by Aurora Bulkualis » Thu Feb 02, 2017 9:02 pm
Plako wrote:Aurora Bulkualis wrote:
They faced Barcelona 4 times in 2 years, and only lost 1 tie.
And contrary to what people say, Barca was still a top team then. Recently to those games, 1986, they were European Cup finalists. From 1970s to 1990s, players like Cruyff, Maradona, Guardiola, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Stoichkov, Figo all played for Barca.
Also of note is that the 87/88 tie was the quarterfinal of the UEFA Cup too. Barca lost the European Cup final in 1986 to Steaua and won its first in 1992 during those years. Back then only the champions played in the European Cup, the predecessor to the CL.
I still maintain the 1980's was the golden age of the Albanian club football with Tirana (4 titiles), Dinamo (2 titles), Partizani (2 titles), Vllaznia (1 title), Labinoti Elbasan (1 title) and Flamurtari (3 years in a row runners up) all being in excellent form. Unfortunately the fall of communism led to a rapid decline in club football which took us almost 20 years to recover from and I don't believe we'll ever reach those heights again. What Flamurtari did is definitely impossible to repeat at club level now, where we're just happy to pass a first couple of rounds and have become notonrious for match fixing. Gone are the ideals and the money/corruption has taken over football just like every facet of Albanian life.
Yeah, football is very different today. Teams like Steaua and Red Star winning European titles is impossible.
[quote="Plako"][quote="Aurora Bulkualis"][quote="Migjeni"]I know it's only a short clip, but damn... Back when Flamurtari were teaching Barcelona what tika-taka is.
[facebookpost]https://www.facebook.com/palma.sport.969/videos/1837115263215495[/facebookpost][/quote]
They faced Barcelona 4 times in 2 years, and only lost 1 tie.
And contrary to what people say, Barca was still a top team then. Recently to those games, 1986, they were European Cup finalists. From 1970s to 1990s, players like Cruyff, Maradona, Guardiola, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Stoichkov, Figo all played for Barca.[/quote]
Also of note is that the 87/88 tie was the quarterfinal of the UEFA Cup too. Barca lost the European Cup final in 1986 to Steaua and won its first in 1992 during those years. Back then only the champions played in the European Cup, the predecessor to the CL.
I still maintain the 1980's was the golden age of the Albanian club football with Tirana (4 titiles), Dinamo (2 titles), Partizani (2 titles), Vllaznia (1 title), Labinoti Elbasan (1 title) and Flamurtari (3 years in a row runners up) all being in excellent form. Unfortunately the fall of communism led to a rapid decline in club football which took us almost 20 years to recover from and I don't believe we'll ever reach those heights again. What Flamurtari did is definitely impossible to repeat at club level now, where we're just happy to pass a first couple of rounds and have become notonrious for match fixing. Gone are the ideals and the money/corruption has taken over football just like every facet of Albanian life.[/quote]
Yeah, football is very different today. Teams like Steaua and Red Star winning European titles is impossible.