With a Final that appeared such a foregone conclusion, just a few thousand fans from Italy bothered to travel to Rotterdam for the 1974 European Cup Winners’ Cup final. Here, after all, was AC Milan, nine-time Serie A champions, twice champions of Europe and winners of this particular competition the previous year. And while their team might have fallen far from its 1960s pomp, it still featured such luminaries as the Italian ‘Golden Boy’, Gianni Rivera, oft-capped international midfielder Romeo Benetti and the powerful and versatile West German defender Karl-Heinz Schnellinger.

Milan’s opponents at De Kuip on the evening of May 8, 1974 were 1.FC Magdeburg, virtual unknowns outside of the German Democratic Republic and comprised of a group of amateur players all drawn from within a 30-mile radius of the city, some of whom worked at the Ernst Thälmann Heavy Machinery Combine. The team’s first-choice centre-half was suspended for the game and was replaced by a player from the local district league. Even East German television was barely interested in the game before deciding at the last moment to ditch the Soviet film that was scheduled for that evening and show it after all.

 

The eventual 2-0 victory for the Eastern Bloc minnows ranks as one of the bigger upsets in the competition history, even for a competition which had been more favourable to unlikely outsiders prospering during its three-decade history than UEFA’s other tournaments. 

 

The subdued setting at De Kuip that evening was wholly at odds with what might be expected at a typically raucous European club final. Just 350 vetted supporters were allowed to travel from the other side of the Berlin Wall and they were joined by a few dozen East German sailors from merchant ships docked in Rotterdam at the time. Curious Dutch locals who might have turned up on the evening were likely deterred by the torrential rain, but, regardless, bettwe weather would not have had a big impact on the total attendance of a little over six thousand souls.

With only a seventh-placed finish in Serie A, Milan had not enjoyed the greatest of seasons and they came into this game missing their prolific forward Luciano Chiarugi through injury. These factors did little to dampen their confidence however and Schnellinger summed up Milan’s attitude when he declared that defeat on the night would represent a disgrace for Italian football. 

Newly-installed caretaker manager Giovanni Trapattoni believed that the first goal scored would win the game, although his heart must have sank when that first goal came from one of his defenders – Enrico Lanzi – an own goal, via an unfortunate deflection of a Detlef Raugust shot. 

There was to be no Milan comeback and the contest was decided in the 74th minute when Wolfgang Seguin rifled a shot into the net from the tightest of angles for a second Magdeburg goal. Jürgen Sparwasser came close to adding a third with Milan never threatening to mount a comeback. So disgusted were some of the travelling Milan fans at the humiliating result that they set light to their own red and black flags.

After the full-time whistle and with only the small group of East Germans supporters still in the stadium, the players did a lap of honour draped distinctively in white hooded bathrobes supplied by the East German textile manufacturer Malimo. They looked like boxers but felt like the kings of Europe they had just become. Awaiting the players in the changing room was a bottle of sparkling wine and a congratulatory telegram from no lesser a figure than Erich Honecker, the notorious General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party.

The road to Rotterdam begins in Rotterdam

Magdeburg’s first-round opponents were the Dutch side NAC Breda who had rounded off an ultimately successful battle against relegation from the Eredivisie by winning the club’s first and only KNVB Cup victory. The first leg was moved from Breda to De Kuip in Rotterdam with the expectation of a larger than usual crowd and ended in a goalless draw. At the Ernst-Grube-Stadion, Magdeburg took control early in the second half with Axel Tyll and Martin Hoffmann scoring to secure a place in the second round.

Travelling to Czechoslovakia in the second round, der Blau slipped up against Bank Ostrava and left on the wrong end of a 2-0 scoreline. Captain Manfred Zapf admitted his teammates tried too hard and that their approach almost cost them dearly. However another stirring home display saw Magdeburg pull a goal back on the half hour mark when Wolfgang Abraham converted a penalty. With time running out, Hoffmann finally levelled the tie on aggregate after 84 minutes to take the game into extra-time where Sparwasser scored a third to complete the turnaround. It was a good month for the international midfielder and just six days later he was among the scorers in a 4-1 win against Albania which sealed the national team’s place at the upcoming World Cup over the border in West Germany.

The draw for the quarter-finals pitted Magdeburg against the Beroe Stara Zagora, one of Bulgaria’s lesser-known clubs but one catching the eye in this tournament after eliminating Spanish powerhouse Athletic Bilbao in the previous round. . For the only time during the competition Magdeburg played the first leg at home, and they took control of the tie early in the second-half with Hans-Jürgen Hermann breaking the deadlock and Siegmund Mewes doubling the lead after 73 minutes.

The Bulgarian side scored first in the return, but Hermann equalised with nine minutes remaining to seal the semi-final place. The route to the Final was blocked by a Sporting Lisbon team inspired by the attacking trio of Nelson Fernandes, Marinho and Héctor Yazalde. The latter, an Argentine, was in red-hot goal-scoring form in the Portuguese league and had scored four goals thus far in the Cup Winners’ Cup campaign. 

At least Magdeburg could focus all their efforts on this semi-final after a 3-2 victory over FC Vorwärts Frankfurt secured them a second Oberliga title in three seasons. Sporting proved challenging opposition, but despite the Portuguese side dominating the first leg in front of 55,000 fans at the Estádio José Alvalade, a missed penalty and a number of other good chances squandered meant they could only manage a 1-1 draw. In the return Magdeburg took an early lead through Jürgen Pommerenke and, against the run of play, Sparwasser doubled Magdeburg’s lead. Marinho pulled a goal back for Sporting and late on Fernando Tomé missed a simple opportunity from close range that would have levelled the tie on aggregate and put Sporting through on the away goal rule. 

By the skin of their teeth Magdeburg had achieved what would be a first European club Final appearance by an East German team. These were heady days for the East German club game and Magdeburg were not the only Oberliga side making inroads in the latter stages of European competition that season. 

Lokomotive Leipzig put together a fine UEFA Cup run that took them past Torino, Wolves, Fortuna Düsseldorf and Ipswich Town, but their opportunity to also make a final floundered at the semi-final stage with defeats home and away to Tottenham. 

Magdeburg’s opponents in the final, AC Milan, had reached that stage with some ease thanks to comfortable aggregate wins over Dinamo Zagreb, PAOK and Rapid Vienna. Borussia Mönchengladbach offered a sterner test in the semi-finals, but a 2-0 win in the San Siro was decisive for the Italians. 

While Magdeburg had a strong side peppered with East German internationals, in coach Heinz Krügel they had one of the best in Germany, across both borders. The former national coach took charge in 1966 and was responsible for the club’s most successful period by developing young and vibrant teams. When ‘Der Club’ won the Oberliga in 1971 the average age of the squad was just 22.3, the youngest ever East German title-winners. 

As well as that Cup Winners Cup success, Krügel’s Magdeburg won the Oberliga in 1972, 1974 and 1975, along with the FDGB-Pokal in 1969 and 1973. For all his significant footballing imprint, not everyone was a fan of him and his work. The local branch of the ruling Communist party and the Stasi grew weary of his unwillingness to conform to their particular world view and in 1976 he was removed from his post under a spurious pretext.      

As an aside, but a significant one, several of the players key to that night in Rotterdam would represent their country with distinction at the upcoming World Cup over the border in West Germany. The quartet of Jürgen Pommerenke, Wolfgang Seguin, Jürgen Sparwasser and Martin Hoffmann were all selected and Sparwasser would be the hero in the unlikely win against the ‘Wessis’ when he scored the winning goal.