In 1908, in L’Orologiaio (the Clock) restaurant in the centre of Milan, 43 men of the Milan Cricket and Football Club (later renamed Associazione Calcio Milan – AC Milan), decided it had reached the time to discuss the decision by the club to not allow foreign players. They resolved to form their own club which would welcome foreign members and would use their name to illustrate this. Football Club Internazionale Milano was born.

One of the dissidents was an artist named Giorgio Muggiani, and he sketched the logo of interweaving FCIM letters using the blue end of his pencil. The other end was red, and the decision was made to play in blue, the opposite of their former club. One of Europe’s great footballing city rivalries had begun alongside one of its greatest badges.

55 years later, Inter would join Milan in the European Cup, after taking their Scudetto title away from them and now they would attempt to do the same with the Champions Cup. Inter had won back-to-back titles in ‘53 and ‘54 but none in the European Cup era so this was new territory. Oil tycoon Angelo Moratti purchased the club in 1955 and though Inter remained in the top five most seasons, they rarely looked like challenging for the title. After cycling through several managers including club legend Giueseppe Meazza and Englishmen Jesse Carver, Morrati took advantage of Helenio Herrera’s dispute with the Barcelona board and appointed ‘il Mago’ or ‘HH’ as he would be known to the Italian press, as Inter manager.

Inter finished third in Herrera’s first season in Italy behind Milan and Juventus. In the summer of ‘61 they broke the World Transfer Record to bring Luis Suarez also from Barcelona, but they still fell short of Milan who won the league by five points. Though he later became synonymous with Cattenacio, even claiming to have been the first man to play with a sweeper, Herrera’s Barca were an exciting attacking outfit, himself admitting ‘he abandoned that (Cattenacio) in Spain’. In his first season, Inter scored 73 goals in 34 games, but would not rise above 60 in the next two seasons. The journalist Gianni Brera claims it was he who convinced Herrera to change his approach following a defeat to Padova in the spring of 1961. It is also possible that pressure from Morrati to get results was a significant factor.

‘Catenaccio is much criticised because it has been wrongly used,’ explained Herrera in an interview with Simon Kuper. ‘In my system these two’—the centre backs in front of the sweeper—‘were markers, but the fullbacks had to attack. Facchetti, Giacinto Facchetti, could attack at Inter because of me…But the managers who imitated me did not let their backs attack, and they used catenaccio as a defensive system.’^

It is a valid point and Facchetti’s late arrival into the box and dynamic runs from deep, created a tactical problem that many coaches struggled to handle. Facchetti had joined Inter from his hometown club CS Trevigliene in 1960 as a 17-year-old. Originally a striker, the primarily right-footed Facchetti was chosen by Herrera to play at left back where his speed, power and striking ability made him a perfect fit for the counter-attacking elements of the system. Facchetti would become one of the greatest fullbacks of all time earning 94 caps for Italy.

Despite the deep pockets of Moratti, the other star of the team would also be Italian and a product of the Inter youth system. Sandro Mazzola, son of the great Valentino. Mazzola had made his debut in controversial circumstances against Juventus in 1961. Inter had been awarded a 2-0 win after Juventus fans stormed the pitch when the sides met in April. Juve successfully appealed and the game was ordered replayed. As a protest Herrera and Moratti decided to field the youth team and Inter were defeated 9-1. He would establish himself in the title winning campaign of 1962/63 scoring 11 times in 24 games as Inter pipped Juve to the title by four points.

Mazzola was deployed as an inside right primarily under Herrera but capable of playing anywhere along the forward line. A terrific ball carrier, with great acceleration and pace, he was a superb finisher especially around the edge of the penalty area as Inter’s opponents would come to find out over the course of the campaign.

The first of those would be a stiff test in the preliminary round as Inter were paired with English Champions Everton. The Merseysiders had their own tycoon backing them in businessman John Moores, who had built his fortune with the Littlewoods Pools competition an early lottery style game built on football results, that proved widely popular in the UK. Moores dispensed with the services of Manchester United great Johnny Carey, and hired Sheffield Wednesday manager and former Everton player, Harry Catterick and told him to get Everton back to the top of the league again. Catterick, had won the Second Division title with the Owls and he added the First in his second season at Goodison Park. The infusion of cash had seen Everton become record spenders in the transfer market and their expensively assembled squad finished ahead of Tottenham and Burnley to win the league by 6 points. It had been an arduous winter in the UK with very few matches played during the winter months and a fixture pile-up ensued. As the season closed, Everton were able to put together a run of twelve games unbeaten, led by their strike partnership of Captain Roy Vernon and Alex ‘Golden Vision’ Young, who would both hit over 20 goals for the season.

It was a tie neither side would have hoped for with both holding aspirations to make a deep run. In the first leg in Liverpool, Everton failed to lay a glove on Inter and it was the visitors who created more and better opportunities. Suarez orchestrated the attacks with Jair a constant threat. Everton were outshot 10-3 in the first half and having got a fair sense of their opponents, Inter were happy to soak up possession in the second period and take a 0-0 draw back to Milan. It would be Jair who would score the deciding goal in the San Siro.

It was the first in a series sad endings of Everton’s relationship with the European Cup. Catterick would lead the Blues back to the title in 1970. They would exit at the Quarter-Final stage in the 70/71 season without losing a game. They would next win the league in 1985 but be denied entry due to the post-Heysel ban on English clubs (this would also affect them in 1987). In 2005 after finishing fourth in the Premier League, they would draw eventual semi-finalists Villarreal in the qualification round and exit 4-2 on aggregate.

Distillery, champions of Northern Ireland, almost delivered one of the greatest shocks in the tournament’s history in the early rounds. Ahead of the tournament, the part-time outfit coaxed English legend Tom Finney (41) out of retirement to face Eusébio and co. Finney, was one of many outstanding players whose career fell in that awkward window: delayed by World War II but too early for the television age and the European Cup. In Belfast, in front of 20,000 at Windsor Park, Jack Kennedy put Distillery 1-0 ahead of the former Champions and previous season’s finalists. The score would ebb back and forth before Fred Ellison cancelled out Eusébio’s strike, and leave it all square at 3-3 heading into the second leg. Distillery, like every other team in Europe, were no match for Benfica at the Luz, and without Finney who didn’t travel, they fell 5-0, with Eusébio grabbing a brace.

In the first round proper, Benfica would be drawn against Borussia Dortmund. The German champions were making their second appearance in the competition, having won the last incarnation of the regional German league system. The fully professional Bundesliga started a couple of months prior and Dortmund delivered a statement of intent for the new league by knocking out Benfica.

The first-leg followed a familiar pattern with Benfica victorious at the Luz but despite being largely dominated, Dortmund managed to leave Portugal with a credible 2-1 defeat. In the return leg, Benfica were dealt a major blow as Eusébio was ruled out through injury. He was serving his military service at the time and had struggled for full fitness all season. Benfica’s away results in the European Cup were not overly impressive, and the first leg left them little wiggle room. The official attendance of the Rote Erde Stadium, which now sits in the shadow of Dortmund’s current home, the Westfalenstadion, was 40,000 but it is claimed that closer to 60,000 were in the stands on that cold December night.

In an incredible result, Dortmund destroyed Benfica 5-0. It remains their heaviest ever European Cup defeat. Friedhelm Konietzka, a man for scoring firsts, put the home side in front after 33 minutes. Earlier in the season, Konietzka had become the Bundelsiga’s first ever goalscorer. Within four minutes, Dortmund were three up, thanks to a brace from Franz Brungs. Fans, sitting on the wooden benches placed on the stadium’s running track, invaded the pitch. Two goals in the second half secured the famous result and lent major support to the implementation of professionalism in the country, as a means to allow German teams to be competitive continentally. In response, later that month, Benfica would go on a 48 match unbeaten run, across all competitions, not ending until Valentine’s Day of 1965.

Dortmund would be drawn against Inter in the semi-finals. The Italians had overcome Monaco and Partizan Belgrade, 4-1 on aggregate on both occasions. The German fans had refused to let the club move the game to Hanover’s Niedersachsenstadion which could hold 86,000 and instead 42,000 (officially) packed into the Rote Erde. Mazzola put the visitors ahead with a spectacular diving header, but another brace from Brungs had Dortmund 2-1 ahead. At this point Inter were down to 10 men as Jair had gone off injured temporarily, but poor defending allowed the maverick Mario Corso to level the game before the interval. From there on, the tie became shrouded in controversy. Dortmund had a questionable goal chopped off for offside and were denied a penalty by Hungarian referee Jenő Gere.

Inter would win the second leg 2-0 with both goals coming in the second half. The first, again from Mazzola, when he received a cross field ball and despite a heavy first touch, was allowed time to cushion the ball and stroke it home. Jair added a second when he sliced (or intentionally) curved the ball in from near the byline in the inside right channel. On today’s viewing, goalkeeper Tilkowsk was at fault for both and indeed Corsi’s strike in the second leg. He would go on to concede four for West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final. Yugoslav Branko Tesanić was in charge of the game and suggestions that Inter were in the habit of bribing refs were heightened when he met a fellow Yugoslav on holiday that summer and let him know Inter had paid for his trip.

There would be no all-Milanese final though, as Milan would exit at the hands of familiar foe, Real Madrid. Unquestionably the tie of the round, and probably the whole tournament, anticipation was high between the holders of the Cup and the de facto owners of it. Continuing an unbroken streak in the competition, Madrid had qualified by winning La Liga at a canter – 12 points ahead of Atletico. Though they were getting older, Puskás (36) , Di Stéfano (37), Gento (30) and Santamaría (34) still remained the heart and soul of the team.

Real made a return to Glasgow for the preliminary round and faced Rangers side confident they could a step further than their semi-final spot in 1960. Indeed The Times noted the day after the match that; ‘Rangers, who had been expected to beat Real Madrid in Glasgow, were, in fact, beaten by the only goal of the match.’^ At a typically loud Ibrox, Rangers dominated the play and had multiple chances, most notably a Brand header that was cleared off the line by Isidoro, as Real chose to sit deep and absorb the pressure. Their discipline was rewarded late on in a familiar way. Di Stéfano finding Gento who raced down the line and fed Puskás who slotted home. It is unlikely that the words ‘Puskás’ and ‘slim’ featured too often around that time. In any case, they could have lost 5-0 at Ibrox and still gone through, as they pummelled Rangers 6-0 in Madrid, with Puskás grabbing a hat-trick. Rangers’ manager Scott Symon, seemingly unaware that his side had lost both games, bemoaned the competition format, assuring that ‘give us a crack at the Continentals in one straight game and you’ll see what the Rangers can do.’^ Rangers would win the treble in Scotland that year and despite being the holder of the most domestic titles in Europe (55 at the time of writing), they would have a tortured relationship with the European Cup, exacerbated when their city rivals would become the first British team to lift the trophy four years later. Madrid would then defeat Dinamo Bucharest 8-4 in the first round proper to set up the tie with Milan.

Nereo Rocco had left Milan for Torino, having made a promise to the chairman that he would take over. He was replaced by former Real boss Luis Carniglia, who had won the ‘58 and ‘59 European Cups but was sacked by Bernabéu for leaving Puskás out of the latter final. Milan had come close to defeating the mighty Santos in the Intercontinental Cup, but lost in typically controversial circumstances. After winning 4-2 in Milan, they were 2 up at half-time in Brazil, requiring Santos to score three times in 45 minutes to force a third game. As a reminder, aggregate did not exist in these games, rather, it was the point system. Despite being without Pele (who had scored their two goals in Milan), they scored four times in the second half and the game headed to a third match. Suggestions were levelled that the Argentine referee Juan Regis Brozzi, a travel agent, had been bribed at half-time, as the Brazilians came out far more aggressive in the second period, injuring a number of Milan players in the process. In the third game, Brozzi was again in charge and the game was decided on a penalty he awarded. Maldini was sent off for protesting.

As holders, Milan would begin their European campaign in the first round and were drawn against the IFK Norrköping, the club that had given them Nordahl and Liedholm in 1949. After a 1-1 draw in Sweden, an Altafini hat-trick ensured a 5-2 win at the San-Siro.

The first leg of the quarter-final was held at the end of January in Madrid. Milan got off to a bad start when Maldini came off injured after a quarter of an hour. It was to have major ramifications. First, Amancio would put Real 1-0 up, tapping in after Barluzzi had let a Di Stéfano free-kick squirm through his body. Before half-time, confusion between Barluzzi and Mario David, who’d been shifted into Maldini’s position, let in Puskás to make it 2-0. At half-time, Maldini refused to take a pain-killing injection and Gipo Viani, still in place as Technical Director, accused him of being a coward. Madrid lost Felix Ruiz to a broken collarbone on the half-hour and the game became 10v10, although Maldini did make it on to the field to shuffle around on the wing for the second period. Di Stéfano scored himself from a free-kick from which Barluzzi stood little chance and when Gento added a fourth, the tie looked over. A late consolation from Lodetti gave Milan some hope for the return leg to be held in Italy two weeks later for which they restored Ghezzi to goal but they were without Rivera and Maldini. The former because of fitness, the latter likely to his ongoing dispute with Viani. Requiring a 3-0 victory, the Rossoneri almost delivered. Lodetti scored again after six minutes finishing after the ball pinballed around the box following a corner and just after half-time Altafini made it 2-0, following a rare mistake from Santamaría, who let the ball slip through his legs when he attempted to clear but they could not find the third and Milan’s reign as European Champions was over.

Real would book their place in their seventh final with comfort, defeating unlikely semi-finalists FC Zurich 8-1 on aggregate, the second leg being a 6-0 win at the Bernabéu. No other team would score six goals in a European semi-final until Manchester United beat Roma 6-2 in the Europa League in 2021.

The final was held at the Praterstadion in Vienna, which just over 20 years earlier, in a sign of the change occurring in Europe post-war, had been used as a prison for Polish-Jews during the Nazi regime.

Inter’s defensive solidity was in full-view in the first half, with tight-marking limiting opportunities for Real. They took a 1-0 lead into half-time, courtesy of Mazzola’s 20-yard shot. Facchetti played him a pass in the inside left channel and made a run for a return pass, dragging two Real defenders with him. Mazzola exploited the space and by the time pressure was put on the ball, he released a dipping shot which flew past Vicente. In the second-half, Real should have equalised, Puskás shot hammering back off the post, but the rebound was screwed wide by Amancio.

Madrid’s ageing defence was exposed for the second and third goals. A bouncing clearance was recovered by Mazzola and he laid it into Milani, whose 25 yard shot was parried into the net by Vicente. After Felo had pulled one back for Real with 20 minutes remaining, Mazzola killed the game off. Santamaría, for so long a colossus at the back, attempted to overhead kick the ball clear, but it bounced back off the chasing Mazzola, putting him through on goal and he coolly poked the ball into the far corner. Like in 1962, Puskás gave his shirt to the opposition’s best player telling Mazzola: ‘I played against your father. You did him proud, and I want to give you my shirt.’^ Puskás had indeed played against Valentino Mazzola, for Hungary against Italy in Turin in 1947.

For Herrera to beat Real was sweet vindication after his sacking from Barcelona four years earlier. It provided justification for his methods and set the stage for another run at the competition the next season. They needed the victory as they would lose Serie A to Bologna following the Cup win in an amazing season which saw the title decided on a two-legged playoff.

For Madrid, it was the end. During the game, Munoz told Di Stéfano to ‘fuck off’, and he responded in kind. Inter’s tactics, combined with his ageing powers, had seen him marked out of the game and he no longer possessed the speed to separate himself in close quarters. The game was a far cry from earlier finals where the openness had allowed him space to dictate play, even as recently as the 1962 final against Benfica. It would be his last competitive game for Madrid in a competition that was as synonymous with him as he with it. In nine seasons he had reached the final seven times and lifted the trophy five. He scored 49 goals in 58 games without ever being a true centre forward. Goalscorer in five successive finals and one of only three men to score a hat-trick in one.

He achieved success on two continents, rare at the time, and still rare now but in a period where there was a balance in competitive level between South America and Europe. He was a star in Argentina, Colombia and all of Europe. Unable to showcase himself in a World Cup, the ultimate legacy builder, he is rarely included in the conversation of Greatest Ever, usually occupying a spot just outside the top three or four. But no man has had a bigger impact on any club team generating consistent success. No club is bigger than Real Madrid and no competition bigger than the European Cup.

Bernabéu offered him a role at the club in a position of his choosing but, crucially, not a position on the field. Offended and still confident he could do a job, Di Stéfano joined Espanyol and linked up with Kubala. He played two seasons, scored nineteen goals and then began a coaching career that would see him return to Real i