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Author: jpcccc
Date: 20-09-2002, 01:33

Tonight, there was a bit of european football history making a comeback. The first ever european competition game was held in Lisbon in 1955, with Sporting CP hosting Partizan Belgrade. It was a 1/8 finals (then, first round) of the European Champions Cup. The result was 3-3. Partizan won in Belgrade 5-2 and got through.

Tonight, it was UEFA Cup. It could be nice if the game even was on TV. It didn't. TV doesn't pay for football like it used to. Players are expensive and clubs try to get the same money through TV. Pity.

Also, it could be nice if each time these two teams faced each other a big celebration of european football could be held. UEFA could have made some marketing about its long, long history in football with teams from all countries, big or small, in these times of G-14 groups and big media making both the glory, the mess and the economics of football.

Anyway, Partizan won 1-3 in Lisbon. I guess it got the ticket for round 2, like in 1955, but i would really like if Sporting had scored two more (it could happen...) to make a perfect history repetition. As for Sporting CP, it really got a bad european football year on draws: first, unseeded in CL, then got Inter, then seeded in UEFA but gets Partizan, loser from CL's 3rd round. A really bad night did the rest.

In 1955 Sporting was not title holder of Portuguese league (Benfica was) but UEFA asked Sporting to play because it had the best record from Portugal at the time. Besides 1955, the last time these teams faced each other was in 1961, also for Champion's Cup.

Hope to see this small history repeating more often.