Dinamo Zagreb is the
only Croatian club who have won a European competition.
Four years after the lost final against Valencia. In
September 6th 1967 Dinamo won the Fairs Cup which in
1971 became the UEFA Cup.
It was a season of brilliant results. In November of
1966 in the Middle-European Cup tie which was played at
the same time as the Fairs Cup, Dinamo defeated a very
strong Milan team with
Schnellinger, Rivers, Amarillo and Sormani. Slaven
Zambata scored the only goal. In February of 1967 in a
friendly game in Glasgow, in front of 65.000 Scots,
Zambata scored again and the mighty Celtic, which would
in a few months, became the European Cup winner was on
its back. The Modri than
stormed over Juventus in the quarterfinals of the Fairs
Cup with 3:0, dismantled Eintracht Frankfurt in thesemi-finals 4:0, and in the final showdown
Dinamo with the Fairs Cup trophy
defeated Leeds
United 2:0. The
"Old Lady" from Turin is the only club
that got away. In Turin Dinamo led 2:1
thanks to two goals by Jukić
almost to the very end. The semi-finals
was secured by Novak (4th min), Mesić
[66th min]
and Belin [75th
min]. That was
the biggest defeat for Juventus in the
last three seasons.
Eintracht Frankfurt led 2:0 after
only
two minutes in
the first semi-finals
tie on the famous Waldstadion. They came
to Maksimir with the big 3:0 advantage.
They were the 4th in the German
championship with the second best
offence. Nevertheless, in Maksimir they
were soundly defeated. Zambata and Novak
scored in 14th and 16th minute and the
dream of finals was becoming a reality.
In 87th minute Josip Gucmirtl scored the
third goal and secured extra time. In
the 102nd minute, after brilliant
Stjepan Lamza was brought down in the
box, Rudi Belin converted the penalty
for 4:0! The great success on June 14th
1967 was brought about by
Škorić,
Blašković,
Brnčić,
Mesić,
Belin, Ramljak, Novak, Gucmirtl, Zambata,
Lamza and Rora.
In the finals, the
victim was the great Leeds United with Sprake, Bremner,
Gray, O'Grady and Jackie Charlton. Young 19 year old Marijan
Čerčekoutsmarted goalkeeper Sprake and Charlton in the 39th
minute, and in 59th minute Krasnodar Rora scored for 2:0. It
happened on August 30th 1967. In the away tie in Leeds on
September 6th the score was 0:0. Not even on its own ground
did Leeds manage to break the Dinamo's defense with Zlatko
Škorić,
Mladen Ramljak and Filip
Blašković.
FIFA president Sir
Stanley Rous presented the Winners trophy to the captain and
the leading scorer Slaven Zambata.
