Embarrasing European Eliminations

[Mellberg]

Since our relegation we've all of a sudden become the 'former champions of Europe' in half the articles I read, which lead me to go through our European history and made me realise how little I know about it pre-1990, aside from the obvious. I also only found out Leeds were in the '75 European Cup final about two minutes ago, which I can't believe I've gone the best part of 29 years without hearing anything about it. So this stuff is forgotten about with time and I'd find it interesting to hear all the old stories (Norwich vs Inter is a good one), and I get to bang on about Villa for a bit, so indulge me please.

On Villa, the thing that struck me was how the standard of side who knocked us out has gone backwards over time as we've slowly become worse. It's the UEFA Cup unless otherwise stated:

Antwerp
Barcamate
Bayern (European Cup) - Won.
Barcamate (Super Cup) - Won. Whilst the European Cup final was pretty dull, this is a great watch over both legs. Before Cruyff turned up and Barca were fucking filthy at the time.
Penarol (Intercontinental Cup)
Juventus (European Cup) - Tasty side with Zoff, Gentile, Tardelli, Rossi and Platini. Quarters.
Spartak Moscow
Inter - Won the first leg at Villa Park 2-0. Goals from Nielsen and Platt. Klinsmann, Brehme and Matthaus took the piss in the away leg and they won 3-0.
Deportivo
Trabzonspor - Bit of revenge over Inter on the way. Won on penalties after a couple of 1-0s. Then lost to this shite.
Helsingborg
Atletico Madrid - Have great memories of this tournament. We knocked out some decent sides on the way and lost 1-0 in Spain to a Christian Vieri goal. They took the lead at Villa Park, so we needed three. Absolutely battered them. Taylor scored, Collymore scored and there were a few near misses after that. Closest of which was a 10-year-old Lee Hendrie hitting the post. If I could go back in time and change one result it would probably be this. Inter reached the final (with Ronaldo in his peak), so opportunity missed to have a decider.
Celta Vigo
Celta Vigo (again)
Basel (Intertoto) - Won. Stuff of dreams.
Varteks - God, we were shit in this. Was at the home game which we lost 3-2, Angel scoring twice. All 7 of their fans went absolutely crackers with every goal.
Lille
Odense (Intertoto) - Won. Dreams repeated.
CSKA Moscow - Notorious. I'm sure Yev remembers it. Did well to get that far beating Ajax and various others on the way. It was March and we went to the away leg in a decent position both in the tie and the league. Played a load of kids and lost 2-0. Then we played Stoke at the weekend, which I was at, and from 2-0 up with 90 minutes on the clock we drew 2-2. The wheels came off and we slipped from about four points off first to sixth at the end of the season. Everything started to sour from there. Maybe I'd change that result instead of the Atletico one. That for emotion. This on a practical level.
Rapid Vienna
Rapid Vienna (again)

So, there we are. Nice bit of nostalgia. What are yours? Bearing in mind we all know about Istanbul.

[Mellberg]

Fuck. I was going to change that title. Just bang on about your history. Doesn't have to be embarrassing.

[phonics]

I asked my Dad (a Baggie) about that Villa side (we were talking about whether it was harder to win a European cup now or then) and he said that Villa side that won it was bang average and he couldn't believe they'd got that far let alone won it. Made a killing off selling Villa Champions of Europe t-shirts though.

[Mellberg]

West Brom fan in bitterness shocker

I've just seen another reference to Leeds' final appearance (trivia thread). Maybe I just had my eyes closed.

[Pen]

Would be great to have years in front of every European adventure as I'm sure most of us won't be able to place other teams European runs.

My local lot HJK have had a few absolute clangers in Europe and actually reaching the group stage is pretty much as good as it gets for us, but none the less here are HJK's European runs during the time I've been following them:

1996–1997 UEFA Cup Q Armenia FC Pyunik Jerevan 1–3, 5–2, 2Q Ukraina Chernomorets Odesa 2–2, 0–2
1997–1998 Cup Winners Cup Q Serbia ja Montenegro Belgradin Punainen Tähti 1–0, 0–3
1998–1999 UCL 1Q Armenia FC Jerevan 2–0, 3–0 2Q Ranska FC Metz 1–0, 1–1
Group stage: PSV Eindhoven 1–2, 1–3
Group stage: 1. FC Kaiserslautern 0–0, 2–5
Group stage: SL Benfica 2–0, 2–2

For a long time this was the peak of Finnish football and probably still is. Everyone who follows Finnish football remembers that HJK team and a few of the players manage to carve out international careers after this triumph.

1999–2000 UEFA Cup Q Armenia Shirak Gyumri 2–0, 0–1, 2Q France Olympique Lyonnais 0–1, 1–5
2000–2001 UEFA Cup Q Luxemburg CS Grevenmacher 4–1, 0–2, 1R Scotland Celtic FC 0–2, 2–1
2001–2002 UEFA Cup Q Latvia FK Ventspils 2–1, 1–0, 1R Italia AC Parma 0–1, 0–2
2002–2003 UEFA Cup Q Belarus FC Gomel 0–1, 0–4
2003–2004 UCL 1Q Northern Ireland Glentoran 0–0, 1–0, 2Q Hungary MTK Budapest 1–3, 1–0
2004–2005 UCL 1Q Northern Ireland Linfield FC 1–0, 1–0, 2Q Israel Maccabi Tel-Aviv 0–0, 0–1
2006–2007 UEFA Cup Q Irlanti Drogheda United 1–1, 1–3
2007–2008 UEFA Cup 1Q Luxemburg FC Etzella Ettelbruck 2–0, 1–0, 2Q Tanska Aalborg BK 2–1, 0–3
2009–2010 Europa League 2Q Lithuania FK Vėtra 1–0, 1–3
2010–2011 UCL 2Q Lithuania FK Ekranas 0–1, 2–0, 3Q Serbia FK Partizan 0–3, 1–2
2010–2011 Eurooppa-liiga PO Turkki Beşiktaş JK 0–2, 0–4 (I made it on tv after local Kurds and Turks started a 'massive' brawl right where I was sitting and I was standing right behind them casually watching the game as these guys where punching each other)
2011–2012 UCL 2Q Wales Bangor City FC 3–0, 10–0 (I think this is still the biggest aggregate win in UCL history. The home leg was fun to be at)
3Q Croatia Dinamo Zagreb 1–2, 0–1
2011–2012 Europa League PO FC Schalke 04 2–0, 1–6 (The home leg was the best performance I've ever seen from a Finnish side. I was certain they'd get past Schalke as the game could've ended much more to HJK. Schalke ended up embarrassing us in the away leg and bough Teemu Pukki who score all 3 HJK's goals.)
2012–2013 UCL 2Q Iceland KR Reykjavik 7–0, 2–1, 3Q Scotland Celtic FC 1–2, 0–2 2012–2013 Eurooppa-liiga PO Espanja Athletic Bilbao 0–6, 3–3
2013–2014 UCL 2Q Estonia Nõmme Kalju 0–0, 2–1(The biggest embarrassment of recent years. All other Finnish teams went out on the first hurdle against other tinpot nations too).
2014–2015 UCL 2Q Makedonia FK Rabotnički 0–0, 2–1 3Q Cyprus APOEL FC 2–2, 0–2 (The APOEL games was were shit as HJK missed out on probably the best chance to get to the Champions league in recent years after fucking up at home against a winnable opponent with huge defensive mistakes.)
2014–2015 Europa League PO Austria Rapid Wien 2-1, 3-3 (This was fucking great as HJK deservedly won at home and the return leg was nerve wrecking but HJK managed to go through after scoring twice in the second half. Saw this with a group of good mates in the pub and we were hopeful that HJK might even get out of their group were they to get a favourable draw.
Group stage: FC Kööpenhamina 2-1, 0-2
Group stage: Club Brugge 0–3, 1-2
Group stage: Torino FC 2–1, 0–2

In the end the group was too much for HJK, but it was good fun to be able to go to European games in Autumn which as you can see almost never happens In there was a chance they could go through in the last game (albeit a very slim one). Mostly HJK's European games have been much of muchness but it has always been something to get excited about and that glorious false hope that comes wth it almost every year.

[Davgooner]

Wonder if you clocked the image of the Leeds fans on Away Days the same way I did... Didn't know they were there either.

[ItalAussie]

In 2000-01, we finished at the bottom of a group featuring Deportivo, Hamburg and Panathinaikos. Obviously it's not terrible, but last is a bit weak.

Biting it to Galatasaray in 2013 sucked, but at least it was away from home.

[Giggles]

When are the draws for the upcoming European competitions?

[bruhnaldo]

I had to look up the year but it was 05/06 when United went out at the group stages only managing one win and 3 total goals out of the 6 matches was pretty painful.

[Shindig]

I miss Europe, even if we were mostly only good for a quarter final implosion against Portuguese opposition. Or French opposition. I don't even think we hold the honour of being the only side going through a Champions League group after losing the first three. I preferred it when it wasn't so routine, mind. Going to Ferencvaros and Hamstads rather than Olympiakos every bloody year.

[Giggles]

A thread with the words "embarrassing" and "Europe" will suffice for this. There aren't enough 's.

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[Spikey M]

I quite like it.