Intercontinental Cup (football)

According to Brazilian newspaper Tribuna de Imprensa in 1958, the idea for the Intercontinental Cup rose in 1958 in a conversation between the then president of the Brazilian FA João Havelange and French journalist Jacques Goddet.[10] The first mention of the creation of the Intercontinental Cup and the Copa Libertadores was published by Brazilian and Spanish newspapers on 9 October 1958, referring to Havelange's announcement of the project to create such competitions, which he uttered during a UEFA meeting he attended as an invitee.[11][12][13][14] Prior to this announcement, the reigning European champions, Real Madrid, played just one intercontinental club competition, the 1957 Tournoi de Paris (they also played the 1956 Pequeña Copa, but scheduled their participation in it before becoming European champions).[15] According to a video record of the highlights of the Tournoi de Paris, a video published by Journal Les Actualités Françaises on 19 June 1957,[16] the match between Real Madrid and Vasco da Gama was the first match ever dubbed as "the best team of Europe vs. the best team of South America", as Madrid was the European champions and Vasco was the "Brazilian" (in fact, Rio de Janeiro) champions,[17][18] having this match been held at Parc des Princes, then managed by Jacques Goddet; moreover, the 1957 Paris match was the only defeat of Real Madrid to a non-European side since becoming European champions in 1956 and prior to the Intercontinental Cup in 1960, having Madrid's then-president Santiago Bernabéu been one of the instigators of the Intercontinental Cup (see below); for these reasons, Vasco da Gama executives have claimed that the 1957 match and the 1958 FIFA World Cup Brazilian victory have influenced the Europeans on the importance of South American football, and thus the idea in 1958 for the creation of the Intercontinental Cup[19] (the Madrid team declined to participate in the 1958 Paris Tournoi for it was held just 5 days before the final of the 1957/1958 European Cup).[20] The Madrid-Vasco 1957 match was described as "being like a club world cup match" by the Brazilian press,[21][22] as was a June 1959 friendly between Real Madrid and Torneio Rio – São Paulo champions Santos, which Real Madrid won 5–3.[23]

Created in 1960 at the initiative of the European confederation (UEFA), with CONMEBOL's support, the European/South American Cup, known also as the Intercontinental Cup, was contested by the holders of the European Champion Clubs' Cup and the winners of its newly established South American equivalent, the Copa Libertadores. The competition was not endorsed by FIFA,[24] and in 1961 FIFA refused to allow it to take place unless the participants gave it a "private friendly match" status.[25] However, the competition went on regardless, with the endorsement of UEFA and CONMEBOL, both of whom include every edition of the competition in their records.[26][27][28] It was the brainchild of UEFA president Henri Delaunay, who also helped Jules Rimet in the realisation of the inaugural FIFA World Cup in 1930.[29][30] Initially played over two legs, with a third match if required in the early years (when goal difference did not count), the competition had a rather turbulent existence. The first winners of the competition were Spanish club Real Madrid. Real Madrid managed to hold Uruguayan side Peñarol 0–0 in Montevideo and trounce the South Americans 5–1 in Madrid to win.[31][32][33]

After Real Madrid's victory in the first Intercontinental Cup, Barcelona newspaper Mundo Deportivo hailed the Madrid team as the first world champion club; although they pointed out that the competition "did not include Africans, Asians and other countries part to FIFA", they also expressed doubt that these regions presented football of the same quality as Europe and South America.[34] The Spaniards titled themselves world champions until FIFA stepped in and objected; citing that the competition did not include any other champions from the other confederations, FIFA stated that they can only claim to be intercontinental champions of a competition played between two organisations.[35] Peñarol would appear again the following year and come out victorious after beating Portuguese club Benfica on the play-off; after a 1–0 win by the Europeans in Lisboa and a 5–0 trashing by the South Americans, a play-off at the Estadio Centenario saw the home side squeeze a 2–1 win to become the first South American side to win the competition.[36][37][38]

In 1962 the tournament grew more in worldwide attention after it was swept through the sublime football of a Santos team led by Pelé, considered by some the best club team of all times.[39] Os Santásticos, also known as O Balé Branco ("The White Ballet"), which dazzled the world during that time and containing stars such as Gilmar, Mauro, Mengálvio, Coutinho, and Pepe, won the title after defeating Benfica 3–2 in Rio de Janeiro and thrashing the Europeans 2–5 in their Estádio da Luz.[40][41][42] Santos would successfully defend the title in 1963 after being pushed all the way by Milan. After each side won 4–2 at their respective home legs, a play-off match at the Maracanã saw Santos keep the title after a tight 1–0 victory.[40][43] The competition attracted the interest of other continents. The North and Central American confederation, CONCACAF, was created, among other reasons, to attempt the participation of North and Central American clubs in the Copa Libertadores, and thus in the Intercontinental Cup.[42][44] Milan's fierce rivals, Internazionale, would go on to win the 1964 and 1965 Intercontinental Cups, beating Argentine club Independiente on both occasions, in 1964 after a play-off match won at Santiago Bernabéu in extra time with a goal from Mario Corso, becoming the first european team to win two times in a row the competition.[45][46][47][48][49] Peñarol gained revenge for their loss in 1960 by crushing Real Madrid 4–0 in aggregate in 1966.[38][50][51]

However, as a result of the violence often practised in the Copa Libertadores by Argentine and Uruguayan clubs during the 1960s,[52] disagreements with CONMEBOL, the lack of financial incentives and the violent, brutal and controversial way the Brazilian national team was treated in the 1966 FIFA World Cup by European teams, Brazilian football—including its club sides—declined to participate in international competitions in the late 1960s, including the Copa Libertadores and consequently the Intercontinental Cup. During this time, the competition became dogged by foul play.[53] Calendar problems, acts of brutality, even on the pitch, and boycotts tarnished its image, to the point of bringing into question the wisdom of organising it at all.

The 1967 games between Argentina's Racing Club and Scotland's Celtic were violent affairs, with the third decisive game being dubbed "The Battle of Montevideo" after three players from the Scottish side and two from the Argentine side were sent off. A fourth Celtic player was also dismissed near the end of the game, but amid the chaos he got away with staying on.[54][55][56][57]

Some of the rough moments in the 1968 match, between Manchester United and Estudiantes LP in Old Trafford, José Medina (covering his face), being sent off after a fight with George Best

The following season, Argentine side Estudiantes de La Plata faced England's Manchester United in which the return leg saw Estudiantes come out on top of a bad-tempered series.[58][59][60] But it was the events of 1969 which damaged the competition's integrity.

A.C. Milan's Néstor Combin was left bloodied and unconscious after a brutal series against Estudiantes de La Plata in 1969

[61] After a 3–0 win at San Siro, Milan went to Buenos Aires to play Estudiantes at La Bombonera.[62][63][64] Estudiantes' players booted balls at the Milan team as they warmed up and hot coffee was poured on the Italians as they emerged from the tunnel by Estudiantes' fans. Estudiantes resorted to inflicting elbows and allegedly even needles at the Milanese team in order to intimidate them. Pierino Prati was knocked unconscious and continued for a further 20 minutes despite suffering from a mild concussion. Estudiantes goalkeeper Alberto Poletti also punched Gianni Rivera, but the most vicious treatment was reserved for Néstor Combin, an Argentinean-born striker, who had faced accusations of being a traitor as he was on the opposite side of the intercontinental match.[61][65][66]

Combin was kicked in the face by Poletti and later had his nose and cheekbone broken by the elbow of Ramón Aguirre Suárez. Bloodied and broken, Combin was asked to return to the pitch by the referee but fainted. While unconscious, Combin was arrested by Argentine police on a charge of draft dodging, having not undertaken military service in the country. The player was forced to spend a night in the cells, eventually being released after explaining he had fulfilled national service requirements as a French citizen.[61] Estudiantes won the game 2–1 but Milan took the title on aggregate.[61][64][65][66]

Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport dubbed it "Ninety minutes of a man-hunt". The Argentinean press responded with "The English were right" – a reference to Alf Ramsey's famous description of the Argentina national football team as "animals" during the 1966 FIFA World Cup.[61][65][66] The Argentinean Football Association (AFA), under heavy international pressure, took stern action. Argentina's president, military dictator Juan Carlos Onganía, summoned Estudiantes delegate Oscar Ferrari and demanded "the severest appropriate measures in defence of the good name of the national sport. [It was a] lamentable spectacle which breached most norms of sporting ethics".[61][65][66] Poletti was banned from the sport for life, Suárez was banned for 30 games, and Eduardo Manera for 20 with the former and latter serving a month in jail.[61]

Due to the brutality in the 1967 match, FIFA was called into providing penalties and regulating the tournament. However, FIFA stated that it could not stipulate regulations in a competition that it did not organise. Though the competition was endorsed by UEFA and CONMEBOL, René Courte, FIFA's General Sub-Secretary, wrote an article shortly afterwards (1967) stating that FIFA viewed the competition as a "European-South American friendly match".[67] Courte's statement was endorsed by then-FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous, who then stated that FIFA saw the Intercontinental Cup as a friendly match.[68][69][70][71] After these controversial statements, Madrid newspaper ABC then pointed out that, though the Intercontinental Cup was not endorsed by FIFA, it was endorsed by UEFA and CONMEBOL, therefore being an "intercontinental jurisdiction" cup.[72] However, with the AFC and CONCACAF club competitions in place, FIFA opened the idea of supervising the Intercontinental Cup if it included those confederations, which was met with a negative response from its participating confederations, UEFA and CONMEBOL. According to Rous, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation had requested in 1967 to participate in the Intercontinental Cup, which was rejected by UEFA and CONMEBOL. In 1970, the FIFA Executive Committee gathering put forward, unsuccessfully, a proposal for the expansion of the Intercontinental Cup into a Club World Cup with representative clubs of every existing continental confederation.[73][74][75][76][77][78] Nevertheless, some European champions started to decline participation in the tournament after the events of 1969.[79]

A moment of the Feyenoord v Estudiantes match, 9 Sep 1970

Estudiantes would face Dutch side Feyenoord the following season, which saw the Dutch side victorious. Oscar Malbernat ripped off Joop van Daele's glasses and trampled on them claiming that he was "not allowed to play with glasses".[80][81][82][83] Dutch side Ajax, European champions of 1971, would decline to face Uruguay's Nacional due to violence in previous matches, which resulted in European Cup runners-up, Greek side Panathinaikos, participating.[84][85][86] Ajax fears about Nacional's brutal game were confirmed. In the first game in Athens, Uruguayan striker Julio Morales broke the leg of Yiannis Tomaras with a brutal blow. According to the Greek press of the time, the sound of the fracture was heard up to the stands. The Greek defender collapsed on the ground and was transported unconscious out of the field. The medical diagnosis was a fracture of the tibia and fibula, an injury that effectively ended his career.[87] Nacional won the series 3–2 on aggregate.[84][85][86][88]

Dutch team Ajax won the 1972 series v Argentine club Independiente

Ajax participated in 1972 against Independiente.[89][90][91] The team's arrival at Buenos Aires was extremely hostile: Johan Cruyff received several death threats from Independiente's local fan firms.[92] Due to the indifference from the Argentine police, Ajax manager Ştefan Kovács appointed an organised emergency security detail for the Nederlandse meester, headed by himself and team member Barry Hulshoff, described as a big and burly man.[92] In the first leg, Cruyff opened the scoring in Avellaneda at the 5th minute. As a result, Dante Mircoli retaliated with a vicious tackle a couple of minutes later; Cruyff was too injured to continue and the Dutch team found themselves being assaulted with tackles and punches.[89][90][91] Kovács had to convince his team to play on during half-time as his players wanted to withdraw.[89][90][91] Ajax squeezed a 1–1 tie and followed up with a 3–0 trounce in Amsterdam to win the Cup.[89][90][91][93] Although Ajax were the defending champions, they again declined to participate in the 1973 Intercontinental Cup after Independiente won the Copa Libertadores again, leaving it to Juventus, European Cup runners-up, to play a single-match final won by the Argentines.[90][91][94][95]

Daniel Bertoni (left) and Ricardo Bochini with the Intercontinental trophy won in 1973 v Juventus

Also in 1973, French newspaper L'Équipe, which helped to bring about the birth of the European Cup, volunteered to sponsor a Club World Cup contested by the champions of Europe, South America, North and Central America, and Africa, the only continental club tournaments in existence at the time; the competition was to potentially take place in Paris between September and October 1974 with an eventual final to be held at the Parc des Princes.[79][96][97][98] The proposal, supported by CONMEBOL,[79] was dismissed due to the negativity of the Europeans.[98] In 1974, João Havelange was elected president of FIFA, having made the proposal, among others, of creating a multicontinental Club World Cup. In 1975, L'Équipe once again made its 1973 proposal, again to no avail.

West German club Bayern Munich also declined to play in 1974 as Independiente again qualified to participate.[99][100][101][102] European Cup runners-up Atlético Madrid from Spain won the competition 2–1 on aggregate.[99][100] Once again, Independiente qualified to participate in 1975; this time, both finalists of the European Cup declined to participate and the competition was not played.[103] That same year, L'Équipe tried, once again, to create a Club World Cup, in which the participants would have been: the four semifinalists of the European Cup, both finalists of the Copa Libertadores, as well as the African and Asian champions. However, UEFA declined once again and the proposal failed.[104]

In 1976, when Brazilian side Cruzeiro won the Copa Libertadores, the European champions Bayern Munich willingly participated, with the Bavarians winning 2–0 on aggregate. In an interview with Jornal do Brasil, Bayern's manager Dettmar Cramer denied that Bayern's refusal to dispute the 1974 and 1975 Intercontinental Cups were a result of the rivals being Argentine teams. He claimed it was a scheduling impossibility, rather, which kept the Germans from participating. He also stated that the competition was not economically rewarding due to the team's fan base's disinterest in the Cup. To cover the costs of playing the first leg in Munich's Olympiastadion, the organisers needed to have a minimum of 25,000 spectators. However, due to heavy snow and cold weather, only 18,000 showed up. Because of this deficit, Cramer stated that if Bayern were to win the European Cup again, they would decline to participate as it held no assurances of income.[105]

Argentine Boca Juniors played West German Borussia Mönchengladbach after European champions Liverpool declined to participate in the 1977 edition. In the image, José Luis Salinas carrying the ball

Argentine side Boca Juniors qualified for the 1977 and 1978 matches, for which the European champions, English club Liverpool, declined to participate on both occasions. In 1977, Boca Juniors defeated European Cup runners-up, German club Borussia Mönchengladbach, 5–2 on aggregate.[106][107][108][109] Boca Juniors declined to face Belgian club Brugge in 1978 leaving that year's competition undisputed.[103] Paraguay's Olimpia won the 1979 match against European Cup runners-up, Swedish side Malmö FF, after winning both legs.[110][111][112][113] However, the competition had greatly declined in prestige. After the 0–1 win of the South Americans in the first leg at Malmö, which saw fewer than 5,000 Swedish fans turn up, Mundo Deportivo called the Cup "a dog without an owner".[79]

According to Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, the deal for the establishment of the Interamerican Cup was made in 1968 by CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, and established that the Interamerican Cup champion club would be entitled to represent the American continent in the Intercontinental Cup.[114] According to the Mexican newspapers, after winning the 1977 and 1980 Interamerican Cup tournaments, Mexican clubs América and PUMAS Unam, and the Mexican Football Association, demanded, unsuccessfully, to participate in the Intercontinental Cup, either by representing the American continent against the European champions or by creating a UEFA-CONMEBOL-CONCACAF tournament.[115][116][117]

Logo of the tournament, used between 1980 and 2004

Seeing the deterioration of the Intercontinental Cup, Japanese motor corporation Toyota took the competition under its wing, and created contractual obligations to have the Intercontinental Cup played in Japan once a year, with every club participating being obliged to participate or face legal consequences. This modern format breathed new air into the competition which saw a new trophy handed out along with the Intercontinental Cup, the Toyota Cup.

In order to protect themselves against the possibility of European withdrawals, Toyota, UEFA and every European Cup participant signed annual contracts requiring the eventual winners of the European Cup to participate at the Intercontinental Cup – this was added as a condition to those UEFA stipulated for clubs to participate in the European Cup –or face an international lawsuit from UEFA and Toyota.[118]

Waldemar Victorino shoting during the 1980 match, Nacional (winner) v Nottingham Forest, which was the first held in Japan

The first Toyota Cup was held in 1980, which saw Uruguay's Nacional triumph over Nottingham Forest. The 1980s saw a domination by South American sides as Brazil's Flamengo and Grêmio , Uruguay's Nacional and Peñarol, Argentina's Independiente and River Plate take the spoils once each after Nacional's victory in 1980. Only Juventus, Porto and Milan managed to bring the trophy back to Europe.

In that decade, the English Football Association attempted to organise a Club World Cup sponsored by promoting company West Nally, only to be shot down by UEFA.[119]

The 1990s proved to be a decade dominated by European teams, as Milan, Red Star Belgrade, Ajax, Juventus, Real Madrid, Manchester United, and newcomers Borussia Dortmund of Germany were fuelled to victory by their economic powers and heavy poaching of South American stars. Only three titles went to South America, as São Paulo and Argentina's Vélez Sársfield came out the winners, each of them defeating Milan, with São Paulo's inaugural win being over Barcelona.

The 2000s would see Boca Juniors win the competition twice for South America, while European victories came from Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, and Porto.

The 2004 Intercontinental Cup proved to be the last one, as the competition was merged with the FIFA Club World Cup.

• After the events of the 1969 Intercontinental Cup, many European Cup champions refused to play in the Intercontinental Cup. On five occasions, they were replaced by the tournaments' runners-up. Additionally, two Intercontinental Cups were called off after runners-up, too, declined to participate.[149]

• Carlos Bianchi won three Intercontinental Cups as coach: one with Vélez Sársfield in 1994, and two with Boca Juniors in 2000 and 2003.
• Luis Cubilla and Juan Mujica won cups both as players and coaches:
  • Luis Cubilla (played for Peñarol in 1961 and for Nacional in 1971, then coached Olimpia in 1979)
  • Juan Mujica (played for Nacional in 1971, and coached it in 1980)

• Alessandro Costacurta and Paolo Maldini played five times in the competition, all with Milan (1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 2003).
• Estudiantes (1968, 1969 and 1970) and Independiente (1972, 1973 and 1974) played in three consecutive years. A few players in those teams participated in all three, including Carlos Bilardo and Juan Ramón Verón.