Liverpool’s maiden FA Cup triumph that same season saw them compete the following campaign in the now-defunct European Cup Winners Cup where Shankly’s men saw off Juventus of Italy, Standard Liege of Belgium, Honved of Hungary and Jock Stein’s Celtic (who the following season would themselves become the first British side to be European champions) in an epic semi-final to reach the final at Scotland’s Hampden Park where they faced Borussia Dortmund. Having gained promotion back to the top flight in 1962, Liverpool won their sixth league title two years later to gain entry into the following season’s European Cup and came desperately close to becoming the first British team to win it, being eliminated only after a highly-contentious semi-final against reigning champions Inter Milan who would go on to retain the trophy in the final held at their own San Siro stadium. The Reds were stuck in the doldrums of the Second Division when continental competition began with the first European Cup in 1955/56 but swiftly went about trying to make up for lost time once Bill Shankly arrived at the club in the final month of that decade. The first occasion the-then English and Dutch champions did battle back in the winter of 1966 produced two ties which have been woven in the folklore of both clubs so ahead of their Group A meetings in this season’s Champions League we take a look back. The Reds had never faced AC Milan until their epic Istanbul 2005 encounter and have only been paired together twice since, while the Champions League group stages clashes with Ajax in the covid-affected 2020/21 campaign were only the second time the clubs had ever met. Liverpool have become painfully familiar with Real Madrid in recent years but until 2014/15 the clubs had only faced each other once competitively, the 1981 European Cup final in Paris won by Alan Kennedy’s late goal. However, despite the long eras of success these clubs have enjoyed - many of them across the different European competitions - and the sometimes repetitive nature of matches in the modern era given looser qualification requirements and the advent of group stages, meetings between some of the elite have been pretty rare. READ MORE: Jurgen Klopp can unleash five-point Liverpool recovery plan that will bring Mohamed Salah change READ MORE: Steven Gerrard dressing room incident made Liverpool star 'melt' after dream Anfield return Liverpool and Bayern Munich with six wins each can lay strong claims for inclusion, as can Barcelona who may not have got their hands on the trophy for the first time until 1992 but have lifted it five times since.Ījax of Amsterdam are next on the list with four and, while they operate these days in a different financial stratosphere to those named above and have not been in a final for over a quarter of a century, merit mention for their achievement (immediately matched straight afterwards by Bayern Munich) of winning three European Cups in a row in the early 1970s. Real Madrid indisputably given their 14 triumphs in the continent’s premier cup competition, twice as many as their nearest rival AC Milan with seven. The elite group of football clubs who the term ‘European royalty’ can be applied to is relatively small.
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