How many European cups would Forest, Liverpool and Villa would have won in the 70/80´s...

Its hard to say if we take a current side like United who have had pretty decent funds available, what some say the greatest manager in the world, and 25 consecutive attempts to win it resulting in two victories Its hard to imagine

Forrest and villa have not competed in the comp since then, and liverpool have reached 2 more finals with wahts widely excepted as a poor team and manager

Si I guess the team that dominated fotball back then would probably have won it about another 7 times

How good were Barcelona and Real Madrid in the 70's?

back then the european cup was just for league champions but

im pretty sure the 2nd, 3rd and fourth placed teams in countries like England, Spain and Italy had better players and a better team than the league champions of counties like Sweden, Austria, Romania and Croatia

its much harder today, it's about 5 matches longer and contains the very best teams in europe no a fraction of them,

anton66
01 May 13 15:09
Joined:
19 Jan 12
| Topic/replies: 133 | Blogger: anton66's blog
How good were Barcelona and Real Madrid in the 70's?



Probably much better than the likes of Borussia Mönchengladbach and Club Brugge...I would hazard a guess.

Liverpool´s route to their first European Cup final in 1977....


R1 Crusaders
R2 Trabzonspor
QF Saint-Étienne
SF Zürich

Not extactly any big guns in there, and only 5 rounds to play.

They may not be big guns now, but at the time St Etienne were the top side in France. They reached the European Cup final in 1976, and were desperately unlucky not to beat the Bayern side who had won it the two previous seasons. IIRC Jacques Santini, who later managed Spurs, was in that team. I think they were also Michel Platini's first club.

Saint Etienne would have been the nizzles back in 1977, and Zurich would have been the Swiss national side.  But point taken.

You do need to remember players didn't play abroad in anything like the same number.  If you played Brugges it was 70% of the Belgian national team.  And trips to Eastern Europe would have been far trickier due to the different culture and poor facilities back then.

Playing the Yugoslav national team in their own back yard would have been tougher than playing away to FC Porto these days imo.

"Probably much better than the likes of Borussia Mönchengladbach"

Isn't this the same Monchengladbach team that was full of World Cup and European Cup winners? You do realise that teams change over time, and over 30 years is enough time for one team to lose a generation of world class players and not replace them?

Is this one of those United threads where they try and justify Alex Fergusons (arguably) relatively poor European Cup/Champions League return?

and with gladbach i think in that decade between 1970 - 1980 they got to 5 european finals , and 5 league titles , i think they won a hatrick of titles in 76/77 , thinking about it they were **** werent they twatter twatter ?? you are absolutely clueless

Borussia Mönchengladbach were a great side in the 70-s, half of the German national team (players like Berti Vogts, Rainer Bonhof, Uli Stielike and current Bayern manager Jupp Heynckes) plas the great Dane Allan Simonsen, European player of the year. Its hard to believe now but they were better than Real and Barca at the time.

I agree that the Champions League is harder to win, but people are under rating some of the teams involved back then.

Champ League all came about because Madrid and Juventus got drawn together in an early round back in 1987 and Juve threw their toys out of the pram when they lost.

Remember when the early Champ League had TWO group stages? 

Villa lucky to win the one they won,played teams from Iceland and East Germany on route to the final.
Need to get facts correct about so called national teams playing for the teams.MYTH

Im sure if we fast forward 30 years people will be asking was it easier to win the prem league in the 90s and oos

Watch the 66 world cup final,it just looks like a poor standard.The standard should always get better esp now the hatchet men are a dying breed.

Hmmmm I must have woken up the Neanderthals...

Im not saying that Liverpool win was no achievement.....a small achievement maybe yes.

Its a good job Im not fishing.

....and Zurich would have been the Swiss national side


Hmm.. how many time Switzerland won the world cup or the Euro´s

Just face it football back in the day was just a p1ss up...boozed up players from the night before trying not to puke up on the ball.

^^^^^^ not the professional masterclass that we all witness on a daily basis.

villa and forest had to beat liverpool(who were probally the best team in europe)over a season just to get into the competition

swiss teams in europe ?

didnt basel beat man utd ?


st ettienne circa 1977 were a very decent outfit, having lost in final 1976

It was harder to win the old European cup than the current champions league. The fact that you had to win the league to get in it made it much harder.

If you are asking once you were in which competition was harder to win then it would be the champions league.

Football has changed massively since the old days of the 70s and 80s. As has been stated above clubs like Hadjuk Split or Brugges were much more competitive then than they are now. These days the top players in the smaller countries all leave for the big leagues back then the majority played for countries in their own leagues.

Only 18 years ago IFK Goteborg won a champions league group with Barca, Galatasaray and Utd in it. These days they would be lucky to get a point.

......and don´t get me started on the back pass rule.

The teams that finished 2nd, 3rd, & 4th in their respective leagues entered into the EUFA Cup back in the 70's & 80's. Thus making it a much harder competition to win. Liverpool won it twice (1973 & 1976). The reason why Liverpool were dominant during those 2 decades is down to the fact that they were simply better than most, if not all, of the other European teams. They'd have been just as successful regardless of whatever format the European Cup took. Bob Paisley changed the way Liverpool played by doing away with wingers, & adopting a greater fluidity to the way his side played. Alex Ferguson has never been able to do the same. United's style of play, using wingers & width, has been very successful at home. But against the technically better players in Europe, they've quite often come unstuck. As a result, United fans look anywhere else but to the their own sides failings in Europe to see where the true problem lies.

liverpool: one or two
forest: nought
villa: nought

Mrmeaner times have changed.Liverpool won trophies when most teams had mainly local players.As a previous poster has stated it was effectively "The luck of the draw" and that is not to knock their achievements.

To state that Man Utd have somehow underachieved when Liverpool beat the mighty Crusaders/Trabsonpor/Saint Etienne and FC Zurich to reach a European Cup final is pathetic..
Manchester United could form 50 all time great teams to beat a single Liverpool one...

oh good, a Man U fans making themselves look stupid, self-absorbed and infantile thread.


haven't seen one of those for hours.

even fergie says that united have underachieved in europe

Never said that I was a Utd fan ours4keeps.Have I stumbled upon one of those people who wears a black armband 24/7/365..

Has a dinner lady in Knotty Ash broken her fingernail and needs a minutes silence.....

you don't need to say it home, clear as day sunbeam.

I am black.

I will report you for a Racist remark.

report away septic, joining the likes of Evra in running to someone else to fight his own battles

Top managers and sides have always been able to transfer their domestic success into winning European trophies.

Liverpool won a total of 6 major European trophies in the 70s/80s, and would probably have won more under the current format rules, as having group stages allows for you to lose a few games and still go through.

liverpool would have still won them, and maybe even more in the years we didnt win lge and came 2nd. people might forget(or be to young to appreciate) that we were the dominant team in europe, and were spanking everyone. we got burnt a few times, we were,nt totally invincible. it took a great performance to beat us though. in them days if you lost you were invariably out of comp, unlike now were you get a few 2nd bites at the cherry. theres not many teams from britain who can say they had a stranglehold on european football like we did.

Good on you ours4keeps...

I am neither black nor a complainer !!

But sometimes I like to throw in a little controversy just so that I can find out who has a bit of bottle.

Insult me away....

so a united team with best,law,stiles,charlton,stepney etc could only win one european cup even though it was so easy to win.

1968 was the one final the actually deserved to win

Exactly, maybe that late 60's Utd team wasn't actually that great. Let's face it, they were relegated to the 2nd division by 1974 so they were hardly set to dominate Europe.

and it really puts matt busbys managerial career into perspective if you believe how easy it was to win.

What about that West Ham team of the mid sixties that never won a game North of Watford and never climbed to the giddy heights of mid table and yet still formed the spine of the 1966 World Cup Team...

Different times....

the reason english clubs did so well is they were allowed to choose from 4 nations (Norn Iron, scot and wal)
Only other country with a similar advantage would have been the soviet Union
but as their teams played in the summer they were never fit enough in the spring
Mind didnt stop Dynamo Kiev producing some great performances.

And BTW
if youre looking for an excuse as to why Man U were so sh1te back then its because unlike today the major factor in winning was not having the most amount money/media airtime but having the best coaches
Do you actually remember the 80s
Man U on ITV every bloody week during their seemingly endless campaigns to avoid relegation
Elton Wellsby blethering on about the 'biggest club in the world'
M Knighton keepie uppies in front of the stretford bell-enders
Every now and again the powers that be may have granted us a merseyside or north london derby
Fluck me
They (MU) were full of sh1t then and theyre even worse now

thelapturps...

You are a case...

Was there a rule that you could not sign players from outside your country(S)..

Italy and Spain had been blagging the alleged best players for years...

I think there is some truth in this, the pace, athleticism and fitness of today's game leaves anything pre-1990 for dust. George Best nowadays would probably be equivalent to Taarabt, Law to Shane Long, Charlton to Joe Cole.

And it's that kind of point that makes all these arguments utterly redundant: what was harder to win? who is the best ever? greatest team ever?

The thing with the old European cup is, it was a pure lottery. You could get to the final no problem while the bigger clubs knocked each other out.
Example, Malmo's 1979 route to the final....Monaco....Dynamo Kyiv.....Wisła Kraków and Austria Vienna. You look at this years semi's, 2 clubs each
from perhaps the strongest nations at the moments in world football.

For me, the comparison is Manu winning the World club championship and being crowned as world champions.
It  happened but the competition was devalued by the teams involved.

Who gives a sh1t?

Liverpool have won it 5(five) times, they even got to keep the cup!

Stick that in your collective pipes.

*****

think the italians only allowed foreigners in after about 1980
when did liam brady go?
And then it was only 2 allowed per squad
Remember Mark Hughes at Barca didnt play because he was 3rd foreigner
Got signed by Venables, then unwanted by Cruyff I think

cheers loui
we know the truth

Not sure about that ours4keeps..

You could only be the best of your generation..

I am cleverer than Einstein but if I was around in the 1930's then I am sure that it would have been me making the tea.....

thelartarps..

Oh Dear Oh Dear..

John Charles Denis Law Puskas Di Stefano Luther Blissett.....

Disagree completely home. I remember watching the Brazil - Italy game from 1982 which was a seminal moment of my youth, I adored that Brazil team and was heartbroken to see them go out. Watching it again 30 years later, given all the tactical analysis we get served on a plate nowadays I'd have to say they'd look like a very mediocre Barca and would just get bullied and run out of the game. The likes of Socrates and Zico made that team tick, but they'd be ridiculously easy to deal with in today's game.

I think most countries had their own rules aimed at protecting the national team, whether it be 1,2,3 or more foreigners allowed.

think dynamo kiev was Russian national side  in the 1970s/80s

also why were eastern European sides, like d kiev, d Dresden, cska sofia described as  'crack ' by people like brian moore, hugh johns et al?

thats right numbnuts
denis law, puskas et al played abroad in the 70s and 80s
I forgot
my bad

do one Man U mug

You can finish fourth in your league to gain entry to the competition and then lose your first three games and still win it. You may only play one maybe two champions of their countries on the way to the final if the draw works out that way.

How can it be harder to win now when so many teams get so many chances to win it.

Much harder to win having to go behind the iron curtain etc....

Id suggest that United 68, Celtic, Forest Villa and Liverpools first 4 were a much greater achievement than a team that gets a crack at it 15 years on the trot.

Makes me laugh when United fans go on about the sides we beat to get to the 1977 European Cup final. When they got to the 2011 final the only difficult side they played was Chelsea. In the semi-final they beat Schalke 6-1 on aggregate. The same side that finished 6 places off the bottom of the Bundesliga. They mock us because we beat the Swiss champions in 1977, yet last year they get knocked out by a Swiss side, & then proceeded to get humiliated by Bilboa in the Europa League.

We dominated Europe when it was a level playing field. Before the age of billionaires buying success on the field, whilst weakening most of the opposition in the process because they'd buy any half-decent player that was available - As for Manchester United. It's quite simply a paper/scissors/rock scenario under the management of Alex Ferguson. United's cut & thrust, cavalier style of play has been the scissors to most of England's paper defences. But the likes of Barcelona, & other European sides who don't give away possession cheaply, they are the rock that has quite often smashed the scissors to pieces.

It was very difficult to win the trophy then. It is very difficult to win now. It had the same prestige then as it is now, hth

It was a different game back then, lots of teams could win the comp, these days we have a few clubs looking to create a monopoly by spending hundreds of millions on buying up the best players or thieving the best young players from other countries so that only a small pool of winners of the trophy is possible. Manure though grossly underperforming giving the money they have spent are obviously one of the small clique who can win it these days.

One team wins it every year so it is just as difficult to win it whatever the format.

The current format is a slight disadvantage to the best teams, as the reward of winning the league is negated.  So the likes of Villa and Forest may not have won the European Cup; alternatively, the likes of Ipswich, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs etc would have gained entry and possibly won it.  So the overall number of English wins probably would have been similar.

Villa ??

ffs ,they were one season wonders

one has to remember that Liverpool were by far the most succesful European side ,but were also dominant in England

Another ridiculous thread trying to promote the soulless shoite we have today,impossible to compare it with the days when the game was more even.

Imagine what it was like for a schoolkid to watch his team almost relegated to Div 3,playing to hardcore crowds of 4.5/6.5 thousand at home games,to go to school on Monday and your mates who followed Utd/Arse/Pool (without ever seing them kick a ball)would tell me how crap my team was.

To go to Munich and Madrid for two European Cup finals within six years, a miracle never to be seen again given the closed shop that TV created for the european premier leagues.

By all means sing the praises of the EPL and the CL,but each to his own opinion, and you will never convince those of us that found another sport,once football became a game for the viewers rather than the fans.

You're absolutely right mate. Imagine if a modern day Brian Clough came along & built a side as good as the one Forest had in the late 70's/early 80's. It would never have the chance to fulfil it's potential, because most of the players would be snapped up by the 'big money' clubs. One of those, United, a team that were lucky to have had the same manager for over 25 years. Were fortunate to start winning league titles at the same time that tv money & sponsorships became crucial to a side's chances of success. A club that had the luxury of seeing a crop of world-class youngsters all come through their youth system at the same time. & as a result of the aforementioned, it's now one of the biggest, & richest, clubs in the world. Yet according to some of their supporters, they've got it much harder than we did back in the days when it was oh so easy to win The European Cup.

Doesn't your heart bleed for the poor mites ?

I agree with clough and taylor- good post

I watched all of those European Cup's and Liverpool & Forest were just miles better than a lot of European teams Real Madrid got beat by Leeds 3-0.

We had much better home grown players, including Scots like Souness, so probably just the same.

TBH the format was not that much different, the first KO stage proper started with 32 teams, after qualifiers.

We would have probably just had more all England Finals involving teams like Liverpool, Nottm Forest, Villa, Man City, Tottenham & Everton......Man Utd were just mid table rubbish then with a few luxury players like Best & Law.

If ever a  thread could be described as an own goal then this one would be the one imo

@Ours4Keeps, you cannot strictly compare the 2 era's like that, players now are far better looked after fitness wise etc, and are much more like athletes, players then were no where near as fit, but there were more ball artists who could really play football, before it became a game of chess and gamesmanship.

If you take into account that it is a 2 year process to win the cup (season one qualifying, season 2 competing) then I would say overall it was probably as hard back then as it is now.

to qualify - winning your league as opposed to finishing top 4

to compete - less games against (arguably) weaker teams (champions of smaller associations) as opposed to more games against more teams from top countries, but with the safeguard of being able to under perform in in the odd game as still go through.

No difference over a 2 year period - the best team won then as now.

@Ours4Keeps, you cannot strictly compare the 2 era's like that, players now are far better looked after fitness wise etc, and are much more like athletes, players then were no where near as fit, but there were more ball artists who could really play football, before it became a game of chess and gamesmanship.

There used to be a great footie phone-in on Century Radio going back a few years now. It was on from 6pm to 7pm Monday to Friday, & the 4 presenters were ex-Everton legend Graham Sharpe. Mickey Thomas ex United player. Alan Kennedy who was Liverpool's left-back in the late 70's & early 80's. & Gary Owen, who was a top player for Man City during the same era.

I recall a United fan ringing in about 10 years ago & asking the question that if it were possible to give the great Liverpool sides of the 70's & 80's the same advantages relating to diet, fitness, training etc. Who would come out on top ? The decision was unanimous with all 4 going for Liverpool. Mickey Thomas stated that the Liverpool sides back then would starve the opposition of the ball, so it wouldn't matter how good Fergie's team was, they'd struggle to do anything without possession. I think this point is also a good indicator of why United have only won the CL twice in 19 attempts under Ferguson.

cloughandtaylor absolutely spot on

Too many here under the misapprehension that football didn't really exist until about 1998. The other main point of note is The European Cup was a team competition, The Champions League is a squad competition, with the format of course loaded in favour of the big boys who run the whole show. You can finish third in your domestic league, and probably afford to lose 4 or 5 fixtures along the way to being crowned kings of Europe a year later.

football started in or around 1998 probably because football was in such a dire state prior to around 95 

- rusty stadiums ,boring hoofball ,quagmuire pitches ,matches called off regularly  ,toilets stinking of p1ss ,hooligans and foul language



and that was just my local village side

Oh look. Liverpool fans talking about history. Never seen this before.

As they say how many scousers does it take to change a lightbulb, answer none, they just like to sit around and talk about how good the old one was

Watching Chelsea win last years cup was a bit flat compared to the elation of seeing L'pool, Forest, Villa win it in the past.
Maybe that is because of Chelsea trying to buy everything, i find this obscene, or because of all the foreigners in todays teams....... or maybe it's just me getting older and less bothered about British teams doing well in European competitions.

Historically most teams...well, pretty much every team bought success, I really don't see the difference between Chelsea and City doing it now and other teams doing it in the past.

Maybe a bit harsh to slate the scousers for talking about history ITT isn't it? Considering the whole point of the thread was to talk about teams who won previous trophies n that.

Speaking of European Cups, Arsenal are the real underachievers for me. That invincibles era team should've picked at least one up.

atom80 02 May 13 11:58 
Oh look. Liverpool fans talking about history. Never seen this before.





I think you've missed the point. Bit difficult to not mention past history when discussing the 70s and 80s isn't it?

Historically most teams...well, pretty much every team bought success

All depends which way you look at it I suppose. In his 9 years in charge at Anfield, Bob Paisley's net spend was £1.7 million. He left a side that won 3 major trophies the year after he retired (League title, European Cup, & League Cup). Only one player (Phil Neal) was left from the side that won the league & European Cup some 7 years earlier. So yes, you could say that Paisley bought success. But just to put the amount he spent into some kind of perspective. In 1981 Manchester United splashed out nearly £2.5 million on Bryan Robson & Frank Stapleton.

It's not as though Liverpool were the big money club that Chelsea & City are now. Most of the players who signed for us were also available to a lot of other clubs. It goes back to the 'old level playing field' argument. That doesn't exist anymore. Money doesn't just talk in the modern game, it dictates the futures of managers & clubs alike.

Either way, it is now an awfully over-bloated competition run by money.

Drags on far too long with too many "outs" for all of the "big" teams.

Players look very jaded towards the end of the "mini-leagues" and

a great deal of the "cup" excitement is gone.

Mind you, I'm a miserable get at the best of times.

TBH the format was not that much different, the first KO stage proper started with 32 teams, after qualifiers.

Are you seriously suggesting the quality of the 32 teams in the old format matched the quality of the current champions league?

The argument whether yesterday's great platers could play today is a non debate.

The likes of Best Charlton, socrates, zico would have been great players what ever the time. The current games is played mainly by athletes who can run faster for longer. I don't think they are better footballers though, the current generation are more talented.

Does anyone actually enjoy the champions league before Xmas?  Pretty much a waste of time.  You might get 1 or 2 teams eliminated who are unexpected, but that it is.  And so many meaningless games.

Java 03 May 13 16:46 
Does anyone actually enjoy the champions league before Xmas?





Celtic probably did

mighty whites do you think socrates would ever improve his fitness ?

that made me chuckle, great player , but i doubt he ever saw a gym

May 1, 2013 -- 4:20PM, TheBetterBettor wrote:

anton6601 May 13 15:09Joined:19 Jan 12| Topic/replies: 133 | Blogger: anton66's blogHow good were Barcelona and Real Madrid in the 70's?Probably much better than the likes of Borussia Mönchengladbach and Club Brugge...I would hazard a guess.

TBB, If you don't know anything about 1970s football  why make silly guesses like that? .Real Madrid and Barcelona were in Europe every season back then ,they didn't win anything because they weren't good enough.Hamburg beat RM's best team of that era 5-1, god knows what Borrussia M would have done to them .Barca and Real had no great teams between the early 60s and the early 90s really.Some good teams certainly , but if the format had been as now they would mostly have scraped through the group and gone out at Last 16 i expect, with the odd run to the semis/final with their better teams. Replacing, say, CSKA Sofia or Zurich with the 3rd best team in Spain back then would have made the competition weaker not stronger.

Don't knock the Scousers.I have a very successful business selling black armbands outside Goodison and Anfield...

A dinner Lady has died in Knotty Ash and I have plans to sell 42,000 at £2 a pop on Sunday.

My mum's hit upon a business idea - she's going round the supermarkets emptying the mc'cains from the freezer section. She'll be looking for the blert in the Ronaldo pyjamas selling armbands who's looking to empty his wallet for a lifetime's supply of chips for his shoulders.

Trouble is that your "mum" will not be able to shop until the end of the Month when the Social pays up.

homefortea: the difference is that our4keeps and his mum have love and respect for each other while you have always just used your mum for your own perverted ends and whatever takes you fancy

Are there really no more plastic glory hunting mancs out there (typically life long 'fans' who live within the M25) who want to try and pour more scorn on Liverpool's achievements? Letsby Avenue.............