A History of AC Milan in European Cup Finals. Part Three. 1969, Santiago Bernabéu: Milan 4 Ajax 1

When considering the 1969 European Cup final it would be more instructive to focus upon its legacy than the match itself, in which AC Milan completely outplayed Ajax. I have discussed elsewhere the merits of the Milan side of the 1960s, so it would add little to repeat them here. Rather, what I would like to focus on is the role that this match played in convincing Ajax’s manager, Rinus Michels, to change the system at the club – a change that would lead to the creation of one of the greatest teams the world has ever seen: the Ajax of the early 1970s. As such, whilst looking briefly at the final, the main focus of this piece will be to look at the system that developed in response to Michels’ realisation that his team would have to change their philosophy to be able to compete with teams such as Milan.

We shall begin by looking at how Milan and Ajax had faired prior to the final at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. Following Milan’s last European Cup win, the manager, Nereo Rocco, moved away from the club to take charge of Torino. Until his return to Milan in 1967, the club failed to win any major honours despite coming close to the Scudetto in 1964 and 1965. During this period, Herrera’s Inter achieved domestic and European success, picking up two European Cups in addition to an additional two league titles, thereby securing their legacy at the expense of the Rossoneri in the 60s. Yet coinciding with the return of Rocco was a return to winning. Under El Parón Milan claimed two trophies in 1968: Serie A and the Cup Winners’ Cup (beating Uwe Seeler’s Hamburg 2-0 in the final).

The team had evolved since their 1963 European triumph, with Altafini departing for Napoli and Maldini for Torino, leaving Gianni Rivera to take the captain’s armband. A number of players possessing real quality came into the team, however. Chief amongst these were the German defender Karl-Heinze Schnellinger, and goal-scoring winger Kurt Hamrin (who scored both goals in the Cup Winners’ Cup final). Elsewhere, Fabio (father of Carlo) Cudicini came into the set up in goal, and Sormani and Prati took positions up front. This team was, arguably, stronger than Rocco’s first European Cup-winning side, securing their route to the final by defeating Celtic in the quarter finals and defending champions Manchester United in the semis (knocking out both of the previous winners whilst conceding only one goal over four games). Certainly Rocco thought that the 1969 vintage was superior, claiming: ‘Hamrin, I think, tilts the balance between this team and that one.’

Mr Rocco and his fabulous team

 But Ajax too had a team packed with talented players. They had dominated the Eredivisie in recent years, including a wonderful season in 1966-7 where they scored 122 goals in 34 games. The team was built around one of the greatest players of all time – Johan Cruyff – but he was not alone. Piet Keizer, Wim Suurbier, Barry Hulshoff, Sjaak Swart, and Velibor Vasovic were also in the team that would line up against Milan in the 1969 European Cup final. The match, however, did not do their talent any justice.

Whilst Trapattoni marked Cruyff out of the game, Milan attacked from the outset, hitting the post within the opening minute. Prati headed them into a lead on 8 minutes, and then doubled the lead just before half time. Vasovic scored a penalty on 60 minutes (as he had for Partizan Belgrade against Real Madrid in the 1966 final), but it was of no use. Sormani blasted in from range, but the fourth Milan goal was particularly impressive, as John Foot describes in Calcio:

‘With fifteen minutes to go…Gianni Rivera played a one-two on the halfway line and broke clear towards the Ajax goal. He pushed the ball past the onrushing goalkeeper but out wide to the by-line. Then, in the black and white film, the game appeared to stop. Rivera, like all great players…seemed to be playing in a kind of time capsule. He looked up, waited, changed his mind, moved the ball to his right foot and floated it across to the far post where, seconds earlier, there was just space. Out of nowhere, an attacker rushed forward to meet the ball perfectly with his head. Pierino Prati, the Milan number nine, had begun his run seconds earlier, from 40 yards out. It is difficult to define genius, but Rivera’s pass – and his ability to wait – came close.’[1]

All in all it had been a disaster for Ajax; their naïve attacking football was undone by an organised and stylish Milan. Hulshoff would later admit: ‘We were walking in the shadow of Milan… They were too experienced. We were overwhelmed in every way. In every way they were better.’[2] Yet rather than let this defeat destroy them, Ajax used it as a springboard for a tactical project that would change football forever.

But in order to implement these changes, it was necessary for Michels to make some changes to the playing squad. Out went Nuninga, Danielsson, van Duijvenbode and Groot. In came Gerrie Mühren, Nico Rijnders, and (promoted from the second team) Ruud Krol. Krol, one of the outstanding players in Dutch football, was brought in to replace van Duijvenbode, who, at the time, was Holland’s left back. Michels simply told Krol that he was better. Krol didn’t disappoint. Hulshoff too was briefly dropped, but regained his place after a few matches on the sidelines.

Sjaak attack

It would be an entirely banal point to remark that Cruyff was the most important part of this Ajax team, so instead I will remark on two other players who had a notable impact. Firstly there was Vasovic, the Yugoslavian sweeper who, modestly, claims to have co-created total football with Michels. Neeskens too was essential to the team, aggressively pressing in the midfield to win the ball back from as high up the pitch as possible. Indeed, Vasovic’s ability to step up from defence into midfield, and Neeskens’s determination to win the ball were very important to Ajax’s pressing game, which was more of an offensive than a defensive measure, and was central to the system that Michels would put in place.[3]

In order to take his team to the next level, Michels began to implement what would later be called totaalvoetbal or total football. This system has a theoretical background almost as compelling as its practical implementation. As such we will consider both. An often misunderstood term, total football is not synonymous with attacking football; rather it was a system based around the idea of attacking the ball and playing an aggressive defensive line in order to contract space on the pitch when in possession. There was also a greater emphasis on universality, or the idea that defenders could get involved with attacks, strikers could defend and so on. Perhaps the essence of total football is expressed best by David Winner in his definitive work on Dutch football, Brilliant Orange. Winner reads total football through a number of other Dutch movements, principally architecture. Perhaps the most telling quote that he appropriates comes from Herman Hertzberger: ‘Each form must be interpretable in the sense that it must be capable of taking on different roles. And it can only take on those different roles if the meanings are contained in the essence of the form.’[4] This is not to say that positioning was arbitrary, however. As Hulshoff noted: ‘The team is stronger when they play from their normal positions, so when the positions change it is only temporary and you switch back as quickly as possible.’[5] Indeed the football played at Ajax was so instinctive to them that it became ‘habit football’.[6] The players knew what their team mates were doing and where they needed to be in relation to this. A system where individuals are incorporated as a part of a team has been discussed on this site before.

And yet it was not just universality, but totality that marked total football. As mentioned above, it is the idea of individuality incorporated within a system. It is the idea that the team cannot be considered as a series of individuals, but rather as a series of individuals within a team, the cumulative effect of which is greater than the sum of its parts. Hence the notion of relation was crucial. All players had to understand that they were related, not just individuals acting within a void. In the words of the architect JB Bakema, ‘Man [has become] aware of his being part of a total energy system.’[7] Interestingly, Jonathan Wilson suggests that there is a link between this idea at the heart of total football and secularism (or at least those societies in which secularism is prevalent).[8] However if there is any kind of connection, surely it should be inverted. What total football opposes is a radical individualism and its corollary, the unencumbered self, where freedom is expressed as libertas indifferentiae. Yet this notion of the self is precisely alien to a theistic worldview, in which all people (qua creatures) are related through the medium of creation. The philosopher Charles Taylor speaks of the modern ‘buffered’ self and the earlier ‘porous’ self. ‘The buffered self is essentially the self which is made aware of the possibility of disengagement. And disengagement is frequently carried out in relation to one’s whole surroundings, natural and social. But living in the enchanted, porous world of our ancestors was inherently living socially.’[9] As such the porous self would not only understand its relation to other players, but also to its surroundings: the pitch, the space, the stands. It would seem that it is this notion of the self, rather than the radically disengaged secular self, that would nurture total football. Within this worldview the relationship between people is not arbitrary or violent (like a theory of rights), but is a primordial ethical responsibility. In other words, in a theistic cosmos we genuinely owe something to others. Applying this to Ajax of the 1970s we can see how the notion of real responsibility filtered into the team: players moved to cover their team mates when they were out of position, they pressed as a team to win back the ball for others; their sense of responsibility was not arbitrary, but real.

Furthermore, the notion of relationship was not limited to the playing staff. Under Michels’s successor, Kovac, there was a great degree of player input on management decisions. Kovac did not shy away from letting his players voice their opinions, contributing to tactics and team sheets. Such a relationship where the players were actively involved in decision making led to a degree of tactical and creative flourishing. Indeed, despite a laxness in discipline, the football played under Kovac was arguably superior to that played under Michels. Returning to the similarities between total football and a theistic worldview built around the idea of relation, the notion of the team taking part in decision making, rather than the manager acting autonomously, is somewhat reminiscent of the notion of sobornost’ (conciliarity) inherent to the Russian Orthodox Church. Sobornost’ can be understood as ‘the expression of unity and multiplicity of the spirit of God’s love and unites the individual and collective principles. All human organisations should be modelled on this perfect principle. The individual is free, but only in submitting to a higher authority, as is true even for Christ. According to this principle, everything is and should be a combination of the collective (sobornoe) and the hierarchical.’[10] This explains the Ajax philosophy perfectly: a combination of the collective and the hierarchical. 

"It's a trap!"

These principles can be seen as the basics of total football. Playing in this way, Ajax had a huge impact on the course of Italian football: by defeating Inter and Juventus in the European Cup finals in 1972 and 1973, they did much to end the fashion for negative forms of catenaccio and to prompt a move towards il gioco all’ Italiana. It was fateful that it was AC Milan who, through their complete domination in the 1969 European Cup final, provided encouragement for Ajax to create this brand of football, since the principles subsequently established by this Ajax team would later be adopted (and arguably perfected) by Milan. The next time that the Rossoneri would appear in a European Cup final, two decades later, they would be led by a coach inspired by Ajax and a trio of Dutch stars educated in their country’s footballing tradition.

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[1] John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football (London: Harper Perennial, 2007), p. 158.

[2] David Winner, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football (London: Bloomsbury, 2000) , p. 34.

[3] Jonathan Wilson, Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics (London: Orion, 2008), pp.226-7.

[4] Winner, Brilliant Orange, p. 29.

[5] Ibid., p. 36.

[6] Wilson, Inverting the Pyramid, pp. 227-8.

[7] Ibid., p. 224.

[8] Ibid., p. 224.

[9] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (London: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 41-2.

[10] Christine Evtuhov, The Cross and the Sickle: Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate of Russian Religious Philosophy (New York: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 208.

Trieste and Italy, or how to get blood from a stone

There are places whose first appeal is a pang of pure topography. Properly placed within the creaks and curves of a map, a pinpoint can attain its own self-sufficient gravity, and there are towns and areas that I have a craving to visit for no other reason than that their mere location suggests that they simply must be worth the attention. One of these is Istanbul, heart of Europe even as it seems a never-quite-dormant enemy; another is the Caucasus, a great crush of terrain and fruit squeezed between two temperate seas; or, Patagonia, curling its lip at moderation as it spits fire and ice at the edge of the world. From these examples I can conclude that my personal topographical bent is towards frontier towns and districts (Europe/Asia, land/sea, something/nothing); and not, I like to think, for the bookish grey reasons that such places undermine the patriotic and the essentialist by conflating different identities – a cursory glance at the history and culture of any capital city in the world would necessitate a similar undermining – but because they actively embody something quite separate: nothingness. Scouring a map for these appealing little dots is like cognitive experiment, looking for non-places.

One of my more recent pinpoint infatuations is Trieste (Trst, Triest, Trieszt, Трст), at the very farthest reaches of north-eastern Italy. This really is a place that belongs only nominally within just one nation-state. Looking at it one a map, one thinks: that can’t be in Italy; and of course, it mostly wasn’t. For 536 years, until 1920, this was the prosperous commercial hub of the Habsburg Empire, a Latin-Balkan-Mittel-European folly. Pope Leo XIII even considered moving the seat of his Church to Trieste in order to escape Italian anti-Catholicism. Defined transcendentally by empire, or trade (the name itself derives from the Illyrian Tergeste – ‘this is a market’), or even abortively by religion, Trieste embodies nothing but the liquidity of other defining characteristics.

Triest et néant

Of course, this is the same as saying that it embodies nothing. Jan Morris even wrote a book about this negative capability, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. With affection for the place, she recounts that ‘it offers no unforgettable landmark, no universally familiar melody, no unmistakeable cuisine, hardly a single native name that anybody knows.’ Whilst a little too keenly put, it is true that those cultural figures associated with the town have been somewhat ‘other’: James Joyce, the continent-treading polyglot modernist; Avgust Černigoj, Slovene founder of Yugoslav Constructivism; even Italo Svevo, a true son of the city and accomplished novelist, dedicated most of his life to banking rather than literature, and was killed in a car crash before Italy recognised his gift. When I read Svevo’s masterpiece, Zeno’s Conscience, I was initially left cold by the unadorned, unmoved prose – until I realised that Svevo was writing as a banker would, for and of the bankers of his banking town. Again, the intriguing, sterile scent of nothing.

And yet the non-place so often leaves its mark where landmarks do not. The intertwining of Trieste with the various identities of Italian football is indelible. Indeed, two of the most defining instances of Italy realising itself as a distinct nation through football can be traced back to the Habsburg market. 

For one of the stately names of international football, Italy has had for the most part a comparatively lacklustre record in terms of trophies. Of the four World Cups won, only two (1982 and 2006) came in the modern era; and these were won by unfancied yet determined teams, rather than claimed as their right by undeniable favourites. The impressive figure of four victories, which does place Italy within the international aristocracy, is propped up by two consecutive World Cups in 1934 and 1938, without which their pedigree would be slightly better than Spain’s or France’s and equal to Uruguay’s. It seems hard to value such achievements from the era of fledgling national federations, short knockout tournaments and political upheavals that denied strong teams from competing (Uruguay and the Home Nations in 1934; Spain and Austria in 1938) as profoundly as their later, totalised reimaginings. And yet they are central to Italy’s footballing history. 

That the mythology of Italy as a footballing power solidified in these pre-modern triumphs is perhaps appropriate given that this was also the era of Italian Fascism, a political system built upon a mythology of unity and personal abnegation before the symbolic. Without wishing to equate Italian sporting success with Fascist rhetoric or suggest that those World Cup wins are somehow tainted by their association with the country’s contemporary political status, it seems fair to note the curious parallels of glory and national identity that they evoke. The 1934 Cup was held in Italy and, much like the Berlin Olympics, served as a propaganda exercise for Mussolini. Italy’s top scorer in 1938, the muscular striker Silvio Piola, was lauded by the regime for the way that his physique and subsequent playing style overcame any stereotype of Italian men as weak, fey, oversexualised.

Uncomfortable 1930s imagery

After a comfortable win over Norway in their opening match in 1938, Italy’s route to victory was rugged: France, Brazil, then Hungary in the final. And at this crucial juncture, a Triestan hero stepped from the shadows. Gino Colaussi played on the wing for Triestina for a decade, subverting opposition defences with his awkward dribbles. Born in the Gorizia province as Luigi Colausig, the Slavic and Germanic phonetic blurs of his birthplace and birthname marked him as a true son of the north-east. Yet without him, Italy would not have won the crucial second trophy, on the eve of a World War that would see his hometown become the centre of an East-West Cold War custody battle. He scored in the quarter-final, the semi-final, and then twice in the first half of the final to give his team a 3-1 halftime lead over Hungary, demoralising the Central Europeans and securing for Italy their consecutive triumph. The man whose name needed Italianising was an Italian hero. (His first in that match, incidentally, was an exquisite run and left-footed volley that is almost identical to ‘big-game bottler’ Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s winner against Real Madrid in 2009).

If the Gorizian helped to plant the seeds of the nation’s footballing dynasty, then it was Trieste’s most famous export who arguably more than anyone provided the contours of what is known now as ‘Italian football’. Nereo Rocco was born in the city in 1912. He was the first triestino to play for the national side, making just one 45 minute cameo in 1934. As a manager, he was one of the most important and influential of them all. The first Italian exponent of catenaccio, he guided hometown team Triestina to second place in Serie A in 1948; got Padova promoted into that division, where they finished an incredible third in 1958; and finally, in two stints at A.C. Milan, he won two scudetti, two European Cups, an Intercontinental Cup, a Coppa d’Italia, and a Cup Winners’ Cup.

Rocco’s role in creating a sense of catenaccio as a system and as an Italian ideology, and hence in defining the way in which Italian football is read (and dismissed) to this day is hard to understate. Here were all the ingredients: cynical and efficient defence, gilded with grace and wit in attack – Gianni Rivera and José Altafini both flourished under Rocco. For Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, Giovanni Trapattoni and Gianni Rivera, read Marco Materazzi, Gennaro Gatusso, and Francesco Totti, and you have the spine of Italy’s 2006 World Cup success. Enzo Bearzot, who managed the national team to glory in 1982, was a fellow north-easterner (again, the surname is telling) who played under Rocco at Torino and imbibed his craggy charms. The term catenaccio has become a metonym for Italian football, and as with all such metonyms, it is chronically misunderstood: but at its heart is the stout figure of Rocco, as Triestan in his profession as Svevo was in his. His nickname, El Parón, was in the Friulian dialect with which he peppered his speech and hurled his expletives; he returned to his place of birth as often as possible from Lombardy, his sense of himself too allied to that of the flinty, unforgiving, and beautiful landscape of the Julian Alps and the Adriatic.

Trieste is as Austro-Hungarian and as Yugoslav and as Italian as it is possible for a city to be. Shadows are only ever absences, yet they are still cast. There is an ineluctable logic to their chills and angles. When Rocco’s Milan won the European Cup at Wembley in 1963, their captain was a centre-back that El Parón had imported from Trieste, named Cesare Maldini. Forty years later, again in England, his son lifted the Cup for Milan once more. By the time of Paolo and Shevchenko and above all Berlusconi, the trace of Colaussi and Rocco had grown faint indeed. But the lightest object blocks the strongest light: the meaning of ‘nowhere’, indeed.  

A History of AC Milan in European Cup Finals. Part Two. 1963, Wembley: Milan 2 Benfica 1

Whilst the 1950s saw AC Milan become one of the giants of Italian football, it was the 1960s that saw them make their impact upon the European scene. In this decade they picked up a comparatively paltry two league titles, compared to four in the 50s, in addition to winning their first Copa Italia in 1967. Yet on the 22^nd May 1963 Milan beat Benfica 2-1 at Wembley to become to first Italian team to win the European Cup. This landmark was achieved by a team which contained names that would become legendary in this history of the club, Jose Altafini, Gianni Rivera, Cesare Maldini and Giovanni Trapattoni. Before the decade was out they would claim a second European Cup and a Cup Winner’s Cup. So why, in this period of continental success, were Milan often bested in Serie A? As we will see, it was less a case of their failings and more a case of their rivals’ strengths.

                                                                                                                          

After a near miss in the 1958 European Cup final, the Rossoneri saw out the 50s by winning the 1959 Scudetto. Due to their miserable 9^th place finish the previous year they did not compete in European competition again until the 1959-60 season. This foray into Europe did not go well, as Milan went out in the first round to a wonderful Barcelona team inspired by Luis Suarez (the 1960 European Footballer of the Year and, until recently, unquestionably the greatest player that Spain have produced) and their Hungarian trio: the incomparable Laszlo Kubala (who scored a hat trick at the Camp Nou), Zoltan Czibor and Sandor Kocsis. Yet if this 7-1 aggregate defeat was a humbling experience, it was no less embarrassing than their next foray into Europe in the 1961-62 season, where they were eliminated from the European Inter-Cities Fairs Cup by Yugoslavian side FK Vojvodina (who would reach the quarter finals of the European Cup in 1967, only to be knocked-out be eventual champions Celtic).

                                                                                                        

Milan’s less frequent appearance in the European Cup throughout the 60s reflected a period where domestic success was scarcer than in the 50s. The team had undergone many changes since the 1958 European Cup final. It was after this defeat that Milan signed Altafini, one of the best strikers to play in Serie A, and, in 1960, the mercurial Rivera made his first appearance for the first team. Between 1960 and 1979 Rivera would make 658 appearances for Milan; only Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta, Mauro Tassotti would make more appearances for the club. To this day Rivera remains Milan’s youngest goal scorer, after finding the net against Juventus on 6^th Nov 1960, aged just 17 years and 80 days. From here he would go on to become Milan’s 3^rd highest scorer of all time, coming behind Nordahl and Andriy Shevchenko, with 164 goals in all competitions. Yet on this same list Altafini can be found just one place behind Rivera. In his spell at the club, between 1959 and 1964, the Brazilian was Milan’s top scorer each year. He would leave the club in 1965, having scored 161 goals in 246 appearances. The team at this time also included Trapottoni, a ruthless man marker who was one of the greatest mediani to play in Serie A, and iconic captain Cesare Maldini. This Milan side first showed what they were capable of when they on the 1962 Scudetto, outscoring their nearest rivals, Inter, by 24 goals. It was on the back of this title win that they would enter, and eventually win, the 1963 European Cup.

Rivera: This charming man

To look solely at Milan’s players in this period would be to leave half of the story untold. On the bench was Nereo Rocco, Milan’s longest serving manager, who managed the club for 459 matches (323 as head coach and 136 as technical director) in his four spells at the club, between 1961 and 1977. An advocate of a robust form of catenaccio, Rocco had success with Triestina and Padova before getting his opportunity at Milan after his predecessor, Gipo Viani, suffered a heart attack following the 1959 title winning season. Viani, who subsequently took an ‘upstairs’ role at the club, claims that it was he who fine-tuned Rocco’s catenaccio, but this seems unlikely given the fact that Rocco had used the system at both Triestina and Padova (combined with Viani’s propensity for spinning a tall tale or two). Contrary to the negative connotations surrounding the word catenaccio, Milan were not an unattractive side to watch under Rocco.[1] They still scored plenty of goals and managed to accommodate the abatino Rivera by employing a mediano to win the ball for him in midfield. The sweeper, Cesare Maldini, was an elegant defender rather than a vicious stopper; his defensive acumen was not mutually exclusive to an ability to play the ball.

Yet, as mentioned, Milan had less domestic success in the 60s. The explaination for this is not particularly difficult to fathom - one does not even have to look beyond the city. In Italy the 1960 belonged to one team: Il Grande Inter. In 1960 Helenio Herrera, Il Mago, joined Internazionale Milano from FC Barcelona. Dispensing with Inter’s star striker Antonio Valentín Angelillo, Herrera set about building one of the greatest sides that Serie A (and indeed the world) has ever seen. In 1961 he went back to his former employers to sign Luis Suarez, who would become the heartbeat of the side. In goal stood the reliable Giuliano Sarti, protected by a backline that included Tarcisio Burgnich and Aristide Guarneri. Orchestrating the team from the back was their outstanding sweeper Armando Picchi, and repeatedly charging down the left was Giacinto Facchetti, arguably the greatest left back of all time and a player who did much to define the position. Suarez’s sublime passing allowed Inter to mitigate their numerical disadvantage in midfield whilst further forward in the team Herrera could call upon Brazillian forward Jair, the enigmatic (read inconsistent) Mario Corso, and Sandro Mazzola, the son of Torino star Valentino Mazzola. Under Herrera Inter quickly equalled Milan’s tally of domestic titles, with wins in 1963, 1965 and 1966, in addition to back to back European Cup wins in 1965 and 1966. Hererra’s management combined ruthless determination to win and tactical genius with new-age sloganism and arcane ritual. Yet his perceived gamesmanship means that there will forever remain a blot against the name of this team. Allegations of match fixing and player doping have never been completely dispelled. That said, despite their undoubted cynicism, they were far from an unlikable team. As with Rocco’s Milan, the catenaccio practiced by Il Grande Inter was not unattractive to watch. Herrera himself was quick to note the importance of committing fullbacks to the attack, highlighting the importance of Facchetti to the team. The statistics support Herrera: in two of the three seasons where Inter won Serie A in the 60s they were also the top scoring team in the league. So whilst Milan were first team in Italy to be noted for achieving big success with catenaccio, it is undoubtedly Inter who were its best known practitioners from this era. Consequently, if there is an argument to suggest the Milan of the 60s was better than the Milan of the 50s, the strength of Inter during the latter period meant that Milan were more often than not second best (or worse). Yet despite Inter’s edge in Italy, it was in Europe that the Rossoneri would match them.

Nereo Rocco: Cup-fiend

Milan’s route to the 1963 European Cup final was marked by a series of demolitions. In the preliminary round they were drawn against Union Luxembourg based (negligibly) in Southern Luxembourg. In the home leg Milan won 8-0, Altafini scoring 5, making this their record win in European competition. The away leg was only marginally less embarrassing for the Luxembourg team: 6-0, a hat trick for Altafini and a record away win (equalled in 1993 when Milan beat Copenhagen by an identical margin in the Champions League). A 4-2 aggregate victory against Ipswich Town was followed by an 8-1 against Galatasaray and a 5-2 versus Dundee F.C., with Altafini notching another hat trick (at home to the Turks) in the process.

In the final Milan met a Benfica side who would by far prove their sternest test of the tournament. The Portuguese had won the previous two European Cups, overcoming Madrid and Barcelona in the respective finals. This Benfica side was an attacking team still marked by a Danubian romanticism, that featured talents such as Eusebio and Mario Coluna. Perhaps this was why Rocco chose to drop hitherto free scoring striker Paolo Barison, instead selecting Gino Pivatelli to pick up Coluna. It may have seemed like the plan was not working in the 18^th minute, when Eusebio gave Benfica the lead, but two Milan goals after half time sealed the Rossoneri’s first European Cup. As if to highlight their importance to the club, both goals were scored by Altafini; both assists came from Rivera. Indeed Altafini was competition’s top scorer with 14 goals. Cesare Maldini lifted the cup at Wembly as Milan’s European legacy began in earnest.

"Mr Maldini's Great Day Out"

There seems to be no question that the Milan side of the 60s was a very strong team. Whether or not they were as great a side as Il Grande Milan is open to debate, but I would argue that their trophy haul was equally impressive. Two league titles and three European trophies is nothing to be scoffed at. As we have seen, it was the emergence of Il Grande Inter who took the sheen of this period for Milan. Even so, this Inter side only won one more major trophy more than Milan, so perhaps we should be cautious not to overemphasise the gulf in class (for surely any team featuring Rivera and Altafini could not be too lacking in this department). Significantly, the catennacio system employed by both Inter and Milan during this period, which was so successful for them both, became something of an orthodoxy for Italian sides – the reign of the libero lasted well into the 80s. Milan's next apperance in a European Cup final, at the end of the decade, would similarly be a cause of tactical innovation - an innovation that would have a irrepresible effect on global football.

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[1] John Foot’s Calcio: A History of Italian Football does well to distinguish catenaccio as a system with catenaccio as an attitude – the former being liberated of the negative connotations of the latter. See pp. 140-142.