Where do PSG rank among Europe’s greatest football dynasties?
Where do PSG rank among Europe's greatest football dynasties?. Paris St-Germain are eyeing a third successive Champions League crown, but where do they rank against Europe's most dominant clubs?
What happened
Some will point out that football existed before the European Champion Clubs' Cup began in 1955 – so apologies to Stan Cullis' 'world-champion' Wolves outfit and the Mitropa Cup's early Vienna heavyweights. However, this top 10 debate is centred around winning European football's grandest prize. Emerging from what was a fiercely competitive West German football scene, the Bavarians – promoted to the Bundesliga less than a decade earlier – were able to establish themselves as heavyweights in Europe.
Rinus Michels was the pioneer, taking Ajax from the threat of relegation to the most dominant side in Europe, losing the 1969 final to AC Milan but returning to win it for the first time two years later with their swaggering brand of Total Football. Puskas was 31 when he joined, but scored 35 goals in 39 European Cup games for Real Madrid, including four in the 7-3 win over Frankfurt at Hampden in the 1960 final. Skip to main content Skip to navigation College football Power Rankings: First impressions of the Top 25 following Week 1Ohio State Buckeyes1dESPNNews or noise?
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The wider picture
To mark this, we're looking at how the Parisians compare to those clubs who have enjoyed the most dominant eras in European competition. However, you wouldn't bet against Luis Enrique's slick side adding a third successive European crown come next summer. Winning the Scudetto in 1962-63, Herrera's outfit became the first to lift the European Cup without losing a game the following season as Sandro Mazzola netted twice against Real Madrid in the final. Those promising youngsters won the title and then went all the way in the European Cup, beating Barcelona in the 1961 final.
That summer, a teenage Eusebio also joined Guttmann's squad and steered them to European glory once more, seeing off Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-final before beating the great Real Madrid in the competition's showpiece. Guttmann, buoyed by his remarkable success, left the club after not being offered the pay rise he felt he deserved and the curse the Hungarian boss supposedly put on the club – that they would not win another European trophy for 100 years – has become fable.
Whether the often-disputed story is true or not, the Lisbon giants have not landed another since – losing eight European finals, including three in the 1960s. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Eusebio scored 47 goals in the European Cup, including two in the 1962 final7.
What has been reported
In fact, Beckenbauer said Bayern were past their peak after the first European Cup win over Atletico Madrid, but experience carried them through big games. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, It took Bayern Munich 25 years to win Europe's top prize again after doing it three times in a row during the 1970s6. Pep Guardiola's Barcelona were European champions twice in three years – losing to Jose Mourinho's treble-winning Inter in between – but their dynasty was built on more than silverware.
Guardiola only spent four seasons at Barcelona, but it was an era-defining tenure, the Catalan giants pioneering a brand of football that would be celebrated and copied the world over. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Pep Guardiola won the European Cup as a player with Barcelona and then twice as a manager, losing semi-finals to Inter and Chelsea either side of those triumphs5. In between, the Rossoneri won back-to-back European Cups in 1989 and '90, then thrashed Cruyff's Barcelona 'Dream Team' in 1994 after defeat in the final the previous season.
From Sacchi to Fabio Capello, through the brilliant Dutch trio of Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard to homegrown stars Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Costacurta – the Italian core remaining from that 1989 triumph to the defeat by Ajax six years later – Milan were a phenomenal force. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten both scored twice in a 4-0 victory over Steaua Bucharest as Milan won the first of back-to-back European Cups in 19894.
What happens next
Liverpool 1976-1984In an era of English dominance on the continent, winning seven of eight European Cups between 1977 and 1984, Liverpool's 'Boot Room' boys led the way. Liverpool's European pedigree really began when Bill Shankly's side won the Uefa Cup in 1973, the Reds doing it again three years later under Shankly's former assistant Bob Paisley. Paisley was able to deliver the biggest prize of all the following season in Rome and, after Kenny Dalglish was brought in to replace Hamburg-bound Kevin Keegan, retained the European Cup at Wembley against Club Brugge in 1978 – the Scottish forward netting the winner.
Three years later, after Brian Clough took Forest to the top, Liverpool were European champions again when Alan Kennedy's goal downed Real Madrid in Paris. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Liverpool won the European Cup four times between 1977 and 19843. The second of those also sparked a three-year winning run for the most successful club in European Cup history. Michels left for Barcelona on the back of that success, though Stefan Kovacs was able to retain the trophy the following year and then add a third successive European crown to Ajax's pile with an impressive run that included knocking out Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and then Juventus in the final.
The report has been compiled by The Daily Waves using information reported across bbc.co.uk, espn.com. Details are presented according to the information available at the time of publication and may change as authorities, organisers or other relevant parties provide updates.