Favorite Goals: Massaro Opens The Scoring In Athens

Milan had just won the scudetto for the third time in a row. Barcelona’s so called dream team had win the La Liga for the fourth time in a row, the latter three by the smallest of margins. It was Capello vs Cruyff. The pre-match was dominated by Barca’s overconfidence and Cruyff’s boasting about his team’s attacking play vs the so called defensive Capello and Italian style.

Baresi and Costacurta were suspended. Marco van Basten was injured and the Dutch trio era was nearing its end. Due to overconfidence – and partially limits on foreign players – meant Michael Laudrup was not even on the bench for Barca.

The game didn’t go as Spanish team had hoped. Barca didn’t get many chances on the ball and their attacks were often broken up with Milan flooding forward instead. One such play led to the first goal. Boban broke up a Barca play which allowed Savicevic to beat Pep Guardiola and Miguel Angel Nadal and run towards Zubizarreta. His shot was half diverted to Massaro who easily shot in to open the scoring.

Three more impressive goals followed in what Cruyff later characterized as “It was not that we played badly, it was that we did not play at all.”

The 1994 Champions League final finished 4-0 and went down as one of the most historic football games of all time.