Roma’s talented and fine-tuned players, stretching their muscles in the
queue for customs at Ringway Airport, might have swapped the sun-drenched hubbub
of the Italian capital for the red brick and drizzle of post-industrial Manchester,
but they will be aware that they are about to play their most crucial game in
this season’s Champions League.
This is a fixture that has never before
been played in earnest, the pre-season plastic pitch of 1980 Giants Stadium in New York being the only
(semi-)competitive game ever played between the sides. On that occasion the
City goals were scored with graceful aplomb by Kaziu Deyna and Steve Daley with
"Paul Sugroe", practically unknown to American tv commentators hitting the third
and a chunky Carlo Ancelotti weighing in with one of Roma’s goals in a 2-3
defeat for the Italians.
In the 34 years that have followed, City have studiously avoided the need for eye contact with AS Roma. In fact, barring the occasional confrontation with Italian clubs over the years, City’s history in this part of the world is sparse to say the least. Only two UEFA Cup/Europa League double headers with Juventus (1976-7 and 2010-11) and one each with AC Milan (1978-79 UEFA Cup) and –more recently- Napoli (2011-12) in the Champions League have occurred in nearly 45 years.
OLD
LADIES FIRST
Here are the line-ups from the initial
meetings with the great Juventus side of the mid seventies, one that furnished
the Italian national team for the World Cup in Argentina in 1978 with no fewer
than eight players.
Sep 15th 1976 Manchester City 1 Juventus 0 (Kidd)
Corrigan; Docherty,
Donachie, Doyle, Watson, Conway, Barnes (Power), Kidd, Royle, Hartford, Tueart. Att 36,955
Sep 29th 1976
Juventus 2 Manchester
City 0
Corrigan, Docherty,
Donachie, Doyle, Watson, Booth, Keegan (Lester), Kidd, Royle, Hartford, Tueart Att 55,000
City, with a team full of international
pedigree, drawn to play Juventus in the first round of the UEFA Cup, an unlucky
quirk of the draw in the days before seeding and money interest kept glamour
games away from the early stages. On a raw Manchester night, City did the raucous Maine Road crowd
proud. With the Kippax belting out the slightly unusual chant of "We all
hate spaghetti" and following it up with a thumping, partisan rendition
of "Fish and chips, fish and chips, fish and chips", not
only was the electric atmosphere giddy with that famous Maine Road mix of
gallows humour and northern slapstick, but the men from Turin were in danger of
being rocked out of their composed stride.
FALLING
INTO IL TRAP
New England manager Don Revie sat
expectantly under a tartan rug in the Main Stand with a notepad marked
"Tueart, Royle, Kidd, Barnes, Doyle, Watson, Corrigan...", the new England
pretenders, while Juventus coach Giovanni Trappatoni, embarking on what would
stretch to a ten year stint in charge, strode around the muddy edges of the
Maine Road pitch with a small piece of paper marked with a single vital word -
"catenaccio". If foreign tongues were anathema to the mean streets of
Moss Side in those days of chips and gravy, we would soon enough understand what
this bit of Italian signified.
Tony Book would later admit that this was a well-laid but hardly unforeseeable trap that the Blues had marched straight into. With the Kippax heaving and City leading through Brian Kidd's soaring header, a win was considered well worth celebrating. It was not every day, after all, that Manchester City dealt a blow to the pride of a team so swollen with international names of repute. City had practically beaten the Italian national side for heaven's sake! The nagging doubt remained, however, that having Juve on the ropes on your own patch, with the Kippax baying for more, might just be seen as a missed opportunity rather than a heroic episode in what we somewhat laughingly hoped would be a thick volume of similarly outstanding European nights out.
THE OLD ONE-TWO
Tony Book would later admit that this was a well-laid but hardly unforeseeable trap that the Blues had marched straight into. With the Kippax heaving and City leading through Brian Kidd's soaring header, a win was considered well worth celebrating. It was not every day, after all, that Manchester City dealt a blow to the pride of a team so swollen with international names of repute. City had practically beaten the Italian national side for heaven's sake! The nagging doubt remained, however, that having Juve on the ropes on your own patch, with the Kippax baying for more, might just be seen as a missed opportunity rather than a heroic episode in what we somewhat laughingly hoped would be a thick volume of similarly outstanding European nights out.
THE OLD ONE-TWO
Well-steeped in European two leg tactics, Juventus knew full well that a 1-0 deficit could easily be turned around in the boiling bear pit of the Stadio Communale in Turin. And so it transpired, with City unable to steel themselves, unprepared for the iron-clad defensive shut-out that was necessary, instead attempting to give the striped Juventini a game, playing a brand of open expansive football, which the home side quickly picked off. With the score at 2-0 in a rainy Turin, City had no answer and the Italians played out the rest of the remaining minutes with their familiar defensive aplomb. Book had been right to say beforehand that the winners of this tie could go on to lift the trophy, but it was Juventus who would do so and not City.
"They
were just too experienced for us," he said later. "We were 16 months together and only knew one
way to play. We did not adapt to the needs of the European game, the slow build
up, cautious patient passing game." Another abrupt end had been
reached, another harsh lesson had been dealt out. A small consolation presented
itself in the next round when United showed they had learnt nothing from City's
approach and they too were dumped out by Juventus. The Old Lady shimmied all
the way to the final and yet another glorious trophy win, whilst Manchester's blues began
an inexorable slump that would end up with us all face down in the mud at at
Macclesfield.
To stand on
the Kippax in the 70s and watch a night match in European competition, you were
transported to a unique place in life. Bursting with wit and spontaneity,
danger and uncertainty, the great terrace grasped you, shook you and embraced
you, until that trembling old place cast you back out into the wet streets of
Rusholme to fend for yourself. The rain -if not the town- could drag you down.
Between those mid-to-late
70's of Brian Kidd and Dennis Tueart and the 2003 UEFA Cup match with Total
Network Solutions of Wales, there was not a sausage, bratwurst or chorizo worth
its name for City fans to savour. The European drought has long since ended,
however, and these days the likes of Milan, Roma
and Juventus look at Manchester
City in a totally
different light.
Whilst the Old Lady represents, even in her
modern low budget blouses and sensible shoes, much of what City are not - old
Europe, old money, trophy-heavy, aristocratic elite from the parched south of
Europe, Roma’s record in Europe is not so
burdensome. A mid-eighties peak of losing ignominiously to Liverpool
in their own heaving Stadio Olympico was the zenith of their achievements and
modern times have brought more modest targets.
"Call me morbid, call me pale, but
we've spent 34 long years on your trail..."
TIME LORDS
TIME LORDS
Images of the track-suited Nils Liedholm flash across the mind, the upright gods of Falcão, Graziani, Boniek, Collovati, Giannini, Prohaska, Ancelotti and the little devil Bruno Conte come easily to the mind's eye, draped in history, glory and the honeyed fog of all those unforgettable European nights. These names form part of the rich history of not just the fabric of Roma but also of Italian football.
City play out a delayed 2-2 draw at the San Siro in 1978 |
HISTORY BECKONS
Whilst City lost at Halifax Town
in the FA Cup and introduced themselves repeatedly to the denizons of the old
second division, Roma were embarking on something of a golden era, that would
bring them eventually to today’s total of 213 European games (City have played just
92). Reaching the European Cup Final of 83-84 and the UEFA Cup final of 90-91,
both lost respectively to Liverpool and Inter,
things would never be quite so good again. Modern times have seen intermittent
participation in the Champions League but have also brought the club’s biggest
ever continental defeat, shipping seven at Old Trafford in 2007. A visit to Manchester should not, therefore, be taken to lightly by
the Italians, especially so when you realise that seven is exactly the number of
goals City managed in their last home game..
Tommy Booth (l) and Brian Kidd (r) head goals in the 3-0 City demolition of AC Milan at Maine Road |
Napoli exhibited a verve and togetherness that took the home side by
surprise that night, gaining a 1-1 draw that would be instrumental in keeping
them above City in the final group table. City have grown into this competition
since then and will draw on the experience of four consecutive seasons pitting
their wits against the very best Europe has to
offer, plus Viktoria Plzen.
If the club’s history of combat with Italian sides is a little on the thin side, it is not without triumph. The spirit of Brian Kidd and Asa Hartford may long have been extinguished on the football pitch, but City’s class of 2014 has the guile and the heart to out-manoeuvre the very best that Roman organisation can put in its way, emulating the class of 1980.
Small consolation in United's knockout by Juve maybe, but attendances 36,955 compared to 59,021 shows where Manchester's loyalties lie.
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