Legendary goalkeeper Dino Zoff was their manager. They had players like Diego Simeone, Alessandro Nesta, Juan Veron, Simone Inzaghi and Dino Baggio. And they all stayed at home so Leeds were reacquainted with Fabrizio Ravanelli, out of Middlesbrough.
Tomas Brolin's third game for Palace, when George Graham's Leeds came to Selhurst Park, was a chance to overturn opinions and prove some points. Instead the Match of the Day cameras caught the end again, first Brolin slumped in the grass again, then a bloody bandage.
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All told, since taking charge at Bramall Lane, Neil Warnock had signed 45 strikers. In the end the partnership he was looking for was Neil Shipperley and Danny Webber.
I'm content for Joel Piroe to pop up on a weekend like this, when we had much to fear, and finish off a move and a game with the nonchalance we needed to get over the rut we were getting in.
Don Revie sometimes felt his Leeds team were cursed in their attempts to emulate Real Madrid, and this rainsoaked Madrid night of 2001 felt eerily familiar, of being a game beyond Leeds United's control.
Suddenly, the Championship's dread grudges resume beating under the floorboards. Next season could bring Millwall, Middlesbrough and Frank Lampard's Coventry together with Sunderland, all specific, irrational problems for Leeds United. Eight games you can afford to miss, right there.
All the Leeds players looked to be having fun. The reward for their strict and superb defending was permission for free-swimming on turnovers, as if Leeds knew they weren't going to get much of the ball so were determined to enjoy it when they did.
The sense of Leeds United is that the club does know what it's doing, and it has been winning this game with itself from the start. Winning is easier when you're winning, and when draws are helping you win and defeats aren't hurting you, you're winning all the time.
Pugh slotted in for a season of post-relegation delirium when fans were trying to reassure each other that this could be a better, harder working team than in the erratic days of the Champions League.
One of the straight up delights of Anton Stach this season is that Leeds United have a technical and witty player who can and does fire free-kicks, without fuss, straight into the back of the net.
Leeds were taking on Europe's best and winning, but the wars of words were becoming different since Leeds kept coming out on top. David O'Leary, however, was still finding plenty to say.