Champions League 2001: Lazio vs Leeds United
David O'Leary was taking Leeds United to Rome for the third time, and with every trip his — and his club's — stock was getting higher.
2025/26 season marks 25 years since Leeds United were playing in the Champions League, and even if it does feel like yesterday, it's worth going back to check what happened.
Throughout this season I'll be writing about the Champions League campaign game by game, roughly around the anniversary of each match.
So far Leeds have battled through 1860 Munich, home and away, then in the group stage played Barcelona, Milan and Besiktas twice.
Rome was not an unpleasant backdrop for Leeds United to track their progress against their aspirations with David O'Leary. A UEFA Cup game against Roma convinced O'Leary that he, with Eddie Gray and the youngsters being nurtured in the reserves, could take over from George Graham. It also convinced Leeds' chairman Peter Ridsdale that he didn't have to keep straining to get Martin O'Neill from Leicester City. Another UEFA Cup clash with Roma sealed Leeds as the rising European team of the new millennium, hurtling towards the Champions League. Now they were in Rome again, after hurdling the Champions League's first group stage, to play the Olympic Stadium's other tenant, Lazio.
Lazio were trying to get untangled from their own and everyone else's aspirations. At the start of November, Peter Ridsdale had been part of the FA panel who interviewed and selected Lazio manager Sven-Göran Eriksson as the next England manager, and speculators since were focusing on when he would start work. Eriksson was trying to satisfy his bosses by turning the Italian champions into Champions League winners, but losing to Anderlecht had turned this game with Leeds, and the forthcoming Rome derby, into must win matches. Nobody was missing the irony that an English team of English internationals had the first chance to push Eriksson into an early start at The FA.
What a time to give the world's most expensive defender his debut. That was the Premier League, though, as £18m Rio Ferdinand was ineligible for the Champions League. And that was a disaster. O'Leary had picked three central defenders for the weekend's trip to Leicester but, as the team went three goals down, Jonathan Woodgate was subbed off in the first half, Lucas Radebe was sent off in the second half, and only Ferdinand was left. Former centre-back O'Leary was quick to shun any responsibility. "The goals were nothing to do with tactics, but to do with people not marking," he said. "Let's hope they learned from that. They know they let themselves down. Jonathan (Woodgate)'s concentration on Saturday wasn't right and he's got to put that right."
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