Foreigers play abroad, too

The Champions League is back on the box, spread across umpteen channels and timeslots, but it wasn't always so.  For many years, my only opportunity to watch European clubs in action were in competitive matches against English opposition.

In the Seventies and Eighties, Football League clubs were regulars in the European Cup, UEFA Cup and Cup-Winners-Cup finals which had a fair chance to be snapped up by the BBC or ITV come May or June. Thus my younger self occasionally caught the likes of Bayern Munich, Borussia Moenchengladbach, Anderlecht, Valencia, FC Brugge, Roma or Benfica, featuring stars like Falcao, Beckenbauer, Camacho and Kempes. I probably saw – in black and white – the great Ajax team play Inter Milan in 1972 when Cruyff and co were in a purple patch.

It seems strange to think that Spain’s La Liga or the European Cup (now Champions League) wasn’t always dominated by Real Madrid and Barcelona, nor that Paris St Germain didn’t always win Ligue 1 or Juventus and Bayern Munich had, respectively, Serie A and the Bundesliga in their generously-proportioned back pockets. Real didn’t even hold that humungous hunk of silver at all between 1966 and 1998, and Barca had to wait until 1992 for their very first European Cup triumph.

In the Eighties and Nineties, Italy was the central focus of European club football. Serie A was the richest league on the continent, the prime destination for many of the most celebrated world players, including Brits such as Trevor Francis and Graeme Souness (Sampdoria), Ray Wilkins (Milan), David Platt (various), Ian Rush (Juventus) and, for three injury- and controversy-plagued seasons, Paul Gascoigne (Lazio).

It was when Gazza forsook Spurs for the cultural delights of Rome that Serie A attracted a bigger buzz amongst English football supporters and media alike. Channel 4, never a channel to mix with mainstream sports, took a gamble on broadcasting live matches on Sunday afternoons so we could see what all the fuss was about. I don’t think Dad and I cottoned on at first. However, with the new-fangled Premiership surrendering its soul to Rupert Murdoch’s fledgling Sky, to which we were seriously antipathetic, we found a new home for football after Mum’s roast dinner.

Football Italia altered my impressions of the Italian game in all sorts of ways. I’d previously had it drummed into me that it was dour and defensive, all catenaccio, designed to stifle attacking flair and generate a glut of goalless draws. I soon realised it wasn’t. Italian ‘calcio’ was about more than merely the back-line brilliance of Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Costacurta, Pietro Vierchowod and Giuseppe Bergomi; the Baggios, Francesco Totti, Attilo Lombardo, Alessandro del Piero and imports including Zinedine Zidane (Juve), Gabriel Batistuta (Fiorentina), Zvonomir Boban (Milan) and Marcelo Salas (Lazio) were amongst the forwards on display.

Another stereotype ripped up and chucked on the fire was that it’s always hot and sunny in Italy. It was partly disappointing yet also somewhat heartening to sit in our lounge and watch, say, Parma versus Sampdoria in cold, driving February rain every bit as miserable as our own. Under James Richardson’s presentation, the programme was far more cheery, and Football Italia also ventured outside the stadia for a cultural and culinary break, albeit not without some intelligent humour.

In the end, the fact that Serie A football was not much different from our own Premier League, with its own increasing number of top-notch foreign buys, killed our interest and, with other demands on my time, I stopped watching altogether. There remain, however, memories of AC Milan’s mastery under Fabio Capello in the early 1990s, the highlight being their European Cup success – shown on BBC – in 1994. Several years later I enjoyed reading Tim Parks’ book A Season with Verona which details the experience of following the frailties and fortunes of the Hellas Verona club, reviving images of those games, crowds and banners I’d once watched on Football Italia.

In the early twenty-first century, ITV’s Champions League coverage occasionally deviated from the usual dull preoccupation with Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea to showcase some extraordinary matches. Those Tuesday and Wednesday evening live broadcasts were by no means regular dates for me. Nevertheless, I did tune in to watch Monaco’s breathtaking destruction of a galactico-laden Real Madrid (Ronaldo, Beckham, Zidane, Figo et al) in a 2004 quarter-final to win on away goals. It was also a rare privilege to watch the French side meet the similarly unheralded Porto of Jose Mourinho in the final. I didn’t know who to support so didn’t mind when the Portuguese ran out 3-0 winners.

A year later I was on holiday in Sicily when Liverpool achieved their astonishing comeback against a Milan side which had ripped Gerrard and co so convincingly to shreds in the first half. Perversely unpatriotic as I am, I’d wanted the English team to lose. Our Italian courier told me afterwards that many of her countrymen and women were actually quite pleased Liverpool won on penalties because they hated the corrupt billionaire, far-right politician and Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi. Fair point!

In the last decade, the emphasis has shifted towards Spain as an alternative to the bloated beast that is the EPL. In particular, towards the cult of El Clasico and of Messi v Ronaldo. Even though I now live in a digital-subscribing household, the Sky and BT Sport channels featuring plentiful coverage of Spanish (or indeed French, Dutch and German) club football has been insufficient to lure me (or Angie) away from our domestic appetites of PL, soaps and thrillers.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the genius of Lionel Messi. Quite by chance, one evening in March 2012 my channel-hopping led me to ITV as a backdrop to a tedious session of ironing. They were showing Barcelona’s Champions League fixture against Beyer Leverkusen and pretty soon my domestic god credentials were seriously bruised by the necessity to stop and watch what was unfolding. The champions were rampant. It wasn’t that the German side were atrocious; but whenever Pep Guardiola’s side attacked, they seemed to score. Prompted by Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas, Messi scored five, finishing with such contemptuous ease I had to put the shirts aside and applaud. He couldn’t see me but I didn’t care. That’s how good he was. I had seen Messi with Argentina in the World Cup but here he was in his natural habitat, at the Nou Camp, a bird of paradise in red and blue plumage. I realised what I had been missing the past several years.

Since then, the Champions League has mainly been a battle between Real and Barca, with Atletico Madrid, Bayern, Juve and even Liverpool sneaking onto the top table when the opportunity presented itself. The 2014 final featured a Madrid derby in which Atletico shared equal billing. I fervently hoped they’d thwart Real’s push for La Decima, their much-vaunted tenth title, and it seemed my wish had been granted until Sergio Ramos powered an unstoppable injury-time header. Bale popped up on the far post to put Real ahead and who else but Ronaldo applied the coup de grace.

However impressive Pep’s latest charges, Manchester City, may appear, there’s always a certain appeal in snooping around the obscure fringe channels to spot contests in Barcelona, Breda, Bologna or Beijing, players adorned in exotic purple, green and white stripes or red and white quarters. Football is universal. Wherever the location, the grass is always green, the lines are white, fans sing, chant and wave banners and the emotions of joy, disappointment, indignation and fury are the same everywhere, regardless of local language or dialect. I’ve watched in hotel rooms around Europe, loving the ubiquitous manic Latin “Gooooooooaaaaaallllllllllll” commentary, even Thailand, and seen how TV football unites multinational audiences in many a continental bar. There’s more to the sport than the Premier League. Lots more.

World Cups 1974 and 1978 - Cruyff to Kempes

By June 1974, we were enduring the dying days of monochrome TV. The future was bright, the future was orange, but for the time being, the scintillating Dutch football team I watched at home remained in grey. Like Brazil four years previously, their brand of ‘total football’ rendered colour TV unnecessary; I just enjoyed watching the way they could ping the ball around and score from penalty area flicks or 30-yard screamers.

In the mid-Seventies, European club football was being dominated by Ajax and Bayern Munich, and so Holland and West Germany were amongst the favourites for the ’74 World Cup, especially with the Germans hosting the tournament. Holders Brazil were in transition, although Rivelino’s ‘tache and lethal left foot were present and correct, but still posed a serious threat.

One country conspicuous by its absence was England. They had failed to qualify thanks largely to their inability to convert total domination into victory over Poland at Wembley the previous autumn, one of the most memorable England qualifying fixtures of all time. While the largest home nation was missing, it was left to Scotland to carry UK hopes. I didn’t mind a bit. In fact, I tend to prefer tournaments when England aren’t included. Instead of those dreary reports from the training camp, messages to the fans back home and speculation about so-and-so’s injured knee/calf/metatarsal, the broadcasters can focus on the football. So both 1974 and 1978 provided instead an opportunity to appreciate overseas players.

The Scots certainly didn’t disgrace themselves. Managed by Willie Ormond, and featuring stars including Billy Bremner, David Hay, Joe Jordan, the veteran Denis Law and a young Kenny Dalglish, they conceded just one goal (to Yugoslavia) and were unbeaten. However, even four points and a nil-nil draw with Brazil were not enough to get them through to the second group stage. It all boiled down to how many goals each of the three nations could score against whipping boys Zaire. Yugoslavia slammed nine, Scotland two then, in the decider, Brazil squeaked home with a third. Never mind, the Scots would be back….

As for Zaire, representing an entire continent did them no favours. Indeed, as they prepared to face a Brazil free kick, I remember watching in anticipation of a Rivelino rocket. Instead, I and every other viewer around the world, gasped then laughed as Zaire’s experienced defender Mwepu Ilunga inexplicably broke from his free kick defensive wall to boot the ball miles up the pitch. Huh? That single act of farce surely set back African football by a decade.

Ever since, perhaps even to this day, the lazy journalist or pundit will default to describing African teams as ‘naïve’. Mind you, there are ongoing ignorant attitudes towards other footballing nations, too. The Germans? Disciplined and well-organised (except when they’re not, obviously). Uruguay? Dirty b@stards. Argentina? Divers. Brazil play Samba football, England are brave, France lazy, Italy dull, Holland riven by racial tensions, etc, etc. So tiresome, and so wrong. Decades of watching football have demonstrated that national teams enjoy periods of success and failure, good games and bad, nothing to do with imagined racial characteristics or traditional flaws.

One of the delights of international tourneys is seeing a side upset the status quo, to produce a powerful performance or series of performances that upset all preconceived ideas about them. In ’74, that side was Poland. Yes, the very team that had infuriated England fans with their ‘lucky’ goalkeeper at Wembley several months earlier. In the World Cup finals, they just couldn’t stop winning. Argentina, Italy and, in the 3^rd place playoff, Brazil, all fell to the Poles, for whom Grzorgrz Lato (I still can’t pronounce his first name) and Andrzej Szarmach landed twelve goals between them. The small, balding winger Lato pounced on any mistake, scoring with tap-ins, near-post headers and well-placed shots, Szarmach was more of a central striker while playmaker Kazimierz Deyna pulled the strings. The Poles were shut out only once, in the Group B decider against West Germany, but they’d made a huge impression on world football and this thirteen year-old.

However, it was written in the stars that Holland and West Germany should meet in the final. I definitely watched that one, barely snuggled in my seat when Johan Cruyff was tripped and English referee Jack Taylor awarded the Dutch a penalty before their opponents had even touched the ball. Would any ref dare do the same in 2018?! Well, it was a no-brainer. Taylor evened things up twenty minutes later but inevitably it was that man Muller who slid home a second-half winner for the home side. Franz Beckenbauer finally lifted the World Cup, the first captain to hold the brand new trophy.

However, with all due respect to the winners and Poland, it was the Dutch who won most hearts and who gave us probably the greatest moment in World Cup history which didn’t result in a goal. I’m not sure I watched it live but for subsequent days and weeks, I and my schoolmates would attempt to emulate it. Impossible. We’d just tie our legs in knots and fall over. I’m referring, of course, to the ‘Cruyff Turn’. It seemed to take the stunned Swede several seconds before realising what had happened. Even when shown in ultra-slow motion, I’m still dumbfounded by the mechanics of the move, let alone how it can be executed with such style and grace.

Thanks Johan.

In my opinion, the ’78 tournament in Argentina wasn’t quite as stirring. In contrast to the soundtrack of incessant German horns blaring, I remember vividly the cascades of tickertape blotting out the stadium crowds before most matches. As for the football itself, few teams or actual matches stand out for me.

With the time difference, I don’t suppose I was able to watch many games live and the South American winter ensured there was no hot sunshine glowing from our TV screens. There was also the factor of distaste towards the Fascist military dictatorship which had taken over the host country. I can’t say whether the political regime influenced the outcome but Argentina certainly managed to bend the rules to their maximum advantage. For example, in contrast to other nations, their final group match was delayed so they knew what they needed to do against Peru to qualify. Needing to win by at least four against a good side they racked up six. Funny, that!

England were again absent, having lost out to a so-so Italy in qualifying and, apart from Berti Vogts and goalie Sepp Maier (plus his comically over-sized gloves), the West German champions had a new look about them. They failed to emerge from a Second Round ‘group of death’ after a shock 2-3 defeat to Austria, dismantled by some sublime finishing from Hans Krankl.

The Dutch were again amongst the favourites, but surely hampered by Cruyff’s decision not to attend for personal reasons. Decades later he revealed it was because his family had been literally held to ransom the year before and his priorities had changed as a result. Holland still scored plenty of goals, with Neeskens, Rep and Rensenbrink banging them in. None were better than the thirty-five yard screamer by Arie Haan which whistled past Dino Zoff and took them to the final.

And yet the most famous strike in a Holland game was scored by the opposition. Scotland’s struggles against Iran had left their chance of progress hanging by a thread and nobody gave them a cat’s chance in the final game. Ally’s Army duly came into their own and went ballistic when Archie Gemmill incredibly waltzed through the Dutch defence before nonchalantly slotting home to go two up. They held on to win by 3-1, a classy consolation prize to clutch on the plane home.

Holland sailed on, winning their second round group, and duly met Argentina in the Buenos Aires final. It went to extra time, but the class of striker Mario Kempes and Daniel Passarella’s doughty defence won the day. Yes, it was exciting despite – as I noted in my diary at the time – the Dutch committing 48 fouls. Can that be correct?  Nevertheless I felt for the men in orange, Two consecutive finals, two defeats. Their first golden era was over, and no international silverware to show for it.

So what happened next? My first exposure to a Latin American tournament had been a mixed one and once more I hadn’t missed England. However, there was a legacy for English football. Within weeks, Spurs made what was then an astounding announcement: they had signed the World Cup-winning midfield duo of Ossie Ardiles and Ricardo Villa. Foreigners playing in the Football League? Surely it would never catch on?