(eca101): A new chapter in the history of the European Cup is written (Feature)

By Peter Auf der Heyde May 23, 2010, 1:13 GMT

Madrid - Gabriel Hanot must be turning in his grave.

It was the former French international who was responsible for the introduction of the European Champions' Cup, which was first played in the 1955-56 season.

Hanot, who at the end of his playing days attempted to juggle his careers as French national coach, sports journalist and editor of L'Equipe, but resigned as coach when Hanot the journalist wrote an editorial calling for his resignation, envisaged the competition to pit Europe's champions' clubs against each other.

The first final saw Real Madrid take on Stade De Reims, with the Spanish club running out winners after coming back from two goals down.

Saturday's Champions League (as the successor of the Champions' Cup is called) between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan was a far cry from what the competition was originally meant to be.

For one, Bayern Munich should not have even qualified for the competition as they were not actually the champions of Germany last season - they finished runners-up to VfL Wolfsburg.

Even more removed from Hanot's original idea was the Inter Milan starting XI for the final in Madrid's Bernabeu stadium, which the Serie A won 2-0 through two goals scored by Argentine international Diego Milito in either halves.

Inter coach Jose Mourinho picked four players from Argentina, three from Brazil, one each from Macedonia, Netherlands, Cameroon and Romania.

The only thing missing in the smorgasbord of nationalities was an Italian. And that even though Inter Milan are obviously based in Italy, are the Italian champions and have a tradition of supplying excellent footballers for the country's national side.

After the game, Mourinho dismissed any talk that the victory had not been an Italian one. 'Inter is an Italian team, with Italian culture and we are proud to represent Italian football.

'We are proud for Italian football. Italian football can now say that they are world champions and European club champions and next season they will represent Italy at the European Super Cup and the world club competition.'

Mourinho brought on Italian World Cup winner Marco Materazzi for the final minutes. He said that he had not done that because he wanted to make sure that at least one Italian played a part in the winning team.

'I did not think about nationalities when I brought him on. We were 2-0 up and I wanted to close the door for the last three minutes.

'I also wanted to give a great player who has always been ready an opportunity to play in the Champions League in what is probably his last chance.'

But even if Materazzi came on, a new chapter in the history of the European Cup was written in Madrid on Saturday evening: For the first time ever, a team competing in an European Cup final started with a team without a single player from its own country.

It was, of course, not the first time that a club had played with a team made up entirely of foreigners. Amongst others, Mourinho did that in the group stages, and coach Arsene Wenger also played games without any English players in his Arsenal side.

Michel Platini, who is the president of Europe's governing body UEFA, who organize the Champions League, has gone on record as saying that he wanted to make the competition less elitist.

He said he wanted to give some of the minnows of European football a chance to compete against the bigger teams, thus bringing the competition closer to what it was back in 1957, when it started.

That first final in the Parc des Princes in Paris saw 11 Spaniards (although both Alfredo di Stefano and Hector Rial were born in Argentina and had dual nationalities) take on 11 French players.

Saturday's final of the Champions League was obviously very different from what Hanot envisaged so many years ago.