Milan enjoy six of the best

By Patrick Hart

Milan 2-1 SL Benfica
Gianni Rivera, Cesare Maldini, Giovanni Trapattoni ... just three reasons why Milan were Italy's first European Cup winners in 1962/63. Another were the goals of Brazilian José Altafini, who scored 14 in the competition as Nereo Rocco's men brushed aside Ipswich Town FC, Galatasaray SK and Dundee FC en route to the final. Dundee's 1-0 triumph in Scotland was no consolation for the 5-1 hammering they took at San Siro in the semi-final first leg. Benfica, bidding for third straight tournament win, had a much rougher ride to Wembley. The holders narrowly overcame FK Dukla Praha and then Feyenoord. The final itself brought together two Goliaths in centre-forwards Altafini and Eusébio. The latter opened the scoring in the first half; the former responded in the second, twice running on to passes from playmaker Rivera to give Milan a 2-1 victory.

Milan 4-1 AFC Ajax
When holders Manchester United FC fell to Milan at the second-last in 1968/69, the Italians' 2-1 aggregate success was all the more remarkable given that they managed to stop Denis Law scoring. The Scottish international had hit nine goals in the preceding rounds. Still, it was Rocco's side, conquerors of IFK Malmö and Celtic FC, who advanced to the final at the Santiago Bernabéu, their opponents being Ajax. Rinus Michel's team had beaten Benfica 3-0 in a quarter-final replay with two goals from a young Johan Cruyff, and then defeated FC Spartak Trnava of Czechoslovakia. Yet the Dutch side's inexperience counted against them on the big day. Pierino Prati, with the first hat-trick in a final since Ferenc Puskás in 1962, and Angelo Sormani gave the Rossoneri a comfortable 4-1 win. Milan were European champions for a second time, adding club football's prize bauble to the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup they had lifted a year before.

Milan 4-0 FC Steaua Bucuresti
Milan waited until 1989 before clinching a hat-trick of European Cups. On the evidence of the 4-0 dismantling of Steaua in the Camp Nou final, it was worth it. Certainly, there were few impatient voices among the estimated 80,000 Rossoneri fans in Barcelona the night Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten put the seal on an emphatic victory. The same was true when Milan destroyed Real Madrid CF 5-0 in a classic semi-final at San Siro. That there were five different scorers - Carlo Ancelotti, Frank Rijkaard, Gullit, Van Basten and Roberto Donadoni - reflected the all-round strength of Arrigo Sacchi's team. Yet they were not always so invincible: needing the away goals rule to beat FK Crvena Zvezda in round two, and a disputed penalty to eclipse Werder Bremen in the last eight. But just as Milan came good at the right time, so Steaua chose the worst possible moment to develop stage fright. The result was a standard of football seldom witnessed at the climax of this competition.

Milan 1-0 Benfica
The year 1990 belonged to Italy. Not only did they host the FIFA World Cup finals, they also provided a temporary home for the three European trophies. With the UEFA Cup and UEFA Cup Winners' Cup headed for Juventus FC and Sampdoria UC respectively, Milan completed an unprecedented grand slam by retaining the European Cup. Rijkaard's goal against an uninspired Benfica made for a comfortable victory in Vienna - though the Rossoneri's passage to the final was not so predictable. Sacchi's men had defeated HJK Helsinki in the first round and then outclassed Madrid as they had in the semi-finals 12 months earlier. But tougher tests came in the form of impressive quarter-finalists KV Mechelen and FC Bayern München - one beaten 2-0 on aggregate after extra time, the other on away goals after extra time.

Milan 4-0 FC Barcelona
With the UEFA Champions League undergoing more cosmetic change for the 1993/94 season, Milan won their quarter-final group, undefeated by FC Porto, Bremen and RSC Anderlecht, before overcoming Monaco 3-0 at the San Siro in the semi-finals. However, the yellow and red cards shown to Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta left them without two key defenders for the final. No matter: Fabio Capello's side made light of the handicap, their glorious 4-0 victory over Barcelona in Athens giving credibility to the new-look competition. Daniele Massaro gave the Rossoneri a 2-0 lead which Dejan Savicevic and Marcel Desailly added to in the second half. Remarkably, the demolition job came against Cruyff's so-called 'dream team', for whom this was only the second defeat of the European season.

Milan 0-0 Juventus FC (Milan win 3-2 on penalties)
Thirty years after his father Cesare had lifted the trophy for Milan, Paolo Maldini raised aloft the European Cup at Old Trafford to satisfy the romantics. These might have been less pleased by the fact the Rossoneri's victory owed to a tie-breaker, yet the 0-0 draw that Carlo Ancelotti's men played out with Juve over 120 minutes in Manchester proved to be an attractive impasse. Stalemates had also been the order of Milan's semi-final against another Italian rival, FC Internazionale Milano. Andriy Shevchenko's second-leg strike in a 1-1 draw won the all-Milanense tie on away goals. Milan also showed their pedigree by topping their sections in the first and second group stages - the latter at the expense of Madrid, BV Borussia Dortmund and FC Lokomotiv Moskva - before edging past Ajax 3-2 on aggregate in the last eight. Clarence Seedorf, a former Ajax player, missed from the spot in Manchester but became the first man to win the competition with three different clubs.