In football we sometimes have surprises and we can see how teams that are not favorites end up playing finals and even win titles. What is very difficult to see is that in the same final there are two teams that no one expected. Today we are going to see the most notorious cases.
The old Champions, called the European Cup, previously faced the champions of each country, what nobody expected is that that year, Nottingham Forest and Hamburg, eliminated Real Madrid and Ajax in the semifinals respectively and ended up playing the final, which was would take the Nottingham.
In 1991 we experienced one of the most unexpected European Cup finals, both because of the participants and because of the result. Serbian Partizan Belgrade was proclaimed champion without anyone seeing it coming after beating Olympique Marseille, a team that no one believed could reach the final either.
Now it seems usual that FC Barcelona is one of the favorites to reach the Champions League, but in 1992 the Catalans had not yet won any European Cup. Barça won that elusive title to everyone’s surprise, against Sampdoria, an Italian team with little tradition in this competition and which also caught everyone off guard.
In 2004 the European Championship left us with a totally unusual final. Portugal, which was still a medium team, managed to reach the final, but that tournament left us with an even rarer finalist, Greece, who also ended up taking the title.
The Europa League has been dominated in recent years by the English and Spanish, but in 2008 we saw a final between a Russian team and a Scottish team, something unprecedented. Zenit beat Celtic Glasgow and took the title.
The following year, in the Europa League, we once again saw two teams with little subscription to the finals, Shakhtar Donestk and Werder Bremen. This time it was the Ukrainians who won 2-0.
In 2013, Bayern Munich won the Champions League final against a surprising Borussia Dortmund who managed to eliminate Real Madrid in the semifinals. No one would say that the Bavarian team would be a surprise if it weren’t for the fact that Bayern beat Barça in the semi-finals, which at that time was intractable.
Under normal circumstances, no one would be surprised if an Argentine team and a Brazilian team faced each other in a South American final, however, this time two very humble teams from that origin, LanĂºs and Ponte Preta, fought. LanĂºs would end up taking the final in the second leg, winning 2-0.
Liverpool is a team that is usually seen in the final stages of the Champions League, even in the final itself, but in 2019 they qualified for the final in a totally unexpected way by coming back from 3-0 to Messi’s Barça in the semifinals without their best player Salah. On the other side, Tottenham caused a surprise by reaching their first final, finishing off great teams like Manchester City or Ajax.
Last season, the second highest competition in South America was won by AtlĂ©tico Paranaense, who had only played the final of this title once. The rival was even more surprising, as it was the humble Bragantino, a team that had never reached the final, and that Red Bull’s investment is leading it to grow.
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