April 2025

The European Cup Winners' Cup (later UEFA CWC) was the tournament between the domestic cup winners. It was established in 1960. 1960/61 season being the first one. Back in the days this was the second European football club competition. First one founded was the European cup (today's Champions League). The UEFA Cup was established in 1971.

The first tournament was held in 1960/61, as already said. It had only ten teams. The small number of participants reflect the lack of enthusiasm that the launch of the new competition generated. However, it should also be noted that many of the national associations did not have a domestic cup competition on those days and were therefore unable to enter a representative. The tournament ran for 39 seasons, with the final edition held in 1998/99 after which it was discounted. Throughout its history it was a classic knock-out tournament with two-legged home and away ties. Tournament final was a single match staged at a neutral venue. The only exception is the first edition where we had a two-legged final and three others where we had a replay, because there there were no winner in the first one and there were no penalty shootouts back then. Title holder would automatically enter the new edition. By UEFA rules, entry was restricted to one club from each UEFA member association, except the winner from the previous season.

Initially, the inaugural edition of the Cup Winners' Cup was not recognised as an official UEFA competition, since it had been organised by the committee of the Mitropa cup, a competition launched in 1927 for clubs from central Europe. Until the next season UEFA took the entire organization over the CWC acknowledging the 60/61 edition as the first one. First match in the competition was played between Berlin's ASK Vorwarts and Czechoslovakian Ruda Hvezda Brno in the preliminary round. The German side won 2-1 but were eliminated at the end after losing 0-2 in the second leg. The first European Cup Winners' Cup final was in 1961 between Rangers, who in the semi-final eliminated Wolverhampton and Fiorentina who eliminated Dinamo Zagreb. Nandor Hodegkuti led Fiorentina to the football history books winning it 4-1 on aggregate.

Most successful club in the competition is Barcelona with four titles and losing two more finals. Next ones won it twice: Anderlecht, Milan, Chelsea and Dynamo Kyiv. Alex Ferguson, Johan Cruyff, Valeriy Lobanovskyi and Nereo Rocco won two CWC titles as managers. Francisco Carrasco, as a player, won a record three titles (all with Barcelona), Ed de Goey played a record 44 games while Rob Rensenbrink scored 25 goals. Winner of the last edition was Lazio who beat Mallorca 2-1. The CWC winner played in the European (UEFA) Super Cup match against a European cup (UCL) winner. First Super cup match was in 1973 and played in this format until 1999 when CWC was discounted and the UEFA Cup winner took its place.

1960/61 FIORENTINA

Rangers 0-2 Fiorentina (Milan x2)

Fiorentina 2-1 Rangers (Milan, Hamrin / Scott)

1961/62 ATLETICO MADRID

Atletico 1-1 Fiorentina (aet) (Peiro / Hamrin)

Atletico 3-0 Fiorentina (replay) (Jones, Mendonca, Peiro)

1962/63 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

Tottenham 5-1 Atl. Madrid (Greaves x2, White, Dyson / Collar)

1963/64 SPORTING CP

Sporting 3-3 MTK Budapest (aet) (Mascarenhas, Figueiredo x2 / Sandor x2, Kuti)

Sporting 1-0 MTK Budapest (replay) (Morais)

1964/65 WEST HAM UNITED

West Ham 2-0 1860 Munchen (Sealey x2)

1965/66 BORUSSIA DORTMUND

BvB 2-1 Liverpool (aet) (Held, Libuda / Hunt)

1966/67 BAYERN MUNCHEN

Bayern 1-0 Rangers (aet) (Roth)

1967/68 MILAN

Milan 2-0 HSV (Hamrin x2)

1968/69 SLOVAN BRATISLAVA

Slovan 3-2 Barcelona (Cvetler, Hrivnak, Jan Čapkovič / Zaluda, Rexach)

1969/70 MANCHESTER CITY

Man. City 2-1 Gornik Zabrze (Young, Lee / Oslizlo)

1970/71 CHELSEA

Chelsea 1-1 Real Madrid (Osgood / Zoco)

Chelsea 2-1 Real Madrid (replay) (Dempsey, Osgood / Fleitas)

1971/72 RANGERS

Rangers 3-2 Dynamo Moscow (Stein, Johnston x2 / Eshtrekov, Makhovikov)

1972/73 MILAN

Milan 1-0 Leeds United (Chiarugi)

Krugel, Zapf, Schulze, Sparwasser, Gaube, Abraham, Pommerenke, Seguin, Tyll, Raugust and Hoffmann

1973/74 MAGDEBURG

Magdeburg 2-0 Milan (Lanzi o.g., Seguin)

Lobanovskyi, Petrashevskiy, Bazylevych, Rudakov, Damin, Konkov, Buryak, Fomenko, Slobodyan, Kuznetsov, Reshko, Zuev, Kolotov, Matvienko, Muntyan, Onishchenko, Troshkin, Veremeev and Blokhin

1974/75 DYNAMO KYIV

Dynamo 3-0 Ferencvaros (Onyshchenko x2, Blokhin)

1975/76 ANDERLECHT

West Ham 2-4 Anderlecht (Holland, Robson / Rensenbrink x2, F. Van der Elst x2)

1976/77 HAMBURGER SV

HSV 2-0 Anderlecht (Volkert, Magath)

1977/78 ANDERLECHT

Anderlecht 4-0 Austria Wien (Rensenbrink x2, Van Binst x2)

1978/79 BARCELONA

Barcelona 4-3 Fortuna Dusseldorf (aet) (J. Sanchez, Asensi, Rexach, Krankl / T. Allofs, Seel x2)

1979/80 VALENCIA

Valencia 0-0 Arsenal (aet) 5-4 (PKs)

Akhalkatsi, Gabelia, Kostava, Chivadze, Khizanishvili, Khinchagashvili, Daraselia, Sulakvelidze, Kipiani, Gutsaev, Shengelia, Tavadze, Svanadze, Kakilashvili, Zhvania and Chilaia

1980/81 DINAMO TBILISI

Dinamo 2-1 Carl Zeiss Jena (Gutsaev, Daraselia / Hoppe)

1981/82 BARCELONA

Barcelona 2-1 Standard Liege (Simonsen, Quini / Vandersmissen)

1982/83 ABERDEEN

Aberdeen 2-1 Real Madrid (aet) (Black, Hewitt / Juanito)

1983/84 JUVENTUS

Juventus 2-1 Porto (Vignola, Boniek / A. Sousa)

1984/85 EVERTON

Everton 3-1 Rapid Wien (Gray, Steven, Sheedy / Krankl)

Lobanovskyi, Veremeyev, Puzach, Chanov, Bezsonov, Baltacha, Kuznetsov, Rats, Yaremchuk, Yakovenko, Demyanenko, Zavarov, Belanov, Blokhin, Yevseyev, Bal, Yevtushenko and Mykhaylychenko

1985/86 DYNAMO KYIV

Dynamo 3-0 Atl. Madrid (Zavarov, Blokhin, Yevtushenko)