UEFA Cup Winners' Cup

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Cup winners cup

The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup (also known as the European Cup Winners' Cup) was a football club competition contested annually by the most recent winners of all European domestic cup competitions. The cup is one of the many inter-European club competitions that have been organised by UEFA. The first competition was held in the 1960/61 season, and the last in 1998/99. The competition was then abolished to make way for a further expansion to the UEFA Champions League, with domestic cup winners now gaining entry into the UEFA Cup.

During its existence, the Cup Winners' Cup was regarded as the second most prestigious European club competition out of the three major tournaments, behind the UEFA Champions League/European Cup and ahead of the UEFA Cup, although many commentators felt the Cup Winners' Cup was the easiest of the three competitions to win.

From 1972 onwards, the winner of the tournament would go on to play the winner of the European Cup (later the UEFA Champions League) in the European Super Cup. The Cup Winners' Cup was eventually discontinued mainly due to the expansion of the UEFA Champions League in the late 1990s, and the CWC's Super Cup place was taken by the winner of the UEFA Cup.

From its inception until 1994, the competition was known only as the 'European Cup Winners' Cup' - from the 1994/95 season onwards, UEFA officially named the tournament the 'UEFA Cup Winners' Cup'.

Format

Throughout its 39-year history, the Cup Winners' Cup was always a straight knock-out tournament with two-legged home and away ties up until the single match final staged at a neutral venue, the only exception to this being the two-legged final in the competition's first year. The format was identical to the original European Champions' Cup with 32 teams contesting four knock-out rounds prior to the showpiece final, with the tournament usually running from September to May each year. In later years, a regular August preliminary round was added to reduce the number of entrants to 32 following the influx of new UEFA member nations during the 1990s.

Entry was restricted to one club from each UEFA member association, the only exception being to allow the current Cup Winners' Cup holders to enter alongside their nation's new domestic cup winners in order to allow them a chance to defend their CWC title. However, if this team also qualified for the European Champions' Cup then they would default on their place in the Cup Winners' Cup and no other team would replace them.

On occassions when a club completed a domestic league and cup 'double' that club would enter the European Cup/UEFA Champions League and their place in the Cup Winners' Cup would be taken by the domestic cup runners-up. In 1998/99, the competition's final year, SC Heerenveen of the Netherlands entered the CWC despite only reaching the semi-final of the previous season's Dutch Cup. This was due to both Dutch Cup finalists Ajax Amsterdam and PSV Eindhoven qualifying for the recently expanded Champions League. Heerenveen won a third-place playoff and became the only club to enter the Cup Winners' Cup without having contested their own domestic cup final the previous year.

The winners of the League Cup competitions held in some countries were never allowed to enter the Cup Winners' Cup. Instead the winners of these competitions were sometimes allowed to enter the UEFA Cup.

History

Inauguration

Mirroring the circumstances behind the creation of the European Cup five years earlier, the idea for a pan-European cup competition contested by all of Europe's domestic cup winners came from prominent European sports journalists. The European Cup had proven to be a great success and the Fairs Cup had also proven popular - as a result, other ideas for new European football tournaments were being aired. One proposal was for a tournament based upon the format of the Champions' Cup, but with national cup winners rather than champions taking part, which could run alongside that competition.

The inaugural Cup Winners' Cup was held in the 1960/61 season and was basically a semi-official pilot tournament. However the initial reaction to the competition's creation was unenthusiastic on the part of many of Europe's top clubs - many European associations did not have domestic cup competitions at the time and in those countries that did, the cup competition was generally held in low esteem and often not taken seriously by the bigger clubs. It was essentially only in England and Scotland that the domestic cup was considered especially prestigious. Many were sceptical about the viability of a European tournament for cup winners and many of the bigger clubs eligible to contest the first CWC turned down the chance to enter, such as Atlético Madrid of Spain and AS Monaco of France.

Ultimately the inaugural CWC was contested by just 10 clubs (with Fiorentina of Italy winning the two-legged final against the Scottish team Rangers) but the games were generally well attended and the response from the public and the media to the new tournament was positive and enthusiastic. For the tournament's second season in 1961/62, UEFA took over the running of all aspects of the competition and this time all the clubs eligible to enter accepted the opportunity. By 1968, all UEFA member nations had set up domestic cup competitions due to the success of the Cup Winners' Cup which by then had firmly established itself as Europe's second most prestigious club competition.

Prestige

The Cup Winners' Cup was a key component of the European football calendar throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The cup was regarded by UEFA as its second most important club competition, even though the tournament was felt to be weaker than both the European Cup and the UEFA Cup in terms of the overall quality of the teams taking part. The tournament gained a reputation for showcasing attacking, entertaining football and also for the remarkable number of spectacular long range goals in many of the finals.

Notable sides to have won the Cup Winners' Cup include:

• The Tottenham Hotspur side of Danny Blanchflower which became the first side in modern times to complete the English league and cup double two years earlier.

• West Ham United in 1965 with Bobby Moore captaining the side which also included Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters just one season before all three went on to star in England's World Cup winning side of 1966. They defeated Dynamo Tbilisi and Eintracht Frankfurt en route to the final in what are regarded as two of the best and most entertaining matches in the club's history.

• A.C. Milan in 1968, who went on to follow up this success with victory in the European Champions' Cup the following year, making them only one of two clubs to achieve the feat of winning the Cup Winners' Cup and European Cup in consecutive seasons.

• R.S.C. Anderlecht who won the CWC in 1976, then losing the final the following year before returning in 1978 to claim the trophy for the second time in three years

• Sir Alex Ferguson's young Aberdeen side defeated Real Madrid in 1983. Having conquered the domestic game in Scotland, Aberdeen went on to become the only Scottish team to win two European trophies by defeating the European Cup holders Hamburger SV to win the European Super Cup

• Michel Platini's Juventus won the trophy in 1984 and then become the second team after A.C. Milan to follow victory in the Cup Winners' Cup with a successful European Cup campaign

• The Everton side of 1985 which claimed the Cup Winners' Cup and the English league title in the same season

• The Dynamo Kiev side of 1986 which provided half of the Soviet Union's World Cup squad that year in Mexico

• The young Ajax Amsterdam side which was guided to victory by coach Johan Cruyff in 1987

• Cruyff's star-studded F.C. Barcelona side which won the CWC in 1989

• Manchester United who won the competition in 1991, becoming the first English team to win a European trophy since the Heysel Disaster had forced English clubs into a five-year ban from European competition. Sir Alex Ferguson became one of very few managers to lead two separate clubs to success in the competition

• In 1995, Real Zaragoza won the cup, with an incredible goal of Nayim, he scored in the last minute of the extra time from near the halfway line of the pitch.

• Sven-Göran Eriksson's expensively assembled S.S. Lazio side which won the final CWC tournament in 1999

No club managed to retain the Cup Winners' Cup (the so-called "CWC jinx"), although FC Barcelona won it on four occasions (1979, 82, 89, 97) and finished runners up twice (1969, 91). R.S.C. Anderlecht won it twice (1976, 78), and finished runners up twice (1977, 90); in addition, four finals over five years between 1993 and 1997 saw the holder reach the final only to lose (Parma F.C. 1993 and 1994, Arsenal F.C. 1994 and 1995, Paris Saint Germain 1996 - 1997).

Decline

After the establishment of the UEFA Champions League (formerly called the European Champions' Cup) in the early 1990's, the standing and prestige of the Cup Winners' Cup began to decline. With the expansion of the Champions League in 1997 to allow more than one team from the highest ranked member associations to enter, the CWC began to look noticably inferior. At the time of the Champions League expansion, UEFA also considered expanding the CWC from 32 teams to 64 by allowing a second team to enter from many countries, although by what qualification criteria the second entrants would be determined were never settled upon - ultimately UEFA did not make any of these changes to the CWC. Many of the bigger teams who would previously have entered the CWC were now gaining entry to the Champions League instead by finishing second in their domestic league - such as CWC holders FC Barcelona in 1997/98 and Bayern Munich and PSV Eindhoven in 1998/99 - and this greatly weakened the CWC.

By the late 1990s, the CWC had come to be seen as a second-rate competition with only one or two big name teams available to enter each year and the interest in the tournament from both major clubs and the public dropped. Finally, with the further expansion of the UEFA Champions League to include as many as three or four teams from the top footballing nations, any continuation of the CWC essentially became impossible due to the potential lack of teams available to take part from many European countries and the decision was taken to abolish the competition after the end of the 1998/99 tournament, which was won by S.S. Lazio. Since then, domestic cup winners who do not otherwise qualify for the Champions League are given a place in the UEFA Cup.

Cup Winners' Cup finals

aet - after extra time

Performance by nation

Nation	Wins	Runners-up	Winning clubs
England	8	5	Chelsea (2), Arsenal (1), Everton (1), Manchester City (1), Manchester United (1), Tottenham (1), West Ham (1)
Spain	7	7	Barcelona (4), Atlético Madrid (1), Real Zaragoza (1), Valencia (1)
Italy	7	4	AC Milan (2), Fiorentina (1), Juventus (1), S.S. Lazio (1), Parma (1), Sampdoria (1)
Germany	5	4	Bayern Munich (1), Borussia Dortmund (1), Hamburg (1), Werder Bremen (1), FC Magdeburg (1)
Belgium	3	4	Anderlecht (2), KV Mechelen (1)
USSR	3	1	Dynamo Kiev (2), Dinamo Tbilisi (1)
Scotland	2	2	Aberdeen (1), Rangers (1)
France	1	2	Paris Saint-Germain (1)
Netherlands	1	1	Ajax (1)
Portugal	1	1	Sporting Lisbon (1)
Czechoslovakia	1	0	Slovan Bratislava (1)
Austria	0	3	-
Hungary	0	2	-
Poland	0	1	-

Performance by Club

Team	Winners	Win	Runners-Up	Years Won	Years Lost
1	FC Barcelona	4	2	(1979, 1982, 1989, 1997)	(1969, 1991)
2	Anderlecht	2	2	(1976, 1978)	(1977, 1990)
3	AC Milan	2	1	(1968, 1973)	(1974)
4	Chelsea	2	0	(1971, 1998)	-
5	Dynamo Kiev	2	0	(1975, 1986)	-
6	Atlético Madrid	1	2	(1962)	(1963, 1986)
7	Rangers	1	2	(1972)	(1961, 1967)
8	Arsenal	1	2	(1994)	(1980, 1995)
9	Fiorentina	1	1	(1961)	(1962)
10	West Ham Utd	1	1	(1965)	(1976)
11	Hamburg	1	1	(1977)	(1968)
12	Ajax	1	1	(1987)	(1988)
13	Sampdoria	1	1	(1990)	(1989)
14	Parma	1	1	(1993)	(1994)
15	Paris Saint-Germain	1	1	(1996)	(1997)
16	Tottenham	1	0	(1963)	-
17	Sporting Lisbon	1	0	(1964)	-
18	Borussia Dortmund	1	0	(1966)	-
19	Bayern Munich	1	0	(1967)	-
20	Slovan Bratislava	1	0	(1969)	-
21	Manchester City	1	0	(1970)	-
	1. FC Magdeburg	1	0	(1974)	-
	Valencia	1	0	(1980)	-
	Dinamo Tbilisi	1	0	(1981)	-
	Aberdeen	1	0	(1983)	-
	Juventus	1	0	(1984)	-
	Everton	1	0	(1985)	-
	KV Mechelen	1	0	(1988)	-
	Manchester Utd	1	0	(1991)	-
	Werder Bremen	1	0	(1992)	-
	Real Zaragoza	1	0	(1995)	-
	Lazio	1	0	(1999)	-
33	Real Madrid	0	2	-	(1971, 1983)
	Rapid Vienna	0	2	-	(1985, 1996)
35	MTK Budapest	0	1	-	(1964)
36	1860 Munich	0	1	-	(1965)
37	Liverpool	0	1	-	(1966)
38	Górnik Zabrze	0	1	-	(1970)
39	Dynamo Moscow	0	1	-	(1972)
40	Leeds Utd	0	1	-	(1973)
41	Ferencváros	0	1	-	(1975)
42	Austria Vienna	0	1	-	(1978)
43	Fortuna Düsseldorf	0	1	-	(1979)
44	FC Carl Zeiss Jena	0	1	-	(1981)
45	Standard Liège	0	1	-	(1982)
46	Porto	0	1	-	(1984)
47	Lokomotive Leipzig	0	1	-	(1987)
48	Monaco	0	1	-	(1992)
49	Royal Antwerp	0	1	-	(1993)
50	Stuttgart	0	1	-	(1998)
51	Real Mallorca	0	1	-	(1999)

This will get updated if and when the next tournament takes place.

Trivia and records

• The Cup Winners' Cup was not contested by Cup Winners only, and the Cup Winners' Cup was several times won by a team that hadn't won its domestic cup (or the Cup Winners' Cup) the previous season. It happened five times, and five more such teams reached the CWC final.
  • The best "non-Cup winners" performances in the European Cup Winners' Cup:
    • Fiorentina won the inaugural tournament in 1960/61 in spite of having lost the Coppa Italia Final in 1960 to double winners Juventus.
    • Rangers were the second team to achieve this, winning in 1971/72 after having lost the 1970/71 Scottish Cup Final to champions Celtic in a replay.
    • Likewise, Anderlecht won the 1977/78 tournament for which they qualified by virtue of losing the Belgian Cup Final in 1977 to champions Club Brugge. That was the third time in succession that Anderlecht made the final of the CWC: they also won it in 1976, and in 1977 they fell to the CWC jinx.
    • Dynamo Tbilisi won the 1980/81 tournament although they had lost the Soviet Union Cup Final of 1979/80 to Shakhtar Donetsk. The reason here: the final was played after the deadline UEFA had set for registration; since both clubs were eligible for the UEFA Cup (based on the final table of the 1979 season, in which Shakhter had come 2nd and Dynamo Tbilisi 4th), they were simply "distributed" over the two cups before the final had been played; in the end, the final result (Shakhter 2-1 Dynamo) belied that distribution.
    • Finally, Barcelona won the 1996/97 tournament after losing the 1996 Copa del Rey against Atlético Madrid, who took the Spanish double that season.

• During the 1994/95 season, England had two representatives in the tournament, neither of which was the reigning FA Cup holder. The first was Arsenal who had won the CWC the previous year, and the second was Chelsea who had lost the 1993/94 FA Cup final to double winners Manchester United. Both teams were eliminated from competition by eventual winners Real Zaragoza of Spain.

• The "CWC jinx": no team ever managed to defend the trophy, although the previous winners reached the next final on no fewer than 8 occasions - and the teams that failed include some of the most prestigious of the continent, as the following list shows:
  • Fiorentina: winners in 1960/61, lost 1961/62 final to Atlético Madrid;
  • Atlético Madrid: winners in 1961/62, lost 1962/63 final to Tottenham Hotspur;
  • Milan: winners in 1972/73, lost 1973/74 final to 1.FC Magdeburg;
  • Anderlecht: winners in 1975/76, lost 1976/77 final to Hamburger SV;
  • Ajax: winners in 1986/87, lost 1987/88 final to KV Mechelen;
  • Parma: winners in 1992/93, lost 1993/94 final to Arsenal;
  • Arsenal: winners in 1993/94, lost 1994/95 final to Real Zaragoza;
  • Paris St-Germain: winners in 1995/96, lost 1996/97 final to Barcelona.

• The Cup Winners' Cup rarely saw teams qualifying more than three times in a row. Below are all the teams to have participated in 3 or more consecutive CWCs
  • 5
    • Cardiff City (1967/68-1971/72)
    • Reipas Lahti (1973/74-1977/78)
  • 4
    • Shamrock Rovers (1966/67-1969/70)
    • Anderlecht (1975/76-1978/79)
    • FC Barcelona (1981/82-1984/85)
    • Dinamo Bucureşti (1986/87-1989/90)
    • Dinamo Batumi (1995/96-1998/99)
  • 3
    • Olympiakos Piraeus (1961/62-1963/64) [withdrew from 1962/63 competition]
    • Dinamo Zagreb (1963/64-1965/66)
    • Galatasaray (1965/65-1966/67)
    • Floriana (1965/66-1967/68)
    • Standard Liège (1965/66-1967/68)
    • Rába ETO Győr (1966/67-1968/69)
    • Levski-Spartak Sofia (1967/68-1969/70)
    • Górnik Zabrze (1968/69-1970/71)
    • Steaua Bucureşti (1969/70-1971/72)
    • Sporting Clube de Portugal (Lisboa) (1971/72-1973/74)
    • PAOK Saloniki (1972/73-1974/75)
    • Fortuna Düsseldorf (1978/79-1980/81)
    • Swansea City (1981/82-1983/84)
    • Rapid Wien (1984/85-1986/87)
    • Glentoran (1985/86-1987/88)
    • FC Barcelona (1988/89-1990/91)
    • Valur (Reykjavik) (1991/92-1993/94)
    • Žalgiris (Vilnius) (1993/94-1995/96)
    • AEK (Athinai) (1995/96-1997/98)
    • Lokomotiv Moskva (1996/97-1998/99)
      • Dinamo Batumi and Lokomotiv Moskva had their series cut off because of the discontinuation of the CWC in 1999, but would not have qualified for the 1999/2000 CWC anyway.

• The worst finish a Cup Winners' Cup winner ever achieved in their domestic league in their winning season was 10th, by Manchester City in 1969/70:
  • In the same season, Arsenal set the corresponding record for the Fairs' Cup.
  • The second-worst finish, and the only one with a record under 50%, is that of Werder Bremen in 1991/92:
  • West Ham United also finished 9th in the English league in 1964/65

• Only 5 clubs have won the Cup Winners' Cup in the same season as their domestic league:
  • Dynamo Kiev 1975, 1986
  • Milan 1968
  • 1.FC Magdeburg 1974
  • Juventus 1984
  • Everton 1985

• If the winner of the Cup Winners' Cup didn't win its domestic cup, the country in question usually got two representatives in the CWC, and this occasionally led to meeting between clubs from the same country.
  • 1963/64 England Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester United [2nd round, 2-0 and 1-4]
  • 1970/71 England Chelsea v Manchester City [semif., 1-0 and 1-0]
  • 1979/80 Spain Barcelona v Valencia [quarterf., 0-1 and 3-4]
  • 1988/89 Belgium KV Mechelen v Anderlecht [2nd round, 1-0 and 2-0]
  • 1992/93 Germany Werder Bremen v Hannover 96 [1st round, 3-1 and 1-2]
  • 1995/96 Spain Deportivo La Coruña v Zaragoza [quarterf., 1-0 and 1-1]

Largest margin of victory in a final

• 1962/63, Tottenham Hotspur F.C 5-1 Atlético Madrid

Highest win in one leg:

• 1963/64, 2nd round: Sporting CP (Lisbon) 16-1 APOEL Nicosia

(record for all European Cups)

Highest aggregate win:

• 1971/72, 1st round:
  • Jeunesse Hautcharage 0-8 Chelsea
  • Chelsea 13-0 Jeunesse Hautcharage
  • Chelsea win 21-0 on aggregate

(tie for record for all European Cups)

Most goals in game

• 1963/64, 2nd round: Sporting CP (Lisbon) 16-1 APOEL Nicosia, total 17 goals

(record for all European Cups)

Most goals in tie

• 1976/77, 1st round:
  • Levski-Spartak (Sofia) 12-2 Reipas (Lahti)
  • Reipas (Lahti) 1-7 Levski-Spartak (Sofia)
  • Levski-Spartak (Sofia) win 19-3 on aggregate, total 22 goals

(record for all European Cups)

Most individual goals in a game

• 1976/77, 1st round:
  • Levski-Spartak (Sofia) 12-2 Reipas (Lahti)
  • Kiril Milanov scores 6 goals

(record for all European Cups)

Most individual goals in a tie

• 1976/77, 1st round:
  • Levski-Spartak (Sofia) 12-2 Reipas (Lahti) - Kiril Milanov scores 6 goals
  • Reipas (Lahti) 1-7 Levski-Spartak (Sofia) - Kiril Milanov scores 4 goals
  • Kiril Milanov scores 10 total goals

(record for all European Cups)

Best come-backs

• 1961/62, 1st round:
  • FC La Chaux-de-Fonds 6-2 Leixoes (Porto)
  • Leixões (Porto) 5-0 FC La Chaux-de-Fonds
  • Leixoes win 7-6 on aggregate

• 1984/85, 1st round:
  • FC Metz 2-4 Barcelona
  • Barcelona 1-4 FC Metz [after 1-0 at 33']
  • Metz win 6-5 on aggregate

• 1985/86, quarterf.:
  • Dynamo Dresden 2-0 Bayer Uerdingen
  • Bayer Uerdingen 7-3 Dynamo Dresden [after 1-3 halftime]
  • Uerdingen win 7-5 on aggregate

• 1995/96, 2nd round
  • Halmstad BK 3-0 Parma FC
  • Parma FC 4-0 Halmstad BK
  • Parma win 4-3 on aggregate

See also

• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Records
• UEFA Champions League
• UEFA Cup
• List of sporting events

External Links

• [1] A table of which teams have won the most European and South American International trophies.