The history of the European Cup and UEFA Champions League spans over sixty years of competition, finding winners and runners-up from all over the continent.
Beginnings Early tournaments The first time when champions of two European leagues met was in what was nicknamed the 1895 World Championship, when English champions Sunderland beat Scottish champions Heart of Midlothian 5–3. Ironically, the Sunderland lineup in the 1895 World Championship consisted entirely of Scottish players – Scottish players who moved to England to play professionally in those days were known as the Scotch Professors.
Prior to that, other "Football World Championships" took place, although those were between Scottish and English cup winners, as the respective leagues were not yet established.
Club competitions between teams from European countries trace their origins back as far as 1897, when the Challenge Cup was founded as a competition between clubs from Austria-Hungary that under normal circumstances would not meet in competition. This competition ran until 1911, with its last winners, Wiener Sportclub, retaining the trophy. Simultaneously, English and Scottish clubs competed in the Football World Championship. The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was played for in 1909 and 1911 in Turin, Italy, involving clubs from Italy, Germany, Switzerland and England.
The Challenge Cup is considered to be the forerunner of the first true pan-European club competition, the Mitropa Cup, which came about following the demise of Austria-Hungary after World War I. At that time, the various nations of central Europe were introducing professional leagues. The introduction of an international club tournament was intended to assist the new professional clubs financially. The Mitropa Cup was first played for in 1927.
An early attempt to create a cup for national champion clubs of Europe was made by Swiss club Servette in 1930. The tournament called "Coupe des Nations" was a great success and the champions of the ten major European football nations of the time were invited. The cup was won by Hungarian club Újpest. Despite the great success, the tournament was never organised again, due to financial issues.
Following World War II, the reduced standing of the Mitropa Cup led to the foundation of a new competition, the Latin Cup, for teams from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. This competition was played as a mini-tournament at the end of each season by the league champions from each country. Another tournament was the Coppa Grasshoppers played in 1952 to 1957.
Creation of the European Cup The Campeonato Sudamericano de Campeones, or "South American Championship of Champions", kicked off in 1948 after years of deliberation and organisation and set into motion the antecedent of the Copa Libertadores. French sports journalist Jacques Ferran became fascinated with the 1948 South American idea of a continental club champions league. The UEFA document on the history of the European Cup confirms that Jacques Ferran and Gabriel Hanot, journalists for the French sports newspaper L'Équipe, were the founding fathers of the European Cup. In interviews to the Brazilian sports TV programme Globo Esporte in 2015 and Chilean newspaper El Mercúrio in 2018, Jacques Ferran said that the South American Championship of Champions was the inspiration for the European Cup: "How could Europe, which wanted to be ahead of the rest of the world, not be able to accomplish a competition of the same kind of the South American one? We needed to follow that example."
The summer of 1953 saw Wolverhampton Wanderers play a friendly match against a South African XI to begin a remarkable run of victories over the next months. Wolves played a series of friendlies against foreign opposition such as Racing Club of Argentina, Spartak Moscow of the Soviet Union, among others, before meeting Honvéd of Hungary in a game televised live on the BBC. The Honvéd team included many of the Hungary national team, which was dominating world football at the time. Wolves won the game 3–2, which led their manager Stan Cullis and the British press to proclaim them as "Champions of the World". This was the final spur for Hanot who had long campaigned for a European-wide club tournament to determine who was the best of the continent.
The UEFA Congress of March 1955 saw the proposal raised, with approval given in April of that year, and the kick-off of the first European Cup the following season. However, there would be no Soviet (until 1967) or English teams in the first tournament.
Timeline 1955 to 1960 – Real Madrid's early dominance Real Madrid dominated the first five competitions, with the team led by Ferenc Puskás, Alfredo Di Stéfano, Francisco Gento and José Santamaría winning each of the first five competitions relatively comfortably, while this was the case, several other clubs did offer some resistance during the late 1950s, notably from Stade de Reims of France, who reached two finals and several Italian clubs such as Milan and Fiorentina. Hibernian were the first British club to play in the European Cup, reaching the semi-final of the inaugural tournament in 1955. The English league winners, Chelsea, were denied entry by the Football League's secretary Alan Hardaker, who believed it was in the best interests of English football and football in general for them not to enter.White, p. 103 This era culminated in the famous 1960 European Cup final, at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland, where Real Madrid obliterated Eintracht Frankfurt of West Germany 7–3 in front of BBC and other Eurovision television cameras and a crowd of 127,621. (Hampden Park would go on to achieve the highest attendance for a European club competition match when the European Cup semi-final second leg tie between Celtic and Leeds United was played on 15 April 1970 before a crowd of 136,505. The match was played at Hampden rather than Celtic Park as the huge demand to see the game had been anticipated.)
1961 to 1962 – Benfica success Real Madrid's domination was ended by their biggest domestic rivals, Barcelona, in the first round of the 1960–61 competition, Barça continued on to the final at the Wankdorf Stadion in Bern, where they were defeated (3–2) in a close game by Benfica. This team, captained by the impressive Mário Coluna, were joined by the legendary Eusébio during the following 1961–62 season, where they defended the trophy after beating Real Madrid 5–3 in the final at the Olympisch Stadion in Amsterdam.
1963 to 1965 – Milanese Mastery
Benfica after winning two European Cups would then go on to reach a third successive final in 1963, but lost to Milan, whose city rivals Inter Milan would win the trophy in both 1964 and 1965, defeating Real Madrid and Benfica, respectively, in the process. This Grande Inter period is well remembered in Italy with many at the time expecting the club to match the domination of Real throughout the decade.
1966 – Real Madrid's return Real Madrid, who defeated Inter in the 1966 semi-final, went to win a sixth European Cup with victory against FK Partizan at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, of the 1950s side, only Francisco Gento played in all six winning teams, with this Real Madrid being composed solely of Spanish players – a major contrast to the multicultural teams of five years before.
1967 – Lisbon Lions In 1967, Celtic became the first team in Northern Europe to win the competition, coming back from 1–0 down after a Sandro Mazzola penalty to beat Inter Milan 2–1 in the Estádio Nacional in Lisbon, with goals from Tommy Gemmell and Stevie Chalmers. The team, which became known as the Lisbon Lions, managed by Jock Stein, were unique as they were all born within of Celtic Park in Glasgow.
1968 – The first English team
In 1968, ten years after the Munich air disaster, Manchester United became the first English team to win the competition, defeating Benfica in the final 4–1 after extra time at Wembley Stadium in London. Matt Busby, United's manager at the time of the disaster in Munich, survived life-threatening injuries suffered in the crash and was still at the helm for United, and two other Munich survivors played in the game – Bobby Charlton, who scored two goals in the game, and Bill Foulkes.
1969 – AC Milan again Milan brought another Italian victory in 1969 knocking out the two previous winners en route to the final. The 1969 final was against Ajax, marking the emergence of teams from the Netherlands.
1970 to 1973 – Dutch control In 1970 Feyenoord of Rotterdam were the first Dutch outfit to collect the European Cup after defeating Glasgow Celtic the tournaments only coin toss finalists 2–1 after extra time. However, for the next three years, Ajax and its exponents of "Total Football", including Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens, among others, together with their pioneering tactician and coach Rinus Michels, would more profoundly take European centre stage, dispatching Panathinaikos, Inter Milan and Juventus in successive finals.
1974 to 1976 – Bayern Munich hat-trick The mid-1970s belonged to Bayern Munich. Led by Franz Beckenbauer, and also starring Sepp Maier, Gerd Müller, Uli Hoeneß and Paul Breitner, the German club not only emulated Ajax's trio of victories but was unmistakably inspired by the beacon of "Total Football". In its first final, Bayern triumphed over Atlético Madrid in a replayed match, the first of the two games ending up in a draw following a late equalizer from Hans Georg Schwarzenbeck, the second one resulting in a 4-0 hammering in Brussels. The following year, Leeds United were controversially – some say corruptly – vanquished 2–0 in an ill-tempered affair at the Parc des Princes in Paris. Lastly, Saint-Étienne were downed at Hampden Park in Glasgow in 1976. Bayern would not only win 3 European cups but they also led 5 Bayern Munich players dominant the entire football world in history winning the UEFA Euro 1972, the 1974 World Cup and then finishing first and second at the UEFA Euro 1976 and the 1976 Summer Olympics as Germany. After this golden period, the side slowly declined and would not win the tournament for 25 years. They would however appear in another final in 1982 with three of the mid-seventies title winners in the squad.
1977 to 1984 – The English Reign In 1977 Liverpool beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3–1 in Rome, and then in 1978, became the first British club to win the trophy twice by beating the Belgian champions, Club Brugge at Wembley. Liverpool lost in the first round of the 1979 competition to fellow English side Nottingham Forest, who went on to win the tournament, guided by their manager Brian Clough, as they defeated Swedish side Malmö FF 1–0 in the Munich final. The next year, Forest beat Hamburg at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium by the same scoreline to defend the trophy successfully in 1980 and remain the only side to win the competition more times (twice) than their own domestic league (once). Liverpool returned to the final in 1981 where they picked up their third trophy with a 1–0 win over Real Madrid in Paris.