One hand raised: Leeds United against Bayern Munich in the European Cup final, 28th May 1975
Leeds had to turn their dominance into chances. They did. They had to get the ball past Sepp Maier. They did. They had to win the European Cup. They did enough.
One Leeds United player felt that he, at the end of the European Cup final against Bayern Munich in Paris on 28th May 1975, did not deserve a winner's medal. He was Terry Yorath. In the fourth minute, after the French referee Michel Kitabjian had blown for a free-kick against Frank Gray, Yorath had gone on through a late tackle on Bayern's Björn Andersson. It wasn't a particularly bad foul for the standards of the time. Amid their concern for Andersson, Bayern's players didn't remonstrate with Yorath, and it was a footnote in most match reports. But perhaps Yorath was too keyed up for such a big match, perhaps a month without a competitive game for Leeds had affected his timing. Maybe Andersson had heard the ref's whistle and wasn't ready for the collision. Because something had gone wrong. Andersson's leg was broken in two places, his cruciate knee ligament torn.
"I'm deeply ashamed," of that foul, Yorath wrote in his autobiography in 2004, calling it one of the biggest regrets of his career. "It would have been immoral for me to have come out of that match with a winner's medal."
Immoral for him, but not the team. Most people watching thought Leeds United, even Yorath, deserved to leave Parc des Princes with the winners' medals, and the European Cup. And yes, even Yorath, because apart from the tackle, his presence on the pitch represented Jimmy Armfield's capitulation to the sort of 'realistic' football for which Bayern deserved to lose. The press and the fans and the lovers of sport had wanted to see Eddie Gray dizzying defenders, if not Duncan McKenzie too. What they'd got, instead, was Yorath, there to make life difficult for Bayern's brilliant international players, and a plan for playing high diagonal balls towards Joe Jordan. It wasn't beautiful. But Yorath and the rest deserved medals. Because it was still, compared to how Bayern had played, football.
Leeds United's Championship winning season, game by game, as written at Leedsista.com.
This 300 page Royal format softback book compiles every match report and essay about the title-winning 2024/25 season so you can relive the anxiety, and the glory, game by game.
This is a pre-order, and I really appreciate anyone buying now so I can get the initial print numbers just right. The book will be published, printed and delivered in June 2025. Thanks!
The final as a whole, wrote François Thébaud in Miroir du Football's post-match editorial, was:
An appalling battle, peppered with brutality and irregularities, between a team (Leeds) who had deliberately deprived themselves of the tactical means to impose their offensive will, illustrated by an overwhelming territorial domination; and a formation (Bayern) deliberately refusing to play.
Leeds dominated the match while Gerd Müller, the great West German World Cup winning striker, played nearer his own goal than his opponent's. Worse, this appeared to have been a choice of the Bayern coach Dettmar Cramer, to use Müller as a defensive midfielder and play without any attacking threat at all. Midfielder Franz Roth was furthest forward, where he was busily trying to mark Johnny Giles. Cramer seemed to have been planning for counter-attacking, but against Leeds? Leeds, with Billy Bremner threatening any player who even thought about going near Norman Hunter or Paul Madeley, were not about to be counter-attacked. Their control of the game was absolute.
United's first problem, of several, was doing something with that control. Perhaps Cramer had judged well that Leeds would not be expecting such defensive tactics on the biggest stage. In his newspaper column Giles had said he was glad the final was a one-off game, not two-legged, 'because this means that both teams will need to adopt a positive approach in terms of going for goals.' Leeds had prepared for that from Bayern, using Yorath instead of Eddie Gray to thwart the strong attacking expected along Leeds' left side. Gray was available from the bench, as was unpredictable striker Duncan McKenzie, but the encyclopaedic Cramer may have also calculated that Leeds' manager Jimmy Armfield, whose indecision was already infamous, wouldn't rush into bringing either of them on. Leeds had the pitch to themselves, with few dangerous attacks to repel. But they didn't have all the tools with them to turn their dominance into goals. And all the while Bayern — knackered from years of playing exhibition games to pay for their success, from summers winning Euros and World Cups instead of holidaying — were conserving their energy and finding motivation in the fact that, an hour into the final, they could still win.
The second problem for Leeds was Bayern's World Cup winning goalkeeper, Sepp Maier. Whatever people might think about Gray and McKenzie being left out, Leeds still had Allan Clarke, Joe Jordan and Peter Lorimer in attack, with Giles and Bremner as creative as they were destructive, the perfect midfielders. These great players created enough to win. In the 65th minute, Lorimer floated a free-kick to the edge of the penalty area. Madeley ran to meet it, unmarked, heading the ball down towards the Leeds forwards. Sepp Weiss fumbled his chance to clear and sent it bouncing into the six yard box. Bremner, instinctively, hammered the ball on the turn towards goal. And Maier, instinctively, had put himself in the right place to dive and swat the shot away. Bremner just stood there, his feet planted apart, staring at the goalkeeper, standing up again in front of the net where the ball was supposed to be. He'd got down and up so fast Bremner might have thought he imagined the save, and been looking for the ball behind him. One of the Bayern players ran to Maier, trying to celebrate, but he was shooed away — the ball was still in play, until Rainer Zobel fouled Allan Clarke, around thirty yards from goal.