Category Archives: On this day

What happened today over the years

Nobody remembers two others missed as well

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On 17 July 1994, Italy lost the World Cup Final in a penalty shootout to Brazil when their top scorer of the tournament, Roberto Baggio, sent his attempt over the bar.

Simply making it to the Final was a minor miracle for Italy, who opened their tournament campaign with a first-round loss to Ireland. And, as the fourth-best third place team in the group stages, they were the last team to qualify for the knockout rounds. Baggio, who had won the 1993 Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year award for his UEFA Cup-winning season with Juventus, shined in the later rounds, scoring five goals–three of them match-winners (against Nigeria, Spain, and Bulgaria)–to take Italy to the final.

Baggio’s scoring streak dried up in the final, as it did for Brazil’s top scorer Romário (who was also on five goals for the tournament). With the match scoreless at the end of extra time, the teams went into penalty kicks to decide the winner. After four kicks each, Brazil were up 3-2 when Baggio stepped up to the spot.

It was his second penalty attempt of the tournament, as his match-winner against Nigeria had come from the spot in the 102nd minute. But this time, he fired the ball over the bar to end the match and give the trophy to Brazil.

He returned to the World Cup with Italy in 1998 to become the only Italian player to score in three different World Cups and his total of nine World Cup goals remains an Italian record.

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On this day – 1 February 2006

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On 1 February 2006, Blackburn winger David Bentley scored the first Premier League hat-trick against Manchester United as Rovers won 4-3.

The match was Bentley’s first as an official Blackburn player–he signed with them the day before after spending the first half of the season with them on loan from Arsenal. Playing at home before a crowd of 25,484, he celebrated the move by putting Rovers ahead in the 35th minute, finishing off a free kick that United keeper Edwin van der Sar tipped onto the bar.

United striker Louis Saha returned the favor in the 37th minute, but a poor clearance from Rio Ferdinand allowed Bentley to double his tally four minutes later. Rovers extended the lead to 3-1 before the break when Lucas Neill converted a 45th-minute penalty kick. Then, in the 56th minute, Robbie Savage found Bentley unmarked in the United box; the winger took the chance, claiming the first hat-trick against United since QPR’s David Bailey did it in January 1992 when the top flight was still called Division One.

United’s Ruud van Nistelrooy, who had come on as a second-half substitute, scored a brace of his own in the 63rd and 68th minutes, but the rally ended when referee Phil Dowd sent Ferdinand off in the 88th minute–Ferdinand’s first career red card, earned by having drawn a second yellow card for a challenge on Savage that left the Welshman with a gash on his shin.

The win completed a Blackburn double over United that season, which ended with Rovers in sixth place and United in second. Bentley left Blackburn for Tottenham in 2008 and is currently on loan with Birmingham.

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On this day – 6 January 1939

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Iconic Dynamo Kyiv player and manager Valeriy Lobanovsky was born on 6 January 1939. He would eventually guide Kyiv to the first major European honor for any Soviet club, winning the 1975 Cup Winners’ Cup.

Born in Kyiv, Lobanovsky joined Dynamo’s youth team, then played there professionally from 1957 to 1964. He was a prolific scorer, especially from set pieces, tallying 42 goals in 144 league appearances for his hometown team while winning the club’s first Soviet Cup (1954) and league title (1961). He retired from playing in 1968, after two seasons each with Chornomorets Odessa and Shakhtar Donetsk.

He moved quickly into management, taking charge of Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in 1969 before Dynamo called him back in 1974. There, his then-novel scientific approach to training and diet helped the club to European victory in his first season, beating Ferencváros in the 1975 Cup Winners’ Cup.

Lobanovsky remained with Dynamo until 1990 (taking a brief break in 1982-83 to manage the Soviet national team). During his tenure, they won eight league titles, six Soviet Cups, and the 1986 Cup Winners’ Cup. He returned again in 1997 and picked up where he had left off, winning five consecutive Ukrainian Premier League titles and advancing to the semifinals of the 1998-99 UEFA Champions League.

In 2002, he suffered a stroke after a match and died one week later. In honor of his service, Dynamo renamed their stadium in his honor.

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On this day – 5 January 1919

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On 5 January 1919, Argentina’s Racing Club won their second consecutive Copa Aldao, defeating Peñarol 2-1.

Also known as the Copa Rio de la Plata, the competition ran from 1913 to 1955 and pitted Argentina’s national champion against the champion of Uruguay–one of three separate competitions at the time between the two countries (the others were the Tie Cup (1900-1919) and the Honor Cup (1905-1920)). The trophy was donated in 1913 by Ricardo Aldao, president of the Federación Argentina de Football at the time.

The 1918 edition, actually played in January 1919, was the third consecutive appearance for Racing, who lost to Nacional in 1916, but defeated them in a two-legged final in the following season. They returned to the competition after completing an unbeaten 1918 season in the domestic league, winning 17 of their 19 matches and drawing the other two. Peñarol had fared almost as well in Uruguay, winning 15, drawing two, and losing one. They had also won that season’s Honor Cup the previous month.

On the day, Racing won 2-1, but it was their last appearance in the competition. Peñarol went on to win their first Copa Aldao in 1928 and finished as runners-up five more times.

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On this day – 4 January 1909

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On 4 January 1909, representatives of several clubs met in Madrid to form the Spanish football federation. The meeting was held at the offices of Real Madrid, with club president Adolfo Meléndez serving as the federation’s first secretary.

Originally named the Federación Española de Clubs de Football, the new organization followed the model of England’s FA, with the express purpose of creating a Spanish national team. After 11 years, they finally accomplished that mission when Spain played their first full international, a 1-0 win over Denmark in the 1920 Summer Olympics, where they took the silver medal. It took them another 44 years to win their first major honor, the 1964 European Championship, which they followed with an Olympic gold medal in 1992.

In February 2007, they began a record-tying unbeaten run of 35 unbeaten matches that included the 2008 European Championship. Despite those successes, critics labeled Spain as underachievers for failing to advance farther in the World Cup than their fourth-place finish in 1950. That ended in 2010, when Spain lifted the Cup over the Netherlands in a dramatic extra-time Final.

Now known as the Real Federación Española de Fútbol, or RFEF, the federation oversees the top four levels of the Spanish football pyramid, as well as both men’s and women’s national teams and the national futsal team.

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