Arsenal in Europe 1994-95

- Defending the Cup Winners Cup

"In a European tie, both legs are equally important, if not more important than each other" (Colin Calder)

Contents

This page

Related pages

General

Eligibility - the foreigners rule

In any one game, each side is allowed to name a maximum of three foreigners in the squad. A foreigner is anyone who is not eligible to play for the international side of the country in which the club team plays. Five foreigners may be named, so long as at least two of them are "assimilated", where an assimilated player is a foreigner who has played club football in the country of the club n question for 5 years. At least three of those years must have been spent playing youth football.

At present the players in Arsenal's squad who count as foreigners are:

Of the above:

Arsenal Players on One Booking

A second yellow card leads to an automatic one game suspension.

Suspensions

Steve Bould is suspended from the final after picking up a second booking in Genoa. Arsenal appealed his suspension to UEFA on the grounds that Bould's first caution was conceded in the Super Cup rather than the Cup-Winners Cup. It was rather a long shot ! The thing is: the SuperCup IS a UEFA competition. The situation is clearer with the following similar situation: suspensions picked up in one European competition are carried over if the club qualifies for a different UEFA competition the following season. So if any ManUtd players have suspensions hanging over them from this years Champions League, they will be suspended from next years CWC (should they be lucky enough to beat the Limpar-inspired Everton at Wembley on 20th May).

"He's got no hair and he won't be there, Stevie Stevie Bould..."

Andy Linighan will take Bould's place alongside Tony Adams.

Real Zaragoza cautions

Zaragoza have no players suspended from the final, although eleven of them are on one yellow card, this does not make any differnce to this years final.

The Final

Wednesday 10th May, Parc des Princes (Paris). 
	Arsenal  (0) 1 - 2  (0)  Real Zaragoza  (aet. 1-1 at 90mins)

   (Hartson)       (Esnaider, Nayim)

Real Zaragoza

The quoted parts of the following are from an article by Graham Turner in the December '94 issue of World Soccer. Thanks are also due to Les Shen. please send us any more info .
Roll of honour:
Real zaragoza have never won the Spanish League, but have won their domestic Cup competition 4 times (64, 66, 86, 94), appearing in 4 successive finals in the 60s. Like Arsenal, they have also won the Fairs cup once, in 1964 (a cup double year for them) beating Valencia, the Spanish team that famously beat Arsenal on penalties in the 1980 Cup Winners Cup final (see Graham Rix miss the crucial penalty).
Miscellaneous:
The Real Zaragoza team that played Chelsea:
Juanmi, Belsu, Cafu, Caceres, Oscar, Solana, Pardeza, Aragon, Esnaida (Loreto 84), Higuera (Geli 72), Nayim.
League Form :
On Sunday (23rd April), they defeated Albacete away 3-0 and are currently in fourth place, with 37 pts, 9 pts off the leaders Real Madrid, 2 pts behind Deportivo La Coruna and 1 pt behind Barca. This was Real Zaragoza's first away win of 1995 ! They have won away legs in Europe this season (before Xmas, obviously), but against decidedly weaker opposition.
The Manager
Their current manager is Philosophy graduate Victor Fernandez, at 34 the youngest coach in the Spanish 1st division.
The Goalie(s)
"At 34, the daddy-long-legs goalkeeper Andoni Cedrun has been fighting off the challenge of the younger and more impetuous Juanmi, signed from Real Madrid. [It would appear that this fight is being won by Juanmi.] He is protected by one of the best all around back fours in Spain, in the sense that they not only defend but also offer attacking support." One of Athletic Bilbao's goals in their recent win at Zaragoza followed a bizarre Grobelaar-esque episode where Juanmi rushed out nearly to the half-way line to clear the ball and missed it, allowing a Bilbao player to score.
The Defence
"Javier Aguado and Argentinian WC defender Fernando Caceres are the centre pins, leaving Antonio Belsue and "Chucho" Solana to provide the quality defending and attacking on the flanks."
The Midfield
"But the midfield is the Zaragoza powerhouse and Fernandez [coach Victor Fernandez] has added to his embarrassment of riches by signing Angel de Juana Garcia, alias "Geli" from Santander this summer.
Geli has a hell of a time competing for a place in midfield even though another Argentinian intl, Dario Franco, still has not recovered peak form after a tendon operation.
"Santi Aragon, bought from Real Madrid, is a joy to watch in the pivotal role. Uruguayan intl Gustavo Poyet is an explosive mixture of skill and agression. Former scum midfielder Nayim is having an excellent season. Jose Aurelio Gay is easing his way in after a 5 month injury break. And youngsters such as Garcia Sanjuan and Oscar (signed from Gijon this summer) are struggling for opportunities."
The Strike Force
" 'Mighty Mouse' Miguel Pardeza has not been a regular starter this term even though he is something of an institution at the club. The reason is that Juan Eduardo Esnaider from Argentina via Real Madrid and "Packet" Higuera (now in the intl team) have formed an explosive partnership."
Zaragoza's Brasilian Star
iIn mid-season, Zaragoza acquired Brasilian international Cafu (real name Marcos Evangelista de Moraes). Cafu is a 24yr old with 50 international caps already. He can play at fullback, central defence, or midfield. He came on as a substitute for right back Jorginho after 18 minutes of the World Cup final last year.

Semi Finals

Ties to be played on the 6th and 20th of April. 
Arsenal        vs    Sampdoria
      Arsenal   (2) 3 - 2 (0)  Sampdoria
      Sampdoria (1) 3 - 2 (0)  Arsenal  (3-2 aet)

    5-5 on aggregate. 
    Arsenal win 3-2 on penalties. There are pictures of the crucial moments from the shoot-out (also see the match report
    for these and more pictures from this great victory).

Real Zaragoza  vs    Chelsea
      Zaragoza  3 - 0  Chelsea
      Chelsea   3 - 1  Zaragoza

	Real Zaragoza win 4-3 on aggregate.

Quarter Finals

Arsenal        vs   Auxerre
      Arsenal    (0) 1 - 1 (0)  Auxerre
      Auxerre    (0) 0 - 1 (1)  Arsenal     (Arsenal win 2-1 on aggregate)

Feyenoord      vs   Real Zaragoza
      Feyenoord  (0) 1 - 0 (0)  Real Zaragoza
      R Zaragoza (?) 2 - 0 (?)  Feyenoord   (Real Zaragoza win 2-1 on aggregate)

Sampdoria      vs   FC Porto
      Sampdoria  (0) 0 - 1 (0)  Porto
      Porto      (?) 0 - 1 (?)  Sampdoria   (aet. Sampdoria win 5-3 on penalties)

FC Brugge      vs   Chelsea
      Bruges     (0) 1 - 0 (0)  Chelsea
      Chelsea    (2) 2 - 0 (0)  Bruges      (Chelsea win 2-1 on aggregate)
The Chelsea & Auxerre links above are to the clubs' www home pages. Highlighted scores link to match reports.

Background on Auxerre (AJA) - a bit of a Wimbledon story!

Auxerre arrived in the French first division in 1980 but managed a Cup final in 1979 when they were in division 2. Since 1984 they qualify for the UEFA cup about 2 years out of 3.

Auxerre are recognized now as one of the 6 big french teams with OM,PSG,Monaco,Bordeaux,Nantes... well just underneath because Auxerre is a town of 50,000 persons which is quite small for France. They'll never manage to have enough money to buy players so they form brillant young players.

Last year they won the first major trophy of the clubs history: La Coupe de FRANCE.

Major years in european competitions: 1991: 1/4 finalist UEFA Cup lost vs Fiorentna 1-0;0-0 1993: 1/2 finalist UEFA Cup lost vs Dortmund 2-0;0-2 (5-4 penalties)

The major players of today

Martini (ex-french goalkeeper wounded for 6 months always played for AJA). Verlaat (from Ajax he bought him 2 years ago he's 25 and he's excellent plays sweeper). Martins (n10 he's really good Milan wanted to buy him last year he might leave at the end of the year). Vahirua (15 selections for the french side)). Cocard (15 selections for the french side) both played up front with Cantona in Auxerre when they were young.

The trainer is Guy Roux (he's been trainer since 1960 !!!) and started with the club when they were in the Regional 2 championship !!! Climbed 8 divisions and made it to Europe.

The major specifications of Auxerre is they always play and played since the seventies in a classical 4-3-3 even in the youth teams were we usually trust all the tropheys. Like Nantes, the kids learn to play a one touch game that they never lose when they grow up and makes a beautiful technical soccer to see.

There is an Auxerre WWW page.

Second Round

NB. The links below are to match reports.

Thursday 20th October: Brondby vs Arsenal
Result: 1-2 (Wright, Smith)
Thursday 3rd November: Arsenal vs Brondby
Result: 2-2 (Wright, Selley)

Arsenal through 4-3 on aggregate

Full Second Round Round-up

ARSENAL (ENG)       2, Brondby (DEN)       2       2-1          4-3
Ferencvaros (HUN)   2, FC PORTO (POR)      0       0-6          2-6
Austria Wien (AUT)  1, CHELSEA (ENG)       1       0-0          1-1
Werder Bremen (GER) 3, FEYENOORD (HOL)     4       0-1          3-5
Grasshoppers (SWI)  3, SAMPDORIA (ITA)     2       0-3          3-5
AUXERRE (FRA)       2, Besiktas (TUR)      0       2-2          4-2
Panathinaikos (GRE) 0, FC BRUGGE (BEL)     0       0-1          0-1
REAL ZARAGOZA (ESP) 2, Tatran Presov (SLK) 1       4-0          6-1

Marc Eld's Evaluation of Brondby

Currently Brondby is placed in the top 3 of the Danish Premier League. The league is headed by AaB, who has had a tremendous start to the season playing some attractive attacking football. OB is competing with Brondby for the 2nd spot,both teams playing 0-0 in Odense last week, with Brondby the superior side, markedly so near the end of the game. Brondby has had a couple of unfortunate results, e.g. losing 2-1 to FCK at a time FCK was in crisis. In this match Brondby completely outplayed FCK in the 2nd half, the entire half was played on the FCK half. Except for added time, when FCK scored the winner on a beautiful cross.

This season Brondby has shown considerable skill in midfield and has good creative and speed down their right side. Their defence is quite solid, however, it is not impregnable IMO.

After selling Schmeichel to ManUtd for 700,000 pounds, they acquired the 2nd best Danish keeper. Brondby still has Vilfort playing who can play well. Vilfort is best remembered for scoring Denmark's 2nd vs. Germany in Sweden, after a later Arsenal player had put Dk ahead 1-0. Up front Brondby features Mark Strudal, an energetic hardworking forward who gets into a lot of positions. If only he scored on a higher percentage he would be a cert in the national side.Now he is only picked occasionally. Having been away (in England) until recently I can't really put names nor reputations to the other Brondby players.

I expect Brondby to be a harder nut to crack than OB was last year, as they are more solid in defence, has a long good tradition for pressure football, plays well wide in attack in particular on the right plus a hardworking midfield. However, they shouldn't just storm ahead as OB did in the 1st half of the 1st leg. But they could well be trouble at Highbury if we think it's a pushover.

Arsenal favourites to win. I should say our win chance is 75%.

I think it hinges on our ability to apply pressure to Brondby's back 2 or 3 or 4.

First round

In the draw made today (26/08/94), Arsenal are paired with Omonia Nicosia (Cyprus). Chelsea have Viktora Zizkov of the Czech republic.

In the preliminary round Omonia knocked out Tiligul Tiraspol of Moldavia 4-1 (1-0 away and 3-1 at home).

Thursday September 15th: Omonia Nicosia vs Arsenal
Result: 1-3 (Wright, Merson 2)
Thursday September 29th: Arsenal vs Omonia Nicosia (click for match report)
Result: 3-0 (Wright 2, Schwarz)
Aggregate result:
6-1 to the Arsenal

Costas' guide to Greek-Cypriot football

Greek-Cypriot football has very strong affiliations with politics. The two main teams on the island are divided purely on political grounds. Omonia are the club of the left, while APOEL belong to the right-wing. This means that the clubs are indirectly run and sponsored by the Cypriot political parties. Omonia are (as good as) owned by the Socialist and Communist parties of Cyprus, while APOEL by the Nationalist right-wing party.
The club affiliations for supporters are also mainly determined by the politics one believes in.
As you can understand the rivalry is very bitter.

Omonia are by far the most successful club in Cyprus. They wear white and green and play in a nice little stadium in Nicosia called the "Macarios Stadium" (after the archbishop who led the island for years). The only player of theirs I know is Savvides who started with Omonia, moved to AEK Athens for 4-5 years and has now returned to Cyprus to close out his career. He is a decent player and very experienced.

I've never been to Cyprus but from what I know, its definately worth visiting. I suggest that if you want to go the game there, you combine it with a little touring holiday - go to the beach, have a few ouzos, etc..

Arsenal should go through without much trouble. What the draw means to Arsenal is that Highbury will be filled with Greek-Cypriots from North London (there's tons of them up there). In fact, most of the North-London-Anglo-Greek-Cypriots support Arsenal, so I expect them to be very pleased with the opportunity to see Omonia right in their backyard against their home club, Arsenal.

Full details of the CWC in German (don't let this put you off!), including all draws and results, can be found on Reinhard Kahle's CWC page.
HOME: 00-01, info, history, people, misc, Links | Newsreel | Shop | Calendar | Table | Stats | Cybury | HELP