European Nights: Red Star Belgrade v Marseille, 1991 Champions League Final

The last time an Eastern European side won the biggest prize in European football…

Over the past few years, it has been pretty easy to predict who will win the Champions League. Since the European Cup became the Champions League in 1992, 13 teams have won the following 27 editions of the Champions League. Spain has been the most successful country with 11 victories, with Real Madrid (x7) and Barcelona (x4) being the two most successful sides of modern times. England (Manchester United x2, Liverpool x2, Chelsea x1) and Italy (AC Milan x3, Juventus x1, Inter Milan x1) are next with five victories each since 1992. Bayern Munich (x3) and Borussia Dortmund (x1) have achieved four wins for Germany while Marseille, Ajax and Porto have achieved victories for France, the Netherlands and Portugal.

Looking at these statistics, one thing that is obvious to see is that no team from Eastern Europe has ever won the Champions League. That is not to say that no Eastern European club has never won the European Cup, but that no Eastern European club has ever won the Champions League since its rebranding in 1992. No Eastern European team has even reached a Champions League Final, with Dynamo Kyiv’s semi-final appearance in 1999 being the best finish for any team east of Greece over the past 28 years. While no Eastern European team has never won the Champions League, two teams have won the European Cup, the previous incarnation of the competition. In 1986, Steaua Bucharest would defeat Barcelona on penalties to become European champions. The second and most recent European champion to emerge from Eastern Europe is the subject of today’s article.

The 36th European Cup Final would take place on 29th May 1991 in front of 51,587 people at the Stadio San Nicola in Bari, Italy. The two teams vying for European glory were Red Star Belgrade and Olympique de Marseille. The match pitted the Yugoslav Federal League champions against the French Division 1 champions. Red Star had won a historic Yugoslav league title. In the final season to feature teams from Croatia and Slovenia before both countries attained their legislative independence from Yugoslavia, Red Star Belgrade would win their 18th league title with a winning margin of 13 points over Dinamo Zagreb. Meanwhile, Marseille would win their 7th (and 3rd consecutive), French Division 1 title, beating Monaco by 4 points with two matches to spare. Both teams were also making their European Cup Final debuts in their 8th and 4th seasons participating in the competition.

1st Round

With the European Cup being a straight knockout competition from start to finish, both Red Star and Marseille had progressed through four rounds of two-legged ties to reach the final in Bari. In Round 1, Red Star would face Swiss side Grasshoppers and Marseille were drawn against Albanian side Dinamo Tirana. Both sides would be at home for the first leg of their ties. In Belgrade, Red Star’s first leg against Grasshoppers ended in a 1-1 stalemate. The away team would take the lead through German midfielder Peter Közle after 14 minutes, with the home side equalising through centre forward Dragiša Binić one minute before half-time. In the south of France, Marseille would make short work of opponents Dinamo Tirana, taking a 5-1 advantage into the return leg in Albania. Talisman Jean-Pierre Papin would score a hat-trick, and Eric Cantona and Philippe Vercruysse would complete the beating, despite Ermin Tahiri’s consolation away goal for the visitors.

In the second legs, Red Star would claim a comfortable victory and Marseille would draw their match. In Zurich, Belgrade would run out 4-1 winners on the night. Darko Pančev would score an 11th-minute opener to give Red Star a 1-0 half-time lead. In the second half, two penalties from Robert Prosinečki and a further goal from Duško Radinović would send Red Star through as 5-2 winners on aggregate. On the same night in Albania, Marseille and Dinamo Tirana would play out a goalless draw, sending Marseille through 5-1 on aggregate.

2nd Round

Round 2 would see Red Star Belgrade face Scottish champions Rangers and Marseille face Polish champions Lech Poznan. In the first leg, Red Star would comfortably beat Rangers 3-0 after an own goal from defender John Brown, Robert Prosinečki and Darko Pančev. In Poznan, Marseille would be on the end of a 3-2 defeat, despite taking the lead. Laurent Fournier would put the visitors ahead after 8 minutes, but Lech Poznan would respond with two goals before half-time to turn the tie in their favour. Poznan would add a third after 58 minutes through Andrzej Juskowiak before Chris Waddle gave the French champions hope six minutes later. However, the hosts ran out the winners on the night.

Two weeks later, Red Star Belgrade would face a stiffer Rangers test at Ibrox, drawing the match 1-1 on the night. After a goalless first half, Darko Pančev would score his 3rd goal in as many European games to give Red Star the lead. Ally McCoist would equalise for Rangers after 75 minutes. However, Red Star’s first-leg advantage was too much to overcome, and the Yugoslavians would progress to the quarter-finals with a 4-1 aggregate win. At the Stade Velodrome, Marseille would successfully overturn their first-leg deficit to join Red Star in the last eight, winning 6-1 against Lech Poznan. A Philippe Vercruysse hat-trick would follow a 19th-minute opener from Jean-Pierre Papin with late added extras from Jean Tigana and Basile Boli.

Quarter-finals

The quarter-finals would see Red Star Belgrade take on the last East German champions Dynamo Dresden and Marseille face defending European champions AC Milan. Both these ties would feature controversy. Red Star would take a comfortable first-leg victory over Dresden at the Marakana. Another goal from Robert Prosinečki would give Belgrade the lead, and Red Star would double their lead two minutes before half-time through Dragiša Binić. A third goal would be added after 56 minutes through Dejan Savićević as Red Star set down a marker ahead of the return leg in Dresden. On the other side of the draw, Marseille would hold AC Milan to a 1-1 draw at the San Siro as Jean-Pierre Papin would cancel out Ruud Gullit’s 11th-minute opener.

In the second leg of Dynamo Dresden-Red Star Belgrade, the Germans would take an early lead through Torsten Gütschow’s penalty and would lead at half-time. Red Star would turn the game around in the second half through Dejan Savićević and Darko Pančev to take a 2-1 lead after 69 minutes. Nine minutes later, the match would be over, and the score would be meaningless. After 78 minutes played, many Dynamo Dresden fans started to cause trouble in the stands. The fans began to throw objects onto the field, putting the players in potential danger. After some time, referee Emilio Soriano Aladrén had no other option but to call the match off. UEFA later awarded Red Star a 3-0 victory, putting the team through 6-0 on aggregate. In Marseille, it took 75 minutes for Chris Waddle to break the deadlock. In injury time, with Marseille heading towards victory, referee Bo Karlsson would suddenly bring the match to a halt due to a failure of the floodlights at the Stade Velodrome. It would take 15 minutes for the power to be restored. After this lengthy stoppage, AC Milan would refuse to return to the pitch, and referee Karlsson would declare the match ‘abandoned’. Similar to Red Star, UEFA would award Marseille a 3-0 victory with the team progressing to the semi-finals with a 4-1 aggregate victory. The semi-finals would draw Red Star Belgrade with German champions Bayern Munich and Marseille with Russian champions Spartak Moscow.

Semi-finals

Both Red Star and Marseille would win the first legs of their semi-final ties on 10th April 1991. Red Star would come from behind to win 2-1 at the Munich Olympiastadion. Roland Wohlfarth would give Bayern the lead after 23 minutes before Darko Pančev continued his excellent run of form to equalise on the verge of half time. Dejan Savićević would give Belgrade the advantage on the night and on aggregate heading into the second leg. In the other semi-final, Marseille would travel to Moscow and pull out a 3-1 away victory. Abedi Pele would open the scoring for the visiting French side after 27 minutes, and Jean-Pierre Papin would soon put Marseille 2-0 ahead at the Central Lenin Stadium. Spartak Moscow would pull a goal back through winger Igor Shalimov to gain a foothold in the tie in front of their fans. However, Philippe Vercruysse would score with two minutes remaining to give the French champions the victory.

On 24th April 1991, the second legs would see another close encounter between Bayern Munich and Red Star and another victory for Marseille. At the Marakana, the hosts and Bayern Munich would play out an exciting 2-2 draw. Young defender Siniša Mihajlović would extend Red Star’s aggregate lead after 24 minutes. Red Star Belgrade would manage to hold onto their 3-1 aggregate lead until halfway through the second half when two goals from Klaus Augenthaler and Manfred Bender after 60 minutes would level the tie and put Bayern in control. It now seemed that the German champions were on their way to Bari until Augenthaler would inadvertently turn villain, scoring an own goal to put the Serbians through 4-3 on aggregate. Marseille meanwhile would maintain their first-leg superiority, beating Spartak Moscow 2-1 to confirm their place in Bari to face Red Star Belgrade. Abedi Pele would open the scoring after 34 minutes, and Basile Boli would double the lead 4 minutes after half-time. Spartak would pull a goal back 10 minutes later through Aleksandr Mostovoi’s penalty, but Marseille had already won the tie on aggregate. Now, it was time for Red Star Belgrade and Olympique Marseille to face off in the 1991 European Cup final.

The Final

Here was how the two teams lined up for the final:

Red Star Belgrade			Marseille
Formation	4-2-2-2		Formation	4-3-3 (Defensive)
Stevan Stojanović (c)	1 GK		GK 1	Pascal Olmeta
Refik Šabanadžović	4 RB		SW 6	Bruno Germain
Miodrag Belodedici	5 CB		CB 4	Basile Boli
Ilija Najdoski	6 CB		CB 5	Carlos Mozer
Slobodan Marović	3 LB		CB 7	Bernard Casoni
Vladimir Jugović	2 CM		RWB 2	Manuel Amoros
Siniša Mihajlović	8 CM		LWB 3	Eric Di Meco
Robert Prosinečki	7 AM		CM 11	Laurent Fournier
Dejan Savićević	10 AM		RF 8	Chris Waddle
Darko Pančev	9 CF		CF 9	Jean-Pierre Papin (c)
Dragiša Binić	11 CF		LF 10	Abedi Pele
		Subs
Milić Jovanović	GK 12		MF 12	Dragan Stojković
Ivica Momčilović	MF 13		MF 13	Philippe Vercruysse
Rade Tošić	DF 14		MF 14	Jean Tigana
Vlada Stošić	MF 15		DF 15	Eric Mura
Vladan Lukić	FW 16		GK 16	Alain Casanova
Ljupko Petrović	Manager		Manager	Raymond Goethals

With both teams having provided entertaining football throughout the competition, you would expect that the 1991 European Cup final could be a potential classic. Unfortunately, the packed Stadio San Nicholas in Bari would see these two exciting, high-scoring teams play out an unremarkable 0-0 draw for 90 minutes and a further 30 minutes of extra time. Between them, Red Star Belgrade and Marseille attempted 13 shots and committed 48 fouls over the 120 minutes of play. However, with both teams playing defensive formations, the game didn’t exactly lend itself to countless goal-scoring opportunities. After 120 minutes without a goal scored, a penalty shoot-out would decide the result of the 1991 European Cup Final. Little did Marseille know that a penalty shoot-out decided every drawn game in the Yugoslav First League.

Red Star would go first with Robert Prosinečki, who had previously scored two penalties against Grasshoppers in the 1st round. Prosinečki would score firing low to the right of Pascal Olmeta. Now it was Marseille’s turn with wing-back Manuel Amoros. After a long run-up, the 29-year-old would see his shot saved by Stevan Stojanović diving low to his right. Red Star 1 Marseille 0. Second up for the Yugoslav side would be striker Dragiša Binić. Binić would send Olmeta the wrong way, side-footing the ball low to the right. Now 2-0 behind, centre-back Bernard Casoni would look to get Marseille on the board in this shoot-out. Casoni would send Stojanović the wrong way. Red Star 2 Marseille 1. Centre back Miodrag Belodedici would score next for Red Star, meaning Marseille talisman Jean-Pierre Papin had to keep his team in the final. Papin would fire low to the left. Red Star 3 Marseille 2. Midfielder Siniša Mihajlović could put Belgrade 4-2 ahead if he converted. He would fire home successfully. It would now be over to centre-back Carlos Mozer to keep Marseille in touch. After a little stutter, he would calmly convert. Red Star 4 Marseille 3.

Now in the final round of required penalty taskers before sudden death, the fate of the trophy rested on the penalty of Red Star’s Darko Pančev. The team’s top scorer all season, a successful penalty from Pančev would give the Yugoslav side the trophy with Marseille unable to respond, but a miss from Pančev would give the French side hope. Striding purposefully towards the ball, Pančev would fire high into the left-hand side of the goal, leaving Pascal Olmeta hopeless and on his knees as the ball sailed past him. As players and staff ran to the 24-year-old, the team knew they had made history. They were the first, and now, the only team from Yugoslavia to win the European Cup. With the eyes of the world firmly focused on the country’s political machinations and the subsequent civil war that would tear them apart for the rest of the decade, the people of Belgrade at least had something to cheer about on 29th May 1991.