Plus: the team that hit the woodwork seven times in a game; and did Real Madrid really sack a manager after winning the European Cup? Mail us here or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU

“Atlético Madrid’s win against Marseille in the Europa League final means eight of the last nine major European finals have been won by Spanish teams – and Real Madrid could make that nine out of 10,” begins Claire Miller. “Has one country ever dominated European football like this before?”

The Premier League marketing department may have trademarked the phrase “best league in the world”, but not even they have the brass neck to claim it is the strongest. La Liga has dominated European competition throughout the 2000s, and especially in the last five years.

Since the 2012-13 season, when Bayern Munich and Chelsea won the Champions League and Europa League respectively, it has been almost all La Liga. Real Madrid have won three of the last four Champions Leagues, with Barcelona winning the other in 2015. Sevilla won three consecutive Europa Leagues from 2014, while Atlético beat Marseille last week. The only non-Spanish team to win a European trophy in that time is Manchester United, who put Ajax to sleep in last year’s Europa League final.

What’s the lowest a team has finished while winning the Champions League? Read more

There have been some other periods of dominance in the 53 years of European competition. For this purpose we have included the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, as it was effectively the Uefa Cup by another name. But we’re not giving time of day to the Super Cup or Intertoto Cup, for obvious reasons.

If Real Madrid win on Saturday, it will be Spain’s fifth consecutive Champions League. It would be quite a feat given that, before that streak started in 2014, no country – never mind a team – had retained the title since Milan/Italy in 1990.

Five consecutive wins would be one short of the record: English clubs won six consecutive European Cups from 1977-82, and seven out of eight from 1977-84. They were less dominant overall, though, with only two more Uefa Cups in that time: Ipswich in 1981 and Spurs in 1984.

Spanish clubs won the first seven European trophies – five consecutive European Cups for Real Madrid from 1956-60, plus two Fairs Cups for Barcelona. In those days there was no Cup Winners’ Cup, and the Fairs Cup was staggered over a number of seasons. Barcelona won the 1955-58 and 1958-60 titles.

England had a very good spell from 1968-71, winning seven out of 12 competitions. Manchester United won the European Cup, Manchester City and Chelsea the Cup Winners’ Cup, and Leeds, Newcastle, Arsenal and Leeds, again, claimed the Fairs Cup.

Yes, yes, we’re going to get to the golden age of Serie A. In the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons, Italian clubs won five of six European trophies, and in the last 11 seasons of the 20th century they won 15 out of 33. That included six Uefa Cup wins in seven years. In those days, when only one team from each country went into the Champions League, the Uefa Cup was the best guide of a league’s overall health.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit celebrate winning the European Cup in 1989. Photograph: Simon, Bruty/Allsport

The number of trophies per country from 1988-89 to 1998-99 shows the extent of Serie A’s dominance:



15 Italy



Italy 5 Spain



Spain 4 England, Germany



England, Germany 2 Netherlands, France



Netherlands, France 1 Yugoslavia



The Cup Winners’ Cup was abolished in 1999 and, since the turn of the century, La Liga clubs have dominated European football to a spectacular extent.

18 Spain



Spain 6 England



England 3 Italy, Portugal



Italy, Portugal 2 Germany, Russia



Germany, Russia 1 Turkey, Netherlands, Ukraine



Spanish clubs are so damn hot right now. We’ve been through the history books – we did a spreadsheet and everything – and there is no precedent for clubs from one country winning eight out of nine European trophies. Liverpool are not just taking on Real Madrid on Saturday; they are taking on the empire of La Liga.

Hitting the woodwork multiple times (2)

In last week’s Knowledge we looked at teams who hit the woodwork four, five or six times in the same match. Aaron Grierson can go one better …



“In 2001, the Honduras national team took on Trinidad & Tobago in the final round of Concacaf World Cup qualifying – the hexagon,” writes Aaron. “A win would have probably sent Honduras through to the World Cup for the first time since 1982. They hit the post seven times, but unfortunately never found the back of the net. Stern John scored the only goal as Trinidad won 1-0. The Hondurans had to wait until 2010 to qualify for their second World Cup.”

Meanwhile, Jacek Staszak has a not-strictly-relevant-but-still-interesting story to tell. “In November 2013 in Polish Ekstraklasa, Cracovia’s Vladimir Boljević alone hit the woodwork four times. He also managed to score, but the goal was ruled out because the assistant waved his flag. It wasn’t Boljević’s night, because the replays showed he was onside. If he had more luck, he would have saved his team from an embarrassing defeat, because Cracovia lost at home to Lech Poznań 1-6.”

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“In light of Real Madrid’s sacking of Fabio Capello, are there any other managers who have been sacked after winning the league title twice by the same club?” enquired Gordon Tait in 2007.

Madrid actually only swung the axe at poor Fabio’s head on one occasion, Gordon; on the other, in 1997, he left the Bernabéu for Milan of his own accord. However, Vicente del Bosque has effectively been sacked by the club twice: first, during a short tenure as manager in 1994 and then, infamously, in 2003 when the club decided not to renew his contract even though he had just led the club to their second La Liga title in three seasons. He had also, somewhat shabbily, won two Champions League crowns in his four years in charge.

Even before Del Bosque, Madrid had form for severing the hand that feeds them: in 1998, they sacked German coach Jupp Heynckes after just one season – a season in which Real won the European Cup for the first time in 32 years. Heynckes paid the price for some relatively miserable domestic form – Real finished fourth in La Liga, although they actually lost fewer games than the champions Barcelona – and was gone within eight days of the 1-0 victory over Juventus.

However, surely the hardest-done-by manager in history was the Bayern Munich boss Udo Lattek, also sacked by his paymasters on two occasions. “In 1975, after he had won three German championships in a row and the European Cup, a Bayern side full of tired World Cup winners only finished 10th in the league,” recalled Raphael Honigstein. “Legend has it he then told club president Wilhelm Neudecker that ‘things have to change’, only to receive the reply: ‘Yes, they have to: you’re fired!’ He was reappointed in 1983 and again won three German championships and two cups in four seasons. But the European Cup final defeat in 1987 exposed a fraught relationship with his players. The club ultimately blamed him for the 2-1 loss against Porto and he was sacked. Again.”

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Can you help?

Tom Donnelly (@tomjdonnelly) @TheKnowledge_GU A couple for next week: Has any national side taken two keepers from the same club to a tournament? Which World Cup squad has featured the most number of players relegated at club level that season?

Quest_TV_EFL_Highlights_with_Colin_Murray_fan (@JChatfield94) .@PeteSmith1983, this has to be a unique record in our history, right? Perhaps even in world football for permanent managerial appointments. https://t.co/NyKL7kfPeb