The European Supercup. The usual troubles with scheduling… the first leg was played in November 1987 and the second – in January 1988. It was different season and different squads – to a point. Motivation was hard to evaluate – Ajax won the Supercup twice, but the first time the cup was inofficial and the second time the tam already plunged into decline and it was rather pirric victory and the last international trophy the club won for a very long time. So, it would have been great to reaffirm its comeback and win it properly – that is, when the team was going up. FC Porto, as a newcomer to international success, would have been even more motivated, for they needed trophies in order to firmly establish themselves among the top European clubs. But the clash was scheduled during season with its own demands and importance. FC Porto also had to play for the Intercontinental Cup between the two legs of the Supercup – more important and valuable trophy. As for the clash between the two best teams in 1987… both squads differed from the ones winning in later spring of 1987. Paulo Futre was transferred to Atletico Madrid and Artur Jorge left FC Porto too – they were replaced by Tomislav Ivic, one of most respected European coaches for many years already, and Rui Barros, a bit lesser version of Futre, who arrived from Varzim. Ajax lost Marco van Basten, sold to Milan, and Frank Rijkaard, transferred to Sporting Lisbon, but immediately loaned to Real Zaragoza. Looks like Cruijff thought of Frank Stapleton for replacement of Rijkaard, but the famed Irish was loaned to Anderlecht after only 3 games for Ajax. Peter Larsson was brought instead from the UEFA Cup winners IFK Goteborg. As good as the Swede was, Rijkaard he was not. As for van Basten, replacement was already at hand – Dennis Bergkamp. Still too young to be command own place, though – Johnny Bosman was still the centre-forward, Bergkamp was placed as right-winger. There were two other changes from the regular lines from the spring of 1987: Celso, the Brazilian central defender of FC Porto, voted in the team of the year by ‘World Soccer’ magazine, was replaced by his compatriot Geraldao in FC Porto and Sonny Silooy lost his position to Danny Blind in Ajax. And veteran Fernando Gomes was back in the FC Porto line. The internal changes did not involve new arrivals, though. The last changes happened only days before the second leg in January 1988: the hero of the Champions Cup final Madjer was loaned to Valencia (where he failed to impress and did not last long) and Cruijff left Ajax once again for Barcelona, but this time to coach it. Barry Hulshoff was appointed interim coach, thus creating a bit of novelty: a bit over decade ago Tomislav Ivic coached Ajax and, thus, Hulshoff and hi assistant Pim van Dord. No current Ajax player was coached by Ivic – Arnold Muhren went to Twente before the arrival of the Yugoslav and the rest were mere children back then. No matter what the clubs felt, the final did not attract large interest – for instance, a photo of FC Porto could be discovered with considerable difficulty, but not at all a picture of Ajax. De Meer was not full at the first leg either. And Ajax started the first leg with their very rarely used Scottish import Alistair Dick.
1st Leg, De Meer Stadium, Amsterdam, 24 Nov 1987, att 27000
Ajax (0) 0 FC Porto (1) 1
5′ 0-1 P: Rui Barros
Ajax: Menzo; Blind, Verlaat, Winter, Rob Witschge, Van ‘t Schip, Bergkamp,
Wouters (R. de Boer 68), Bosman, Muhren (Richard Witschge 46), Dick
FC Porto: Mlynarczyk; Joao Pinto, Inacio, Geraldao, Lima Pereira, Frasco (Quim 84),
Jaime Magalhaes, Rui Barros, Gomes, Sousa, Andre
Referee: Valentine (Scotland)
2nd Leg, Estadio Das Antas, Porto, 13 Jan 1988, att 50000
FC Porto (0) 1 Ajax (0) 0
70’ 1-0 P: Sousa
Porto won 2-0 on aggregate
FC Porto: Mlynarczyk; Joao Pinto, Lima Pereira, Gerladao, Inacio, Bandeirinha (Semedo 83),
Jaime Magalhaes, Rui Barros, Sousa, Andre, Gomes (Jorge Placido 89)
Ajax: Menzo; Blind, Larsson, Wouters, Hesp, Van ‘t Schip, Muhren, Winter, Bergkamp
(Meijer 81), Bosman, Rob Witschge (Roy 64)
Referee: Schmidhuber (West Germany)
One cannot say the games were exceptional – there was desire, they were not boring, there were interesting moments, yet nothing truly memorable.
It was a battle of equals,
rough at moments, as it was 1980s football, but it was more or less not a clash of tactics, but of experience and one thing became quickly obvious – FC Porto was more experienced, which could be also extended to the coaching stuff: Hulshoff seemingly was unable to find magic touch with which to break FC Porto. Some injuries also played a role, particularly in the second leg, when on few occasions Hulshoff was almost forced to look for substitutes (luckily, Menzo and Larsson were able to continue, but on both occasions Hulshoff’s plans were probably messed up by what looked like forced substitution). The winter conditions did not help football either – the games were lively, but with very few scoring opportunities.
Rui Barros scored the only goal in Amsterdam – very early, in the 5th minute, and in January it looked like that would be the only goal.
But sloppy Dutch defense after not particularly dangerous free kick find Sousa in perfect position and he scored the only goal in Porto in the 70 minutes. A few minutes later the wet muddy grass played a trick on Menzo and the ball almost went in the net again, but did not and the second leg ended as the first one: 1-0 FC Porot.
FC Porto triumphed – great, because it was also in front of their own fans. A new name was added to the list of the Supercup winners and it was now very memorable and proud moment in the history of FC Porto, for between the legs of the Supercup they managed to win the Intercontinental Cup and rapped the 1987 with the 3 greatest trophies.
As photo of the squad playing for the Supercup cannot be found, a substitution… wrong kit, but almost the same team – only Scholten did not appear against FC Porto at all. Ajax lost the Supercup minimally and the prime reason was lack of experience: the squad was bursting with talent, but the players were very young yet. Incredible talent – a proof of it is that Ronald Spelbos, Peter Boeve, and Edo Ophof were sitting mostly on the bench now and in the same time Ronald de Boer and Bryan Roy were not even included in the first team roster in the summer. But still too young… Dennis Bergkamp, for instance, was quite lame in the second leg and was substitute. Rob Witschge lacked stamina and was also substituted. Lack of experience extends to Barry Hulshoff as well, who was hastily appointed caretaker coach after Cruijff’s leave – of course, he was Cruijff’s asistent before that, but at the helm he was still new. Ajax was a team for the future, that was sure, but at the moment – not ripe yet, not at at its peak.
Supercup winners! Standing from left: Mlynarczyk, Geraldão, Inácio, Jaime Magalhães, Lima Pereira, João Pinto.
First row: André, Fernando Gomes, Sousa, Rui Barros, Bandeirinha.
This was probably the best season ever of FC Porto – they won 3 international Cups and it was a testimony not only of great work already done, but of a cool heads running the club and looking ahead. A very strong team was already made and was coached by a coach who made his name along with the international emergence of the team. During the summer, the club did not falter – replaced exiting Futre with similarly classy Rui Barros; replaced already famous Artur Jorge with famous Tomislav Ivic, got rid of the Brazilian World Cup striker Walter Casagrande, who failed to impress. There was talent at the bench – Vitor Baia was already backing up Mlynarczik, for example. Even their foreign players were reliable – it was quite clear that FC Porto could hardly afford World class stars, but relatively unknown Brazilians Celso and Geraldao, and second-tier star Juary were more than dependable. Madjer also shined before going to Spain. So, success came and the team was at its peak.