The Intercontinental Cup, known earlier as European/South American Cup and Toyota Cup
from 1980 to 2004 for commercial reasons by agreement with the automaker, was a football
official competition endorsed by Union of European Football Associations and Confederación
Sudamericana de Fútbol, contested between representative clubs from these confederations,
usually the winners of the European Champions' Cup and the South American Copa Libertadores.
Despite being chronologically the fourth international competition created to define "the best team
in the world" after Lipton Trophy, Copa Rio and Pequeña Copa del Mundo due to Fédération
Internationale de Football Association's inability to organize club competitions, it is considered
by that international governing body as the sole predecessor to the FIFA Club World Cup,
held for the first time in 2000.
From its formation in 1960 to 1979, the competition was contested over a two legged tie, with
a playoff if necessary until 1968, and penalty kicks later.
During the 1970s, European participation in the Intercontinental Cup became a running
question due controversial events in the 1969 final, and some European Champions Club' winner
teams withdrew.
From 1980 until 2004, the competition was contested over a single match held in Japan
and sponsored by multinational automaker Toyota, which offered a secondary trophy, the Toyota
Cup.
All the winner teams were recognised de facto as "world club champions".
The last winner of the cup was Portuguese side Porto, defeating Colombian side Once
Caldas in a penalty shootout in 2004.
History Beginnings
Created in 1960 at the initiative of the European confederation, 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.
Both UEFA and CONMEBOL consider all editions official by including them in their records.
It was the brainchild of UEFA president Henri Delaunay, who also helped Jules Rimet in the
realization of the inaugural FIFA World Cup in 1930.
Initially played over two legs, with a third match if required in the early years, the
competition had a rather turbulent existence.
The first winners of the competition was 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 become the first winners of the competition.
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 organizations.
Peñarol would appear again the following year and come out victorious after beating
Portuguese club Benfica on the playoff; after a 1-0 win by the Europeans in Lisboa and a
5-0 trashing by the South Americans, a playoff at the Estadio Centenario saw the home side
squeeze a 2-1 win to become the first South American side to win the competition.
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.
Os Santásticos, also known as O Balé Branco, 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.
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 playoff match at the Maracanã
saw Santos keep the title after a tight 1-0 victory.
The competition had attracted the interest of other continents.
The North and Central America condeferation, CONCACAF, had asked, unsuccessfully, to participate.
Milan's fierce rivals, Inter Milan, would go on to win the 1964 and 1965 editions, beating
Argentine club Independiente on both occasions.
Peñarol gain revenge for their loss in 1960 by crushing Real Madrid 4-0 in aggregate in
1966.
Rioplatense violence However, as a result of the violence practiced
often in the Copa Libertadores by Argentine and Uruguayan clubs, 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, in 1966, 1969
and 1970, Brazilian football, including its clubs, declined to participate in international
competitions, including the Copa Libertadores and consequently the Intercontinental Cup.
During this time, the competition became dogged by foul play.
Calendar problems, acts of brutality, even on the pitch, and boycotts tarnished its image,
to the point of bringing into question the wisdom of organizing it at all.
The 1967 edition between Argentina's Racing Club and Scotland's Celtic F.C.
was a violent affair, with the decisive game being dubbed "The Battle of Montevideo" after
three players from the Scottish side and two the Argentine side were sent off.
A fourth Celtic player was dismissed but amid the chaos got away with staying on.
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.
But it was the events of 1969 which damaged the competition's integrity.
After a 3-0 win at San Siro, Milan went to Buenos Aires to play Estudiantes at La Bombonera.
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 Nestor Combin-an Argentinean-born striker, who had faced accusations
of being a traitor as he was on the opposite side of the intercontinental match.
Combin was kicked in the face by Poletti and later saw 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.
Estudiantes won the game 2-1 but Milan took the title on aggregate.
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.
The Argentinean Football Association, 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".
Poletti was banned from the sport for life, Suarez was banned for 30 games, and Eduardo
Manera for 20 with the former and latter serving a month in jail.
Degradation
Due to the brutality in these editions, 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
organize.
However, with the Asian and North American club competitions in place, FIFA opened the
idea of supervising the competition if it included those confederations, which was met
with a negative response from its participants.
Nevertheless, some European champions started to decline participation in the tournament
after the events of 1969.
Estudiantes would face Dutch side Feyenoord the following season, which saw the Europeans
victorious.
Oscar Malbernat ripped off Joop van Daele's glasses and trampled on them claiming that
he was "not allowed to play with glasses."
Dutch side Ajax, European champions of 1971, would decline to face Uruguay's Nacional due
to the latter side's reputation for violent play, which resulted in European Cup runners-up,
Greek side Panathinaikos, participating.
Nacional's Luis Artime ended up breaking Yiannis Tomaras' leg in two places in the first leg
as Nacional won the series 3-2 on aggregate.
Ajax participated in 1972 against Independiente.
The team's arrival at Buenos Aires was extremely hostile: Johan Cruyff received several death
threats from Independiente's local fan firms.
Due to the indifference from the Argentine police, Ajax manager Ştefan Kovács appointed
an organized emergency security detail for the Nederlandse meester, headed by himself
and team member Barry Hulshoff, described as a big and burly man.
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.
Kovács had to convince his team to play on during half-time as his players wanted to
withdraw.
Ajax squeezed a 1-1 tie and followed up with a 3-0 trounce in Amsterdam to win the Cup.
Although Ajax were the defending champions, they again declined to participate a year
later after Independiente won Libertadores again, leaving it to Juventus, European Cup
runners-up, to play a single-match final won by the Argentines.
That same year, French newspaper L'Equipe, who helped bring about the birth of the European
Cup, volunteered to sponsor a Club World Cup contested by the champions of Europe, South
America, Central and North 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.
The proposal, supported by the South Americans, was dismissed due to the negativity of the
Europeans.
German club Bayern Munich also declined to play in 1974 as Independiente again qualified
to participate.
European Cup runners-up Atlético Madrid from Spain won the competition 2-1 on aggregate.
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.
That same year, L'Equipe 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.
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 organizers
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.
Argentine side Boca Juniors qualified for the 1977 and 1978 editions, 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.
Boca Juniors declined to face Belgian club Brugge in 1978 leaving that edition undisputed.
Paraguay's Olimpia won the 1979 edition against European Cup runners-up, Swedish side Malmö
FF, after winning both legs.
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 less than
5000 Swedish fans turn up, Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo called the Cup "a dog without
an owner", adding: Rebirth in Japan
Seeing the deterioration of the Intercontinental Cup, Japanese motor corporation Toyota took
the competition under its wing.
It created contractual obligations to have the Intercontinental Cup played in Japan once
a year in which every club participating were 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.
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, Portugal's FC Porto and Milan managed to bring the trophy to the European
continent.
In that decade, the English Football Association tried organizing a Club World Cup sponsored
by promoting company West Nally only to be shot down by UEFA.
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 fueled to victory by its economic powers and heavy pouching of South American stars.
Only three title 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 edition as the competition was absorbed
into the FIFA Club World Cup.
Trophy The competition trophy bears the words "Coupe
Européenne-Sudamericaine" at the top.
At the base of the trophy, there is the round logo of UEFA and a map of South America in
a circle.
Cup format From 1960 to 1979, the Intercontinental Cup
was played in two legs.
Between 1960 and 1968, the cup was decided on points only, the same format used by CONMEBOL
to determine the winner of the Copa Libertadores final through 1987.
Because of this format, a third match was needed when both teams were equal on points.
Commonly this match was host by the continent where the last game of the series was played.
From 1969 through 1979, the competition adopted the European standard method of aggregate
score, with away goals.
Starting in 1980, the final became a single match.
Up until 2000, the matches were held at Tokyo's National Stadium.
Finals since 2002 were held at the Yokohama International Stadium, also the venue of the
2002 FIFA World Cup final.
Results Notes
a Juventus won 4–2 in a penalty shootout b Nacional won 7–6 in a penalty shootout
c European champions Marseille were suspended due to a match fixing and bribery scandal
d Ajax won 4–3 in a penalty shootout e Boca Juniors won 3–1 in a penalty shootout
f Porto won 8–7 in a penalty shootout Statistics
By team Five teams have won the trophy three times:
Boca Juniors, Milan, Nacional, Peñarol, and Real Madrid.
By country By confederation
Coaches Carlos Bianchi won three editions as coach:
one with Vélez Sársfield in 1994, and 2 with Boca Juniors in 2000 and 2003.
Luis Cubilla and Juan Mujica, 2 Uruguayans won cups both as players and coaches:
Luis Cubilla Juan Mujica
Players Alessandro Costacurta and Paolo Maldini played
5 times in the competition, all with Milan.
Estudiantes and Independiente played 3 in consecutive years.
Of these teams a few players played the three years, including Carlos Salvador Bilardo and
Juan Ramón Verón.
Man of the Match Since 1980
See also Copa Libertadores
UEFA Champions League References
External links UEFA website
International Clubs Cup – The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation