"Last night, we won the European Cup": Leeds in Barcelona, 1975

Barcelona vs Leeds United
European Cup semi-final second leg
23rd April, 1975

"It's as good as settled," said Billy Bremner. "I thought they were going to be a very good side, but quite honestly I was not impressed at all," said Terry Yorath. "We have gone away in worse situations than this in Europe and won, and I have no doubt that we can do it again. I am confident that we can beat them." In his newspaper column Johnny Giles added, "I am convinced Leeds United will reach the European Cup final — providing we approach our semi-final second leg clash with Barcelona with a positive attitude."

Leeds were boosted by two 2-1 league wins after the their first leg 2-1 win over Barcelona at Elland Road, but the second, over Ipswich, was costly. With cracked ribs, Giles would have to watch his teammates' tactical approach from the sidelines in Barcelona, alongside David Harvey and Mick Jones. "I am going to Barcelona because I do not want to miss seeing the big one after waiting so long and, anyway, I shall be ready for the final on May 28th," he said.

The question for the second leg was which team would attack most, and attack best, and what effect 120,000 fans in the Camp Nou stadium would have. Writing in The Times, Geoffrey Green said, 'Every taxi driver, hotel porter and restaurateur in sight is agreed on one thing, if little else — that Barcelona will win something like 3-0 or 4-1 ... Leeds probably are about to face a storm.'

The single word on everyone's lips was the same as before the first leg: Cruyff. 'It seems that he played brilliantly last Sunday when Barcelona beat Betis 3-0 here in a league game, dominating the field as a magnet for the ball and creating all the goals,' wrote Green, but that sounded like a very different Johan Cruyff to the one who turned up to Elland Road a fortnight earlier. Cruyff's performance in the first leg attracted deep criticism, in the British press at least, and after-hours.

The Mirror's Ken Jones was cagey about his sources, but wrote that, 'At a shade earlier than dawn in a Leeds night-club last week,' on the night of the first leg, 'Johan Cruyff finished a poor third to Di Stefano and Pele. "Not in the same class," argued one of Britain's leading players. The opinion was aroused more by recent experience than liberal quantities of passable red wine.' The morning after, Jones got a more sober but nonetheless scathing assessment from Terry Yorath. "We thought he would give us more trouble but he seemed content to be a part of the team," he said. "I suppose he's satisfied, but if I had his skill, I'd want everyone to see it."

'The title of World No. 1 footballer, held for the past three years by Johan Cruyff of Barcelona and Holland, is hereby declared vacant,' wrote Mike Langley in The People. 'Not only is five league goals in a season a ridiculously low quota for anyone talked of as the best player on earth, but also no genuine champion would feel satisfied, as Cruyff did, with that muted performance at Leeds in midweek.'

Langley had called up United's manager Jimmy Armfield and long-serving assistant boss Maurice Lindley for their opinions. "I was disappointed," said Armfield. "He has wonderful skill, he's a thoroughbred mover, and yet I expected more. He's a forward and should have been in our box more often. It wasn't as if we put a man on him. We didn't follow him round the park."

"Always on the edge of things, never in the thick of it," said Lindley. "We just let the nearest man pick him up. But it'll be different in Spain." Lindley also spoke to Ken Jones, adding that being on the fringes didn't make Cruyff less of a risk to opponents. "One of the reasons why Cruyff is so dangerous is that he's usually on the edge of things — never in the thick of it. You ignore him at your peril." But Lindley was willing to muse along with the press' main thesis, that since he'd found riches in Barcelona, the world's best player was losing his edge. "Perhaps he doesn't feel that he has to do it all the time any more," said Lindley. "They tell me he earns an awful lot of money and that can have its effect, you know."

Money was also on Bob Harris' mind, as a motivating factor for the Leeds' directors at least. 'The brief visit of Brian Clough, his three signings which cost over £400,000, and the building of a new stand, have left Leeds counting the pennies,' he wrote. 'Since Don Revie took Leeds into the Inter Cities Cup for their first European game against Torino in 1965, they have become used to steady income, with 1,316,629 passing through their turnstiles for home ties and almost the same number away.' Adrift in the First Division, the only way Leeds could maintain continental income now was by winning the European Cup. But that income derived from history on the pitch, which Harris reckoned would give Leeds an advantage — and the desire to crown it with the ultimate prize.

'They have now played 86 times in Europe, winning 50, drawing 21 and losing only 15 times. They have scored 158 goals and conceded 63. I would think that only Real Madrid's record can compare with that ... For some of the Leeds players it is even more important. This is the one trophy they want above all others and for many of the old stagers they know it is positively their last chance. "Yes, I suppose you could say that," said Armfield. "Come to think of it, it could be mine as well!"'

Barcelona didn't have that history in Europe. They'd won three Fairs Cups — and a play-off against Leeds, in 1971, to keep the trophy — lost one European Cup final to Benfica, in 1961, and a Cup Winners' Cup final to Slovan Bratislava in 1969. The previous season's La Liga title had been their first since 1960. Johnny Giles summed the situation up. 'We've got the skill and the experience. We know what we are capable of. They've still got to prove what they can do.' Experience, according to Billy Bremner at the airport, was far from a hindrance to Leeds. And their ages — and whether this was their last chance at glory — were irrelevant.

"That's rubbish," he said. "Leeds United are still good enough to win the League Championship again next season and have another go at the European Cup if they fail this time. But I honestly can't see us failing against Barcelona. You saw the first leg at Leeds when we should have won by four or five instead of just 2-1. The lesson we learned was that this Barcelona team is vulnerable in defence. If we go for them we can beat them again."

Bremner was a little cannier in his next remarks, about the risk of going for Barcelona from the start and getting sucker-punched. "Who said anything about attacking them from the start?" he said. "Listen, this Leeds team has been in Europe for a long, long time. We know the effect 100,000 fans cheering the home side on can have. We know we have to play it tight for a while, twenty minutes at least, but we also know that we have men who can panic them."

One man, specifically, was Joe Jordan. Jimmy Armfield shuffled some surprises into his line-up. Paul Reaney, who some thought might man-mark Cruyff, was dropped for Trevor Cherry. Terry Yorath stayed in but was now Johnny Giles' deputy, instead of Peter Lorimer's, and Lorimer was back. Paul Madeley also stayed in, but now he was filling Eddie Gray's shirt, as despite tormenting Antonio de la Cruz in the first leg, he was dropped to the bench. After all the talk of attacking, it seemed odd that Armfield wasn't using Gray's flair, much less that of the press darling Duncan McKenzie. The choices were risky, and closely scrutinised, like all Armfield's post-Revie, post-Clough decisions. But within seven minutes his teamsheet was vindicated, and all United's pre-match predictions proven, and as in the first leg Jordan's aerial strength was key.

Goalkeeper Dave Stewart's long kick downfield was redirected by Jordan's head, thirty yards from goal, sending it diagonally towards the penalty area, where it was helped on again by a defender's stretching boot. Lorimer was behind him, and came to life, running to meet the ball and hitting it first time across the keeper into the top corner, harder than anyone else knows how. Now leading 3-1 on aggregate, with Barcelona's unjust away goal cancelled out, Leeds had capitalised on the route to goal they'd seen in the first leg and put the tie thoroughly in their control.

Barcelona had to come up with a way of wrestling that control back, but even in the press they'd sounded as worried as Leeds had confident. "They are a very powerful side and if they can take control of midfield we will be in trouble," Johan Neeskens, one of the world's best midfielders, had said before the game. "They are playing good football at just the right time, while we have been struggling. I know I am not playing well myself. I was very tired after the World Cup and I have not really recovered at all. I am longing for the end of this season." Maybe this was kidology, mind-games to fool Leeds, but his manager Rinus Michels, who coached Neeskens, Cruyff and the Netherlands to the 1974 World Cup final after years of success together at Ajax, had also seemed uneasy. He'd taken his team away, to a coastal retreat eighteen miles outside Barcelona, against his players' wishes. "They do not like it," he said, "but the trouble with Spanish players is that they eat too much, drink too much and like to stay out too late. If I had left them at home that is just what they would have done. They don't like being kept away from their families for three days but they realise the importance of this match."

To get back into the game, first, they tried to deal with United's biggest threat. At Stewart's next clearance, Jordan was sent to the ground as a defender flew into him; as that didn't faze him, Barcelona didn't wait much longer to take a crack at him off the ball, leaving him rolling in pain with blood flowing from a cut in his cheek that needed four stitches at half-time. It was Migueli who had chased him down behind the ref's back, a fearsome defender, nicknamed Tarzan, he later played in the Cup Winners' Cup final with a broken collarbone. The Barcelona players weren't impressed by how long Jordan's treatment took; in a moment of self-defeating petulance while Bob English packed up his bag, Gallego plucked the physio's sponge from the floor and flung it forty yards across the pitch, away from the dugouts. That was alright; Bob would just go and get it. Leeds were winning, so there was plenty of time.

At half-time, Michels thought, "It was difficult but not impossible for us to have saved the match in the second half. We changed to an English style." That was shorthand for pushing Brazil's World Cup captain Marinho forward from his position at sweeper, trying to kick Leeds out of the game, and launching their own series of high balls into the penalty area. And it worked, midway through the second half, although only Gordon McQueen's temper made Barcelona's equaliser a serious problem.