6 Forgotton Football Classics
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The Joy of Six: football's forgotten classics
1. 22/11/1995: Real Madrid 0-2 Ajax, Champions League group stages
With their exhilarating speed, fiendish imagination and exquisite technique, Louis van Gaal's young Ajax side of the mid-90s were magnificent to watch. They obliterated Bayern Munich 5-2 with a masterful semi-final performance en route to winning the 1995 Champions League, but on their visit to the Bernabéu the following season they topped even that, dismembering Real with callous force and precision. Not since Hungary's seminal visit to Wembley in 1953 had a major football power been so humiliatingly outclassed on their own patch. Real boasted several special talents themselves (Fernando Redondo, Michel Laudrup, Luis Enrique, Raul ... ) but were lucky to even make it to half-time intact after the Dutch rattled the bar no less than three times (and on one of those occasions, Jari Litmanen's free-kick crossed the line after rebounding downwards off the underside, but the officials failed to award the goal) and Patrick Kluivert had a fine goal harshly disallowed.
Real finally fell behind in the 64th minute, Finidi George slicing them open with a slick through-ball that Litmanen latched on to before drilling under the keeper and in. Eight minutes later they were two up, Kluivert combining niftily with the outstanding Marc Overmars before nudging the ball into the net off the far post. Initially whistled every time they tore forward, Ajax were given a rousing ovation as they swaggered off the pitch at the end, the Spanish crowd expressing their gratitude for the exceptional exhibition of Total Football to which they'd just been treated.
2. 24/04/1991: Red Star Belgrade 2-2 Bayern Munich, European Cup semi-final second leg
In his excellent book, Behind The Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football, Jonathan Wilson writes the following: "For me, the Red Star team of 1991 remains the apogee of football - not the best side I have ever seen but the one that best combined the elements I would most want to see in a team I supported: technical brilliance, fluidity, a capacity for moments of staggering flair, supreme organisation, cynicism and a pervading sense of mental fragility." Seldom were these traits more apparent than in the European Cup semi-final bout with Bayern Munich.
After winning the away leg 2-1 thanks to whirlwind counter-attacking, Red Star seemed set to canter into the final when Sinisa Mihajlovic put them 1-0 up early in the home leg with a trademark long-range free-kick. But then, despite the incredible encouragement of 80,000 berzerkers, they lost their nerve - and Bayern came charging back. Klaus Augenthaler made it 1-1 with a long-distance drive before the superbly named Manfred Bender made it 3-3 on aggregate. Bayern almost snatched a winner in normal time but were denied by a post - and then came the dramatic, farcical finale: in the dying seconds Mihajlovic attempted to pick out Darko Pancev at the back post but underhit his cross; Augenthaler went to whack it clear but instead send the ball spinning backwards towards his own goal - where goalkeeper Raimond Aumann should have caught it comfortably ... but instead palmed it pathetically into the net to trigger bonkers scenes of celebration in the Crvena Zvezda Stadium.
3. 05/05/91: Inter 0-2 Sampdoria, Serie A
Back in the days when Serie A was as exotic, mysterious and inaccessible (it was on BSkyB, average viewing figures: 4) as women's underwear, this was a true classic that dripped operatic intensity and crescendoed unforgettably in the final quarter. As the Sky commentator Martin Tyler eulogised: "In years to come people will say, 'I was here, I was at that game' ... Grown men, hardened football watchers, are scarcely able to turn their eyes to this." It was a title decider in all but name: with four games to go Sampdoria, chasing their first-ever Scudetto, were three points clear of Internazionale when they went to the San Siro. They only realistically needed a draw yet, on the balance of play, they should have lost about 15-3. But with their keeper Gianluca Pagliuca having the game of his life, Sampdoria pulled off the definitive smash-and-grab victory. Just before half-time, and after ceaseless Inter attacking, Jurgen Klinsmann had a splendid goal wrongly disallowed for offside - he was actually played in by Gianluca Vialli - and, moments later, Giuseppe Bergomi and Roberto Mancini were ludicrously sent off for a spat that was less handbags and more lipstick cases.
It was 10-a-side after half-time, yet the game opened up like it was 5-a-side. Inter absolutely battered Sampdoria but, just after Alessandro Bianchi contrived to miss an open goal, Samp stung them on the break, with Beppe Dossena fizzing in his first goal of the season from 20 yards. Then it all went off. Lothar Matthaus, unthinkably, had his penalty saved by Pagliuca, with the rebound hitting his shin and rolling agonisingly wide; Attilio Lombardo hit the post on the break and, in the next wave of the same attack, Vialli's follow-up was miraculously cleared off the line by Andy Brehme. Moments later, it was over: Vialli took a long ball, muscled Ricardo Ferri aside and rounded Walter Zenga to score the 18th goal of a wonderfully redemptive season that washed away his Italia 90 regrets. Inter didn't go quietly, with their fans bombarding Pagliuca with missiles and flares. But when the dust and the smoke settled, Samp had all but clinched the title, and in circumstances they would never forget.
4. 24/04/88: Arsenal 2-3 Luton, Littlewoods Cup final
A sizzlingly hot April afternoon, a classic Wembley match-up: Arsenal v Luton, holder v underdog. Arsenal were prohibitive favourites, and rightly so, for this was the team of Adams, Winterburn, Rocastle, Thomas, Davis and Smith; the team that would go on to win the League at Anfield in 1989. Even when Brian Stein put Luton ahead, Arsenal pressed with the confidence of victors. They hit the post, twice. They missed a hatful of chances. And they came up against Andy Dibble - usually so nervy and jittery - who, for one day only, became Billy the Fish.
Finally, however, Arsenal's pressure seemed to tell. On 72 minutes, Martin Hayes equalised. On 76 minutes, they went 2-1 ahead when Dibble dived to avoid Alan Smith's straight shot. Moments later, David Rocastle won a dubious penalty. Winterburn stepped up ... and Dibble saved! Luton, who had sported the bedraggled look of a down-and-out, renewed the fight. With eight minutes left, Gus Caesar was comically caught in possession, and Stein set up Danny Wilson for the equaliser. Then, in the very last minute, Ashley Grimes' curled in a sublime cross, Stein steered it past John Lukic, and Luton were League Cup winners - their first trophy in 103 years. Undoubtedly the best Wembley final of the last 25 years.
5. 19/04/89: Milan 5-0 Real Madrid, European Cup semi-final, second leg
Behind every great Milan side, it seems, is an era-defining victory over a Spanish superpower. Just as Fabio Capello's cosmopolitan mid-90s collective trounced Barcelona in the 1994 Champions League final, so Arrigo Sacchi's ancestors smashed Real Madrid 5-0 in the 1989 semi-final. This was a top-shelf Real side - in the middle of a run of five consecutive titles, and with a devastating attacking unit of Bernd Schuster, Martin Vazquez, Michel, Hugo Sanchez and Emilio Butragueno (the following season they would score a La Liga record 107 goals). Yet they were obliterated, five down inside an hour and lucky that Milan spent the last half hour savouring the moment.
Fittingly, given the English template that Sacchi had used to revolutionise Italian football, most of the goals had a strong English flavour, with three from crosses and another that was thrillingly route-one. Carlo Ancelotti scored the first, zig-zagging past two in midfield before lashing a 25-yarder through Paco Buyo's feeble flap, and seven minutes Frank Rijkaard rammed in a header from Mauro Tassotti's cross after Madrid were caught short at a short corner. Ruud Gullit made it three on half-time, leaping majestically to head in Roberto Donadoni's inviting cross, and just after the break he knocked down Rijkaard's long pass for Marco Van Basten to thrash in the fourth. Madrid's woe was complete when, from another short corner, Donadoni's near-post drive sneaked past the miserable Buyo. Milan added four more against Steaua Bucharest in an equally one-sided final, but it was here that they made their formal, undeniable application for greatness.
6. 23/08/93: Aston Villa 1-2 Man Utd, Premiership
The first epic contest of the Premiership era came at the start of the second season, when the defending champions United visited the runners-up, an experienced, chastened Villa. There was something in the Birmingham air that night, because both sides went at each other from the start: it was as if, not unlike the film Speed, the players had been told that the stadium would explode if the pace of the contest dropped below 100mph. Lee Sharpe, a Villa fan, put United ahead early on after a lovely give-and-go between Ryan Giggs and Paul Ince, then in his snarling, box-to-box pomp, but Villa equalised on the stroke of half-time when Dalian Atkinson outpaced, erm, Steve Bruce before thrashing a drive through Peter Schmeichel's hands at the near post.
Villa came out flying after the break: Dean Saunders' hooked volley was wonderfully saved by Schmeichel and, when the resulting corner was cleared, Kevin Richardson larruped a glorious half-volley off the face of a post. United were shaken, but Ince slowly, surely reasserted control, an arm-wrestler moving almost incrementally into a position of control. His long pass enabled Giggs to hit the post, then Andrei Kanchelskis's daisy-cutter was clawed out by Nigel Spink. Finally, in the 74th minute, Ince guillotined Villa's defence with a long, straight through pass, and Sharpe coolly sidefooted in his second.
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http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/20...lls_forgo.html
Some great games there. Spain - Yugoslavia was especially brilliant. In fact, Euro 2000 was a majestic tournament. France, Portugal & Holland all had outstanding teams. Hagis last hurrah for Romania too. Just a shame every tournament since has been gash.
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13-06-2007, 10:34 AM
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