was
going to say, air traffic controllers decide
who takes off and who doesn't, don't they? Exactly,
yeah. And a captain could make a decision, but
maybe I was harsh, attributing some blame to
him, but ultimately he's in charge of those on
board. I'm sure some of his judgment was contributory,
like maybe attempting it a second and a third
time, but people don't have to be culpable to
acknowledge that something went wrong. Survivors
included. Matt Busby, who was severely injured,
but later went on to rebuild the team. Bill Fuchs
and Bobby Charlton were also survivors of that.
Unfortunately, many, many players lost their
lives, the most notable of which being Duncan
Edwards, who survived the crash, but died a few
weeks later. Oh, a few days later, later anyway.
Two weeks later, 15 days. Was it two weeks? Yeah,
thank you. Obviously superlatives are easy to
come by when someone has lost their lives especially
in tragic circumstances but the consensus is
and I think this is a fair consensus from the
depth and the range it comes from that Duncan
Edwards would have been one of the greatest English
players of all time had he lived long enough
to be so. Was he 21 when he died? 21 and he had
already played 151 times for Manchester United
and scored 20 goals. Yeah. There is a consensus
that thinks as great as Bobby Moore was, as great
a captain as he was, had Duncan Edwards been
alive in 1966, it would have been him captaining
that England team that won the World Cup. I'm
sure his presence would have only strengthened
that team. He would have been 31, so that makes
sense. And again, if you want some... context
of the superlatives or you know what might have
been he had already got 18 caps for England and
scored five times yeah yeah playing seven and
a half sorry yeah yeah Manchester United obviously
with a severely weakened team lost the semi -final
I think that one was the one to Real Madrid but
ten years later Matt Busby rebuilt that team
and rebuilt the team into one of the best teams
in England 10 years later with a new generation
of talent but including survivors Bill Foulkes
and Bobby Charlton at the heart of that team
Manchester United at Wembley Stadium they played
Benfica and they won the European Cup for the
first time in the history the first English club
to win it Celtic had won it the year before being
the first British club to win it but Manchester
United in 1968 were the first English club to
win it, winning 4 -1 against Benfica in their
famous blue kit and bringing home the trophy.
So Matt Busby is a legend. That team, the recovery
afterwards, I hope that's a happy story for us
to probably finish on at this point, but obviously
it's based on a tragedy. I'm skimming through
a lot of it because their success even before
that. how quickly they were able to bounce back
to be. I think they finished runners -up in the
league in 1959 is how quickly they bounced back.
I think Wolves might have won it, but I think
United finished second, which is obviously hugely
impressive and has a lot to do with their manager
and the leadership in that team. So it is, as
much as Manchester United became sort of the
bane in our existence when we were young because
of how good they were under Sir Alex Ferguson,
who I respect more. at my age now than I did
perhaps when I was 13 years old and watching
United win their sixth championship in seven
years or whatever it was at that point give or
take maybe fifth in seven but yeah yeah Busby
was a legend and that team it's a hell of a story
he convinced convince Bobby Charlton to come
back to play because I think Bobby Charlton nearly
retired off the back of the Munich air disaster.
Well, I don't blame him, yeah. And yeah, I think,
I might be, I might be, there might be slightly
dramatized, you know, in time, but I think Bobby
Charlton obviously found that very difficult,
understandably. And... Yeah, his friends have
died. Yeah, yeah. Simple as that. And Busby,
I think. Let alone the PTSD involved. Well, right.
And Survivor's Guilt. Is attributed with having
convinced him to come back to play for United.
I really doubted our ability to pivot from Heysel
to something positive. But you transition from
one disaster to the other. And then seamlessly
articulated how it at least had a... a happy
ending in some ways if a plane crash can. Yeah,
I mean, we've covered a lot here. I wondered
if just before we go, we had any personal favorites
for finals or goals? I have one. Yeah? This may
shock you to know what my favorite final of all
time is. Can I have a wild guess? Have a wild
guess. Istanbul? So Liverpool will find themselves
3 -0 down at half -time, for those of you who
don't know, and I'm sure many of you do, against
just an incredible AC Milan team. This is a team
of... The back four alone, like Maldini, Yapstam,
Nesta, Cafu as a back four, is obscene. I don't
think you can name a better... Other than the
early 90s AC Milan team, which also had Maldini
in it, such was his longevity. Yeah. Seedorf.
Seedorf, yeah. Kakka. Kakka. Shevchenko. Shevchenko.
Inzaghi. Crespo. Did they have Inzaghi at that
point? Maybe on the bench? Did they have Inzaghi?
They definitely had Inzaghi in 2007 because he
scored twice. Who was coach? Ancelotti. It's
just... Yeah, Ancelotti. It was a ridiculous
team. Found themselves 3 -0 up at half -time
and Liverpool dead and buried. I didn't watch
the first half. No. Because if you remember,
we were... We didn't get out. school until late
for various reasons and the second half of that
game I just watched because I literally made
myself watch it because I was like well we might
never be here again and Liverpool scored three
goals in six minutes Steven Gerrard, Vladimir
Smita and then Jebby Alonso penalty rebound and
by 60th minute it was 3 -3 absolutely mad extra
time period including a crazy double save by
Jesse Dudek and then a slightly dodgy penalty
shootout win because Dudek was off his line a
couple of times but never mind I think the winning
penalty save is basically a six yard box by the
time he saves it Perlo's one was the worst he
literally was but regardless if it doesn't get
blown up it's not a foul so yeah Liverpool won
on penalties and I literally was bouncing off
the walls with joy it was a wonderful moment
for me age I was 17 at the time. Yeah, no, that
was... I nearly got through the whole episode
without mentioning that, so thank you, Ben. You're
welcome. How about yourself? Because my team's
never won it. You can burst my bubble if you
want by talking about Gareth Bale. No, so we're
just going to get on to two goals very briefly,
but before we do, just... All of my favorite
finals, even though I've not been happy about
necessarily the winners of the majority of them,
have predominantly been English clubs because
I think they just have been the best finals in
the Champions League era. So grudgingly, United,
98, 99, it was remarkable stuff. Incredible.
Like you, I did not appreciate that at the time,
but I do now. Absolutely insane. I think this
is it. So do you want to explain it? Oh, yeah.
Bayern Munich took the lead in the fifth minute
or something, dominated the entire game, were
just going to win. Sheringham came on in the
70th minute, Solskjaer came on somewhere in the
late 80s, I think, or early 80th minute. And
then basically just fucking pandemonium and United
scored two goals in stoppage time to win. to
win it and come back 2 -1. First one being from
Sheringham with a flick on at a corner and then
Sheringham again with a flick on at a corner
but with Solskjaer at the back post just stabbing
a foot out and lifting it into the roof of the
net and yeah, or as they say, the rest is history
and like that, the scenes. And they did that
without Rukin as well because he got suspended
in the semis. So yeah, yeah. It was a shock.
Insane, insane final. And one of my favourite.
Favorite football quote of all time, which I
didn't appreciate at the time, but I do now,
from Sir Alex Ferguson after that, which was
football, bloody hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
And then I would have picked Liverpool, but I
didn't need to because I knew you would. I also
really enjoyed the 2007 -2008 All -English final,
which was the first All -English final. And the
Terry slip, just because it was... John Terry
didn't. Yeah, because it was funny. Couldn't
happen to a nicer man. It was actually quite
a good final as well. I've only finished 1 -1,
I think, but... But yeah, went to penalties.
Terry had a chance to win it, slipped as it started
raining. And then Anelka missed and United won
their second Champions League. Obviously, I think
it's a third European Cup overall. But yeah,
that wasn't the only all -English final. I was
surprised by how many there had been, actually.
Like Liverpool, Spurs, 18 -19, 20 -21, Chelsea
City as well. Yeah. I also really enjoyed Chelsea's
one at Bayern, just because it was in Bayern's
backyard. Didier Drogba with a big header. Yeah,
I have a big soft spot for Drogba, even though
I didn't really like Chelsea all that much at
the time. I can't not like Drogba. Yeah, it was.
Great player. I mean, I'm whinging about the
oligarchy era, and this is the epitome of that.
But nonetheless, Bayern were at home, and Bayern
were great. took the lead in like the 83rd minute
or something. And everyone thought that was it.
And then Drogba scored a powering header from
a corner right at the end. And then it went to
penalties. But the only other one before we get
into the goals, because I'm chomping at the pit
to mention the goals. Like the other recent final
that was outside of English clubs is that Real
Madrid versus Atletico won in 2013, 2014. And
Ramos equalized in the 93rd minute. And then...
Ramos. Yeah, and then Real just went stratospheric
in extra time and won 4 -1 in the end. Yeah,
Gareth Bale scoring a header, I remember that.
Yeah, so this is the thing. Not his last Champions
League final goal. No, and shall we, just briefly?
There's been two Champions League goals. Let's
start with 2001 because I know you're going to
mention 2001 as well. There are only two. 2002,
sorry. Yeah, there's only two goals that I wanted
to mention because I don't really care about
goals. Like, other than Arsenal goals, I don't
really care about goals in the rest of the stages
of the tournament. Obviously, I could bang on
about Henry in the Bernabeu, in the San Siro,
you know, everywhere because the man's a king.
But Zinedine Zidane. Bay of Leverkusen. Thing
of beauty. Thing of absolute beauty. It's insane.
It's not even a good cross. No. Bounce straight
up in the air. Carlos, was it? Oh no, it was
the hook straight up in the air. Yeah, yeah.
And then... Had an age to watch it down onto
his weaker foot. And he just... I don't even
know how to explain it. It's almost like... It's
like a martial arts move. It's a work of art.
You could hang it in the Louvre, honestly. The
way the leg comes round, just dead straight.
Bang. It's hard to put... So anyone younger who
didn't see Zidane play in his time, it's hard
to put into context how much our generation here
worship him and how much we revere him. I guess
it's similar to Messi and Ronaldo in a sense,
but a bit less in your face as it tends to be
nowadays. Yeah, more of a... Oh, like how would
you explain him? He's a flawed genius, which
therefore immediately endears him to you and
I. But yeah, like a classier operator, more graceful,
more effortless, I would say. He's a magician.
Yeah. Anyway. That goal. You could hear that
in our voices there momentarily, couldn't you?
If you haven't seen that goal, just watch. 2002
Champions League final Zidane goal versus Bayer
Leverkusen it was at Hampden Park in Glasgow
a thing of beauty right on the cusp of half time
bang yeah such a good goal and then the other
one is Bale just because I think this is the
best goal that's ever been scored possibly like
incredibly didn't win the Puskas award that year
which is an award given to the best goal of the
season which is incredible because the goal that
won it and I love Mo Salah Did not deserve to
win that. It should have been Bale. Just a bicycle
kick. It was a game with two goals, one of which
scored by Bale, one scored by Benzema, which
were just horrendous goalkeeping errors. Unforgivable
goalkeeping errors, other than the fact that
he was probably concussed at the time, Karius.
I feel sorry for Karius. He was brilliant at
times that season, but those were two horrible,
horrible, horrible errors. But then the other
goal. Bale's goal was... Worthy of winning anything.
Anything. I don't care what you call the tournament.
I don't care the prestige you give it. If this
goal is scored, it should be the winner. It's
a bicycle kick in the Champions League final.
And again, it's not even a good cross. It's a
better cross than the Zidane one, but it's behind
him. It's fairly flat. It's definitely not a
cross that you look at and think, oh, I'll just
bicycle kick that into the top corner. It is
an absurd goal. Absurd. Yeah, and call this a
bit of English exceptionalism that Bale often
isn't called this as much as he should be, but
in my humble opinion, Gareth Bale is the greatest
British player of all time. Agreed. Perhaps didn't
take advantage of his ability as much as he did,
but it's ridiculous. The amount of Champions
Leagues he won, the goals he scored in the finals,
the amount of goals he scored for Real Madrid
and for Spurs. Yeah, he's... He's incredible.
And what he did for Wales as well. He dragged
Wales to a European Championship semi -final.
That is ludicrous. A tiny, tiny principality
of just a few million people. It's incredible,
honestly. What a player. He is incredible. I
think he's played four Champions Leagues and
I think he's scored in three of the finals. And
it's not even his favourite sport, football,
which is incredible. Wales, golf, Madrid, in
that order. Anyway, I think we need to bring
this to a close because we are going long, but
it's been a good chat. It has been very fun.
For all our whinging, the best thing about the
Champions League is that it pits the best players
against the best players and the quality of the
games never disappoints. It's just a shame that
it's become so elitism. However, elitist, sorry.
If you tune in, then you'll get to... You'll
get to watch PSG versus Inter Milan and support
Inter Milan because of all the reasons we've
said. Hopefully we've persuaded you. I mean,
we haven't had any French listeners yet. We've
had a lot of listeners from around Europe, but
so far none from France. So I think we can get
away with saying that for now. And I guess, where
are we going next week? You can watch the 10th.
Sorry, very quickly. Sorry, Jack, but I know
I asked you there. You can watch Champions League
everywhere. Literally everywhere. It's on YouTube,
isn't it? I don't know. Am I wrong in saying
that? Anyway, regardless, just Google it. I don't
know why we say this. Google's a thing. Next
week, we are at the NBA finals, so basketball,
which is, honestly, we're going to do our best,
but it's not our... Of all the American sports,
it is comfortably the one that I am least knowledgeable
on. that I frankly enjoy the least unless it's
a tight game late on where it frankly becomes
the best sport that maybe even in the world or
one of the best sports can be incredible. But
nevertheless, the NBA finals is what we're previewing
next week. Awesome. Well, I'm looking forward
to that mainly because it gives me an excuse
to talk about MJ. Yeah. Which is fair. Yeah.
Very interesting man. He is. Another floor genius.
That will be a lot of fun. We will do our best.
We've done our best with ice hockey, so I'm sure
we can give you something that will hopefully
keep you engaged. Until then, then. Yeah. Until
then. Ciao. Thanks for the chat. Au revoir. I'll
see you later. Ciao. Au revoir. I see what you're
doing. Clever. Yeah. See you in a bit then, mate.
Tschüss. Because it's in Germany. Bye. Bye. Thank
you again for listening to and supporting the
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