Revisiting the magic of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
Without doubt, Real Madrid are the greatest European side of all time in terms of trophies won. The Los Blancos have won 10 European Cups/UEFA Champions Leagues and 2 UEFA Cups.
In addition to this, the club knows exactly what it takes to win once a competition reaches its business end – As illustrated by the fact that they have only lost three of the 13 Champions League finals they have been in and are unbeaten in UEFA Cup finals. That is a phenomenal 12-3 record in those two competitions.
But there is one major European trophy that Los Blancos have never won – Indeed, they have lost in the final of this competition on two separate occasions. Scratching your heads as to which tournament I am talking about? The answer is the now defunct UEFA Cup Winners Cup.
Inaugural tournament
The Cup Winners’ Cup was founded in 1960 as a purely knock-out competition involving just the domestic cup winners from various UEFA member nations. At the time of inception, it was second in prestige only to the European Cup.
The only other European competition at the time was the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup which was basically held to promote inter-city trade fairs and involved the clubs from those cities that held those fairs and had no relevance to league positions. The Fairs Cup would eventually be rebranded as the UEFA Cup in 1971, but was still considered inferior to the Cup Winners Cup.
The first edition of the Cup Winners’ Cup was held in 1961 with a lot of national federations unenthusiastic about the competition. Many of UEFA’s member associations did not have domestic cup competitions, and even those who did, considered them to be significantly lower in prestige.
However, the success of the European Cup that was started just five years back and the continuing popularity of the Fairs Cup forced UEFA’s hand and a semi-official pilot tournament was started in the 1960-61 season.
Many domestic cup winners turned down invitations to participate, taking the view that the competition would not be serious enough, including Copa del Rey winners Atletico Madrid and French Cup winners Monaco.
In the end, only 10 teams competed which nevertheless included the FA Cup winners Wolverhampton Wanderers and the DFB Pokal winners Borussia Monchengladbach. Several nations sent the league runners-up to take part.
The competition officially kicked off on 1st August 1960, when Scottish side Rangers took on Ferencvaros and Vorwats Berlin from East Germany entertained Czech side Ruda Hvezda Brno in the preliminary round.
Rangers quickly became favourites for the tournament, especially after an 11-0 demolition of Monchengladbach over two legs in the quarter-finals, which featured an 8-0 drubbing at Ibrox. However, they ran into a strong Fiorentina side in the final and the club from Florence took home the trophy after beating the Glaswegians over two legs.
Luigi Milan’s double would spell the end for Rangers in a 2-0 defeat at Ibrox before La Viola finished off the job with a 2-1 victory at Florence’s Stadio Comunale to become the inaugural champions.