Home European cup final tickets | History | Gallery | Contact
GALLERY '60 / 1960 Decade / 1963 European cup final tickets
1963
European Cup Final (London)
AC Milan 2 vs. Benfica 1
AC Milan: Ghezzi, David, Maldini (capt), Benitez, Trebbi, Dino Sani,
Trapattoni, Pivatelli, Altafini, Rivera, Mora
Scorer: Altafini
2
Benfica: Pereira, Cavem, Raul, Cruz, Humberto, Coluna (capt), Jose Augusto,
Santana, Torres, Eusebio, Simoes
Scorer: Eusebio
The
1962/63 competition began with one of the biggest
shocks in European Cup history.
Up against the Belgian champions Anderlecht, the great Real Madrid
could only achieve a 3-3 draw at the Bernabeu Stadium which saw them
booed by their own supporters. Real were then beaten by the only goal
scored by Jef Jurion hitting a thunderbolt shot into the back of the
Real net with just five minutes of the return match in Brussels
remaining and were eliminated to the amazement of football lovers
around Europe. With the previous season’s finalists surprisingly
knocked out at the first hurdle, the football world cast their eyes
over the other results to pick out the teams most likely challenge
Benfica as they attempted to win their third successive title.
The
scoring feats of AC
Milan, 14-0 aggregate winners over Union Luxembourg with Jose Altafini
scoring eight times, and Ipswich Town, who racked up a 14-1 total
against Floriana of Malta with Ray Crawford netting on seven
occasions, certainly caught the eye, but the result that stood out
even against those two score lines came in the tie between Scotland’s
Dundee and the German champions of FC Koln. The first game came at
Dens Park where Dundee were 3-0 up within twelve minutes. Soon after
that, the visiting goalkeeper was injured in a clash with striker
Alan Cousin, but he played on until the interval, by which time
Dundee had scored two more. The goalkeeper was taken off at
half-time, but the goals kept coming with the game finishing 8-1. The
tie appeared to be well out of Koln’s grasp, but the Germans hit
back in the second match. Early in the game, the Dundee goalkeeper
received a kick to the head which meant he was only able to play out
on the wing while Andy Penman, one of the goal scorers in the first
game, went in goal. The stand-in goalkeeper played well enough, but
by the hour mark he had let in four goals. Penman then had to face a
Koln penalty, but fortunately for him and the Scottish champions, the
spot kick was missed and the scoring ended, but had that penalty been
scored, the greatest comeback in European Cup history may well have
been on the cards.
Following their goal scoring exploits in
the first round, the meeting of AC Milan and Ipswich
Town in the second round promised a feast of attacking football. The tie
pitched together two teams from different ends of the footballing
scale. Ipswich were a small provincial club who had surprised English
football by winning the championship in their first season following
promotion from the second division. Under the stewardship of a young
manager by the name of Alf Ramsey they would proceed to struggle in
their league campaign as reigning champions, but held out high hopes
of a good run in their first ever European venture. Milan, on the
other hand, were one of the giants of Italian football with a rich
history of success. Four time Italian champions in the 1950’s and
European Cup finalists in 1958, they had enough money and allure to
be able to attract the top players from around Italy, like the young
and exciting Gianni Rivera, and from around the rest of the world,
such as Jose Altafini and Dino Sani from Brazil. Now they were
determined to go one better than they had five years earlier.
In
the end it was the Italians that seized the initiative in the tie and
never let it go. Ipswich were quickly undone by the aerial power of
Paolo Barison who headed two goals within the first quarter of an
hour in Milan, and a second half strike from Brazilian Dino Sani gave
the Italian champions a healthy 3-0 first leg lead. When Barison
struck again at Portman Road, the contest was effectively over,
despite Ipswich coming back to win the second leg 2-1.
Following
a 1-1 draw in Sweden, Benfica began their campaign with a 5-1 win
over Norrkoping in Lisbon with Eusebio claiming a hat trick, but
their local rivals and reigning Portuguese champions Sporting Lisbon
were beaten 4-2 on aggregate by a Dundee side that was forcing the
fancied teams in the competition to sit up and take notice of them.
Elsewhere there was great excitement in Holland where Feyenoord of
Rotterdam took on former semi-finalists Vasas Budapest. After the
teams had played out two draws, a replay took place in the Belgian
city of Antwerp. It was estimated that 30,000 Feyenoord fans
travelled to the game and legend has it that there was a traffic jam
from the Dutch-Belgian border all the way to the stadium. A single
Rinus Benaars goal that took the Dutchmen through to the last eight
undoubtedly made the trip worthwhile.
The quarter finals saw
two sides issue statements of intent to the rest of the field.
Despite going behind early on in Istanbul, goals from Mora, Barison
and Jose Altafini gave Milan a 3-1 win over Galatasaray, and their
progression to the semi-finals was confirmed with a 5-0 win in Italy
which saw Altafini score another three. Meanwhile, the meeting
between Anderlecht, and the prolific Dundee promised to be the tie of
the round. Following their win against Real and second round success
against CDNA Sofia, the Belgians were now considered one of the
favourites for the trophy, but they were brushed aside by the Scots
in the same way that Koln and Sporting Lisbon had been in the
previous rounds. A first minute goal in Brussels from Alan Gilzean
for Dundee set the tone for the tie and by the end of the first leg
the Scots found themselves with an almost unassailable 4-1 first leg
lead. With a 2-1 victory at Dens Park, Dundee completed a 6-2
aggregate score line that now forced the whole of Europe to take them
seriously as realistic contenders. The other two quarter finals were
much closer affairs with 2-1 aggregate wins being enough to see
Feyenoord squeeze past Stade de Reims, and for Benfica to knock out
Dukla Prague.
Following Benfica’s successful defence of the
European Cup after their win over Real Madrid in Amsterdam, the
architect of their double European triumph, Bela Gutmann, announced
that he would be leaving to manage Penarol in Uruguay. In his place,
Benfica appointed the Chilean Fernando Riera who had led his national
team to third place in the 1962 World Cup. Riera had re-introduced a
4-2-4 system in place of Gutmann’s preferred ‘WM’ formation,
but this had been met with disapproval from some of the clubs
supporters as it resulted in a less attacking game as exemplified by
the 0-0 draw that Benfica gained in their semi-final first leg away
to Feyenoord. Before the return in Lisbon, two ships, the Groote Beer
and the Waterman, arrived with thousands of Feyenoord supporters on
board, determined to see the first Dutch side to reach a European Cup
semi-final. Unfortunately for them, their side were no match for the
reigning champions as they were beaten 3-1, thanks to goals from
Eusebio, Jose Augusto and Santana.
In the second semi-final,
Dundee and AC Milan were to fight it out for the right to take on the
holders at Wembley Stadium. Under the management of Nereo Rocco, the
Italians had a team of strong defenders and brilliant ballplayers.
The lone survivor from the 1958 team that ran Real Madrid so close in
the final was Cesare Maldini at centre half. He was now joined by the
likes of the tough Mario David and the energetic Giovanni Trapattoni.
Ahead of them was Gianni Rivera, the 19 year old wonder boy of
Italian football who provided the supply for the Brazilian goal
scorers Dino Sani and Jose Altafini. Dundee, on the other hand, had
many fewer stars, but had been turned by manager Bob Shankly into a
side capable of finishing ahead of Celtic and Rangers in the Scottish
League and knocking out some of the biggest names in Europe. Much of
this was down to the forward pairing of Alan Cousin and Alan Gilzean
who had already scored eleven goals between them in six European
games.
The crucial period of the semi-final turned out to be
the second half in Milan. With the teams tied at 1-1 at half-time in
the first leg thanks to an early Sani goal and an equaliser from
Cousin, Milan hit the net four times after the interval, with Barison
and Mora both scoring twice. Dundee had performed many heroics over
the course of their European campaign, but a 5-1 deficit was always
going to prove one mountain too high and, although they did get the
consolation of a 1-0 win in the second leg, it was Milan who
progressed through to the final.
And so to the
first ever European Cup Final to not involve a Spanish club as Benfica of Portugal took on Milan of Italy. Wembley Stadium
was the host on a fine May evening on a night when an Italian
teenager burst onto the European scene for the first time. Gianni
Rivera had already made an impact during Milan’s run to the final,
but on this, the biggest stage of all, he reinforced his talent and
lived up to the hype that he had received in Italy. He was the
creative heart of the side, particularly in his understanding with
Altafini ahead of him, and this relationship would prove particularly
fruitful when it most mattered.
When the final got underway,
it was Rivera and his Milan team-mates who controlled the game with
Maldini, David and Trappatoni frustrating the Portuguese forwards,
but Altafini was wasteful in front of goal and failed to build on his
sides possession. Eusebio was finding little joy in the Benfica
attack, but on 19 minutes he got his chance. A pass from Trapattoni
was intercepted by Torres in midfield and when Eusebio was played in,
he pounced to send a low shot onto the corner of the net and give his
side the lead. As Benfica retained their one goal advantage with the
hour mark looming, a third consecutive victory for the Lisbon side
looked very much on the cards, especially when Torres had a good
chance to double their lead, but the opportunity was not taken, and
the Golden Boy was about to make them pay. Rivera was
now finding space in the middle of the pitch and was orchestrating
the midfield. On 58 minutes he found Altafini who swivelled and
scored from 18 yards to bring the two teams level, and then just ten
minutes later he found Altafini again who, despite Benfica’s
appeals for offside, kept his cool to slot home after Pereira had
saved his first effort. In the end, Altafini’s thirteenth and
fourteenth goals of the campaign – setting a new European Cup
record - were enough to deny Benfica a hat-trick of victories, and to
send the European Cup back to Italy for the first time. The Benfica
players, meanwhile, were so dejected in defeat that they were already
making their way back down the tunnel before they realised they had
runners-up medals to collect.
Di Stefano and Eusebio had now
been joined by Rivera as the players who had captured the minds of
European football fans as they guided their teams to European Cup
Final glory, but
would Rivera and Milan be able to retain their crown as Real and
Benfica had done before them?
The giants of European football lay in wait, ready to find out.