What luck. This section is scheduled to be posted at the beginning of the 2024 European championship tournament. Also, #DankeFranz.
West Germany, the home team in the
World Cup, wins the final at Munich 2-1, playing against Holland and its new
"Total Football" style. Gerd Mueller's 43rd-minute goal is the
winner in that game. The West Germans are the first recipients of the new World Cup trophy.
West Germany loses its first-round group match against East Germany
1-0, though both teams would have qualified for the second round win, lose, or
draw. In that round, East Germany draws once and loses twice in a difficult group. The West
German team, on the other hand, wins all the matches in its group and qualifies
for the final.
The leading scorer in the World Cup is Grzegorz Lato
of Poland with nine goals. Mueller, with four goals in the finals,
reaches 14 in his World Cup career and 68 in 62 international matches. With two
more in '74, Jairzinho of Brazil has nine in his
World Cup career.
After Italy is knocked out in the first round,
hundreds of the players' countrymen attack them as they exit the grounds.
This is the lowest-scoring World Cup until 1986, with 2.55
goals per match.
The tournament generates $20 million in profits.
Johan Cruyff, the Dutch legend, is named European player of the year, receiving the Ballon d'Or ("Golden Ball") from France Football. He's also the winner of the World Cup MVP award.
Cruyff helps Barcelona win the Spanish league championship,
as does Dutch national manager Rinus Michels.
Sometime this year, Italian goalkeeper Dino Zoff
concedes a goal in an international match for the first time since September of
1972. The streak of 1,142 minutes is a record for internationals.
This is star defender and West German captain Franz
Beckenbauer's last World Cup, but he will continue playing for Bayern
Munich for a couple of years and for the national team until 1977.
Beckenbauer finishes a close second to Cruyff in the voting for the France
Football Ballon d'Or, and no one else is even in the neighborhood.
Bayern Munich wins the European Champions' Cup, becoming
the first German club to do so. In the final, held May 15 at Heysel Stadium in
Brussels, Belgium, and attended by 65,000, Bayern draws with Atletico Madrid
1-1, with both goals scored in extra time. The replay two days later, with only
20,000 on hand, is a 4-0 victory, in which Mueller scores a pair and Uli
Hoeness the other two goals.
Feyenoord, which is also the '73-74 Dutch
league champion, wins the UEFA Cup (at the time, a tournament for clubs that didn't win a
league title or a national cup in '72-73) by defeating England's Tottenham
Hotspur 4-2 in a two-leg final.
At the European Cup-winners' Cup, East Germany's Magdeburg
bests Italy's A.C. Milan 2-0. Normally, Cup-winners' Cup winners play
Champions Cup winners in the Super Cup, but being from different sides of a
divided nation and not agreeing on dates, Bayern and Magdeburg end up not having
that date.
In 1973, Milan had set a record by selling Pierino Prati
to Roma for $1,036,665.
Zaire wins the African Cup of
Nations. The final against Zambia is a 2-2 tie, but the Leopards win the
replay 2-0.
The Zaire-Zambia match is held in Cairo soon after a disaster at local club Zamalek's stadium kills 49. There is no league or
cup championship awarded that year in Egypt.
Alf Ramsey finishes his 11-year
career as manager of England's national team with a record of 69 wins,
27 draws, and 17 losses, including a World Cup title in '66. The English team
having failed to qualify for this year's World Cup, it is announced this spring
that he will be let go.
Leeds United wins the Football
League in England, while last year's league champion club, Liverpool,
wins the F.A. Cup. In Italy, Lazio wins Serie A. In West Germany, Bayern
wins its third consecutive Bundesliga title.
The Scottish league and cup winner is Celtic, but Dundee
United defeats the Bhoys 1-0 for the league cup.
It takes three games, but Independiente, an
Argentine club, wins the Copa Libertadores (South American club championship)
for the third of four consecutive years. The Reds score three goals to Sao
Paulo's two in the first two matches, but both had won a leg, and their
aggregate points are equal, so a playoff is forced for Oct. 19 in Santiago,
Chile.
Like many other European Cup winners of the '70s, Bayern
Munich elects not to play the Intercontinental Cup against Independiente.
Runner-up Atletico Madrid will play the South American champions in March and
April of '75.
The championship of Brazil goes to Vasco da Gama.
The Boca Juniors top the table in Argentina.
In his last season with Santos, his home club, Pele
scores 10 goals in 27 league match appearances, making his club total 643
tallies in 656 matches. He puts 14 in the net over 49 exhibition games, making
his total including friendlies 1,087 goals in 1,120 matches.
Cruz Azul wins its third Mexican
Primera Division championship in a row. America defeats that club in the
Copa Mexico final. Both teams are located in Mexico City, although Cruz Azul
moved there from a short drive outside a few years before.
In the NASL, the Los Angeles Aztecs defeat the Miami
Toros in the championship game after a 3-3 match goes to a shootout. The
league's leading scorer is Paul Child of the San Jose Earthquakes
with 15 goals and 6 assists (36 points). The league MVP is Peter Silvester
of the Baltimore Comets. The best goalkeeper, with only 16 goals allowed
over 1,800 minutes, is Barry Watling of the Seattle Sounders.
This is the first season for eight NASL clubs, including
the Aztecs, the Earthquakes, the Sounders, and the Vancouver Whitecaps.
The league experiences a net gain (no pun intended) of six teams.
Attendance in the NASL averages 7,825 per game, an increase
of almost a quarter over 1973. The New York Cosmos draws 4,700 a match
in 1974, but that figure will more than quadruple next year.
In New York on June 2, Greek American, the home
team, defeats Croatian of Chicago 2-0 to win the U.S. Open Cup.
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum hosts a friendly
tournament in August, one that features two Mexican clubs, a European squad,
and a South American team. Brazilian championship runner-up Cruzeiro
defeats Cruz Azul 3-2 for third place, while Portuguese league and cup
runner-up Benfica beats America with the same score for the
championship.
In the NCAA championship, Howard defeats St.
Louis 2-1 after four overtime periods to topple the college dynasty.
Besides being a new member of the U.N. this year,
Bangladesh is also now affiliated with FIFA. Liechtenstein also
joins FIFA this year, but that country will not join the U.N. until 1990.
Some people's idea of "world football" is different from others'. In this case, it involves delinquent payments, dumb officials, and disastrous results. The 50th anniversary of the WFL's first games will be marked July 5.
EDIT June 15, 12:11 a.m. EDT: Font size increased.
EDIT June 15, 7:38-7:45 p.m.: A few revisions and re-wordings.
