5 clubs you did not know were European club champions
This year’s UEFA Champions League has kicked off with a fair bit of upsets in the group stages, with Arsenal losing both of their matches whereas both Manchester clubs and Chelsea have lost once – but when it comes to the determining the winners of the whole thing, the competition has been notorious for its lack of unpredictability in recent years.The last time a true outsider won the competition was in 2004 when Porto took the honours. However, as time goes by and heavyweights turn into minnows (remember Nottingham Forest), the Champions League winners list shows the names of a number of clubs that will have you scratching your heads as to how they managed to win the competition in the first place.Fans outside the United Kingdom might not remember that Scottish Champions Celtic were the first British side to win the competition. Bu the side from Glasgow did not even make it to this year’s competition, beaten in the qualifiers by lowly Maribor.Here is a list of the five clubs who, going by their current stature in the game, you would never have expected to have been European Champions.
#5 Feyenoord - 1970
Football fans fondly remember the glory days of ‘Totaalvoetbal’, pioneered by Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam. Ajax would win three straight European Cups from 1971-73, but a year before the Amsterdam side embarked on their legendary run, it would be their bitter rivals Feyenoord of Rotterdam that would make history as the first club from the Netherlands to win the European crown.
Coached by the legendary Austrian Ernst Happel and spurred on by Swedish forward Ove Kindvaal who would score seven goals in the competition, Feyenoord made their intentions clear with a 16-2 destruction of K R Reykjavik over two legs in the opening round of the 1970 edition of the tournament.
The Dutch side would show a lot of character along the way, twice coming back from first leg deficits to eliminate A.C.Milan and Vorwarts Berlin in the following rounds. Legia Warsaw would be dispatched in the semifinals to set up a meeting with Jock Stein’s Celtic, who had just won a remarkable ‘Quadruple’ three years earlier.
The final at San Siro almost never took place due to strikes in Italy, but the Italian FA caved under pressure from UEFA and the match went ahead. Celtic drew first blood when Tommy Gemmel struck in the 30th minute. But Feyenoord’s reply was swift – centreback Rinus Israel slotted in the equaliser two minutes later.
The game would proceed into extra time which would see Kindvaal capitalising on a misjudged header from Celtic captain Billy McNeill to score past a helpless Evan Williams to give De Trots van Zuid their first continental crown.
Feyenoord would capture that year’s Intercontinental Cup as well, seeing off Estudiantes 3-2 over two legs to earn the title of the best club in the world. They would capture the UEFA Cup on two further occasions, but haven’t played in the group stages of the Champions League since the 2003 season.