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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.
#4 Hamburg - 1983
Younger football fans might be forgiven for thinking that Hamburger SV is one of the minnows of German football. The side barely retained its place in the Bundesliga in 2014 after an away goals victory over second division side Greuther Furth in a playoff. However, Die Rothosen were once the powerhouses of Germany.
They have won 11 domestic honours and are the only side to have never been relegated from the German Top Division post World War 1 – and a formidable presence in Europe, having won the European Cup,Cup Winners’ Cup and the Intertoto Cup.
The biggest of the lot was the 1983 European Cup final victory in Athens against Michel Platini’s Juventus. Hamburg had, in fact, reached the final four years previously where they would lose to Nottingham Forest.
But the 1983 side, coached once again by that wily Ernst Happel, were determined to make history this time and had been on a 36 match unbeaten in the Bundesliga. However, they needed a late goal to see off Real Sociedad at home in the semifinals and The Old Lady were at the top of their game, with the duo of Platini and World cup winner Paolo Rossi combining to score 11 goals in 8 games for the Italians.
But legendary midfielder Felix Magath stunned Dino Zoff with an eighth-minute strike and the Germans held on to win the match 1-0. It was the first time that a German side other than Bayern Munich had won the title and Ernst Happel went into the record books as the first manager to win the European Cup with two different clubs.
Happel would leave the club in 1987 after guiding the club to a DFB-Pokal; Hamburg would not win another title for 17 years.
#3 Red Star Belgrade - 1991
Red Star Belgrade’s European Cup triumph in 1991 was the last major honour of glory for the former Yugoslavia – the country was later devastated by civil war. On 29 May 1991, the legendary Crvena beli side that comprised of Robert Prosinecki, Dejan Savicevic, Sinisa Mihajilovic and European Golden boot winner Darko Pancev beat Olympique Marseille at the Stadio San Nicola on penalty kicks to be crowned champions of Europe.
The club had, in fact, started a five-year plan in 1987 with the European Cup in mind and the Yugoslavian champions had already scored 18 goals in 8 games in the 1991 competition before the final. Grasshoppers, Rangers, Dynamo Dresden and Bayern Munich all fell before the might of the Eastern Europeans. The team reached Bari a week before the final and the players were isolated in order to focus on the greatest game in Red Star’s history.
Their opponents Marseille, featuring the likes of Jean Tigana and Jean-Pierre Papin, had been even more prolific, scoring 20 times including a 3-0 home leg demolition of A.C.Milan in the quarterfinals. But the final itself turned out to be a tepid affair with both sides playing defensive football.
Unsurprisingly, a penalty shootout ensued and the Yugoslavians calmly slotted home all five of their spot-kicks whereas Manuel Amoros missed the first for Marseille. Fittingly,Pancev would score the winning kick in a season that saw him score 34 times for the club.
This Red Star side broke up soon after,with many players moving to Spain to play club football – but there would be another glorious moment for the champion side as they would become World Champions after a 3-0 demolition of Copa Libertadores winners Colo Colo in the final of the Intercontiental Cup in Tokyo in December.
#2 Steaua Bucharest - 1986
The legendary Steaua Bucharest side of the late eighties was one of the very best teams that Europe had ever seen. Comprised solely of Romanian players, they won five straight Liga 1 titles from 1985-1989, conjuring up a still standing European record of a phenomenal 104 league games unbeaten streak. But the greatest feather in the side’s cap was their amazing victory over hot favourites Barcelona in the final of the European Cup in 1986.
With Club legend Victor Piturca – nicknamed ‘Satan’ because he always dressed in black and even had a car with 666 as its numberplate – firing in five goals, Steaua eliminated Vejle, Honved, Lahiti and Anderlecht en route to the final, but started heavy underdogs against a Barcelona side who had overturned a 3-0 first leg deficit against IFK Gothenburg in the semifinals.
At Sevilla’s Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, the Romanians held off the Catalans for 120 minutes and goalkeeper Helmuth Duckdam saved all four of Barca’s spot kicks in the resultant penalty shootout. Steau also missed their first two, but Marius Lacatus and Gabi Balint ensured that Steaua became the first Eastern European side to taste European glory. Duckdam was dubbed the ‘Hero of Seville’ for his performance.
Steaua’s European exploits would continue when they beat Dynamo Kyiv to win the European Super Cup and finished runners-up to River Plate in the InterContinental Cup. Remarkably, they would reach the final of the European Cup again in 1989, this time in a 4-0 defeat at the hands of A.C.Milan.
#1 Aston Villa - 1982
The club that finished 17th in the English top flight last season and lies in the relegation zone this year. The Birmingham-based club actually won the then European Cup in 1983 one year after winning their seventh (that is two more than Chelsea) and final English crown.
The Villans were managed by the wily Ron Saunders who was in his ninth year at the helm. The Midlanders trounced Icelandic club Valur 7-0 over two legs in the first round and scraped past East German Champions Dynamo Berlin on away goals in the second. But with Villa about to face Dynamo Kyiv in the quarter-finals, Saunders infamously quit the club over a contract dispute.
Up stepped assistant manager Tony Barton. Barton’s Villa got the better of the Ukranians and then saw off Anderlecht by a solo home goal to face European giants Bayern Munich in the final at the Feijenoord Stadium in Rotterdam.
Villa lost their first choice goalkeeper Jimmy Remmer inside the first ten minutes owing to an injury – but it proved to be a blessing in disguise as his replacement Nigel Spink, in only his second game for the side, produced an amazing performance to deny the Bavarians. With 67 minutes on the clock, Peter Withe beat Manfred Muller to give Villa the unlikely lead.
The Bayern side comprising of Rummenigge and Breitner could not find the equaliser and after both sides had a goal each ruled offside in the closing stages, the Villans went on to claim European glory. They would do an encore in the European SuperCup by beating Barcelona 3-1 on aggregate, but missed out on the chance to be crowned World champions when they lost 2-0 to Uruguayan Champions Penarol in the Intercontinental Cup.
The last time Aston Villa were involved in Europe was during the 2010-11 season where they lost to Austrian side Rapid Vienna in the playoff round of the Europa League.
