What if Documentaries

The Champions of Europe just drip off your tongue, don’t they? Real Madrid from Spain, Milan from Italy, Manchester United from England and Bayern Munich from Germany. There’s been a few you might not know of from lesser leagues but today’s video is about THE Forgotten Champions: Hamburger SV, a team from a big nation who played against the best teams and were crowned Champions of Europe. 00:00 – Intro 00:30 – History of HSV 05:15 – The Glory Days 17:50 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We all love Der Klassiker, don’t we? When the biggest German sides battle it out: Bayern Munich and Borussia Monchengladbach. Wait, you expected to see another Borussia didn’t you? Whilst Dortmund and Bayern participate in the game known as the Klassiker now, it isn’t the Original Klassiker. No chance, because in the 1970s Bayern’s fiercest rivals were Gladbach, and they were competitive in a way that Dortmund have never been. 00:00 – Intro 00:30 – Before the Rivalry 04:10 – The Original Klassiker 19:45 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Red Bull gives you wings, as the marketing strapline goes. Certainly, Red Bull has had the ability to give wings to several non-descript football clubs you might never have heard of: from the MetroStars to Austria Salzburg and SSV Markranstadt. But have they given football the wings to fly away from tradition and community that it was founded on, to create something rotten to the core? 00:00 – Intro 00:30 – Salzburg 03:10 – New York 06:50 – Leipzig 11:05 – Rangnick 19:25 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There hasn’t been a more unbelievable rise in modern day football from continental Europe. At the start of the 21st century, Union Berlin were broke, they were in the fourth tier and they needed their fans to re-build their stadiums. But since, they’ve got up, up and up right to the summit of the Bundesliga and have participated in every UEFA competition. This is the story of how they did it. 00:00 – Intro 00:30 – Eisern Union 04:30 – Schiesse! 12:20 – European Union 20:00 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Czechs have been successful at the top of international football: precisely four of them that made up their 1976 European Championship squad. Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, not so much. Except for two glorious summers that straddled the new millennium so delicately. This is the story of a new age of Czech football, of 1996 and 2004, the Outsiders of Europe’s Twin Peaks. 00:00 – Introduction 00:30 – A Successful History 04:20 – EURO 96 14:25 – EURO 2004 21:05 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Despite being known as the European Brazilians, Yugoslavian football had a habit of being nearly men. But in the late 1980s, when the country was at breaking point, they were blessed with the greatest crop of players ever. They won the world youth championship, almost won a World Cup and, for the majority of their players, got to taste European Cup success in the Final Days of Yugoslavia. 00:00 – Introduction 00:30 – A Substantial History 05:00 – 1987 FIFA World Youth Championships 11:30 – 1990 FIFA World Cup 17:05 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the early 1990s, Croatia were one of a new band of nations admitted into international football after the dissolutions of multiple European republics. Whilst the rest of them stuttered and failed, Croatia prospered and became one of the great stories of the late 20th century. This is the story of the Birth of Croatia, in a football sense, and the rise of the Dark Horses of International Football: the great Croatian team of 1996 and 1998. 00:00 – Introduction 00:35 – A Violent History 05:25 – EURO 96 13:15 – 1998 FIFA World Cup 22:05 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wales, the red-headed stepchild of British football. They could never have the glory or expectation of England, they couldn’t even lay claim to the history or moments of hope that belongs to Scotland. When England were winning the World Cup, when Scotland were going to major tournaments: Wales watched them on the telly. They spent a literal lifetime in the wilderness, between 1958 and 2016. This is a film about those times. 00:00 – Introduction 00:30 – A Brief History 04:50 – 1976 10:20 – 1980s 17:45 – 1992 and 1994 22:30 – 2004 26:30 – The Generation of Qualifying Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1970 meant the most colourful spectacle on Earth: the FIFA World Cup held in Mexico. England were reigning champions, Brazil had a lad called Pele, Europe brought its heavyweights in Italy, West Germany and Soviet Union and the Latin countries of Mexico, Peru and Uruguay had homefield advantage. It remains one of the best World Cup’s in history, a World in Colour. 00:00 – Introduction 00:30 – Road to Mexico 12:15 – Group A 14:45 – Group B 16:40 – Group C 19:40 – Group D 22:20 – Knockouts 32:00 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They were never supposed to win the Champions League. They had a new manager in a foreign land, they lost Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard almost followed him. They were seconds away from elimination against Olympiakos, were up against it in Turin and in West London and that’s before we get to Istanbul, where Six Minutes of Magic helped lift Liverpool’s fifth European Cup. 00:00 – Introduction 00:25 – The Houllier Years 06:25 – A Miserable Season 11:10 – The Road to Istanbul 24:20 – Rafa’s Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Boot Room was dead. Kenny Dalglish burned out. Now what was there for Liverpool? The Premier League was sneaking up on them, Europe was back and they needed to be in the mix to receive all the heightened riches, fame and glory that came with it. Instead, it was a decade to forget in terms of trophies. In terms of entertainment value? Well, it was spicy to say the least: this is Anfield Spice—and Liverpool in the 90s. 00:00 – Introduction 00:30 – The Souness Years 05:40 – The Spice Boys 20:35 – The Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Any normal football club would’ve folded. A stadium disaster that left supporters dead, a European Cup final lost and the lineage of great coaches culled abruptly. 1985 was a formative year for Liverpool. They had been carried by the weight of the Boot Room, through Shankly, Paisley and Fagan and were now picking up the pieces of a near 30-year footballing odyssey. What next? This is The Last of the Boot Room. 00:00 – Introduction 00:35 – The Rise of the Boot Room 10:25 – The Dalglish Years 18:45 – Hillsborough 26:35 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Total Football was dead. The eighties killed all hope, with its wing-back system, sweepers in the backline and rampant hooliganism and stadium disaster. Football needed a bit of light injected back into it, and so too did Ajax. Johan Cruyff came back, and tried, but was quickly lured away by Barcelona again. Up step Louis van Gaal, a football war of philosophical ideas and Ajax’s Total Recall to the top of the European game. 00:35 - Since Total Football 04:30 - Total Recall 19:55 - Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pele called football “The Beautiful Game”, Cruyff declared “winning is an important thing,” and Mourinho said “if you have a Ferrari and I have a small car, to beat you in a race I have to break your wheel or put sugar in your tank”. Let’s forget about that last lunatic and focus more on the guy who said the second thing: Johan Cruyff. The leader of Total Football, the thoroughfare that explains the history of football tactics. This documentary hopes to explain the Totality of Total Football. 00:00 – Introduction 00:35 – How we reached Total Football 03:55 – How Ajax reached Total Football 07:20 – The Michels Foundation 17:10 – The Kovacs Success 24:35 – The Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Champions League—i.e. good football—is finally back, except UEFA have decided to be wet wipes and change the future of the sport with their Swiss Model format change. So, we’re looking back instead and creating dozens of alternate histories from the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE! Let’s gooooooooooo. 00:00 – Introduction 00:25 – What if Juventus beat Real Madrid in 1987? 02:05 – What if Luis Figo scored the penalty v Juventus in 2003? 04:20 – What if Juventus qualified for the Champions League in 1999? 06:10 – What if Juventus qualified from the Champions League group in 2000? 07:50 – What if Juventus qualified from the Champions League group in 2009? 09:35 – What if Juventus qualified from the Champions League group in 2013? 11:20 – What if Lazio qualified for the Champions League in 2002? 12:50 – What if Lazio qualified for the Champions League in 2011? 14:10 – What if Lazio qualified for the Champions League in 2018? 16:20 – What if Inter beat Atletico Madrid in 2024? 17:55 – What if Torino won the UEFA Cup in 1992? 19:40 – What if Napoli beat Spartak Moscow in 1990? 21:30 – What if Napoli qualified for the Champions League in 2012? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rome both is and isn’t a football town. The people who live there might be crazy about the sport but the clubs who also live there aren’t really that successful at the sport. For a brief window in the late 90s and early 2000s, that changed. This is the story about when Rome ruled Italy, in a football sense of course, but only too briefly. 00:00 – Introduction 00:30 – Lazio 08:35 – Roma 14:30 – 1999/2000 21:35 – 2000/2001 28:55 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Napoli were just existing, living day-to-day with the survival in the jungle known as Serie A in the 1980s. Up north unimaginable glories and successes that never got handed down to the little people in the south of a country harshly divided in football. All it took was one little genius to change Calcio forever. Napoli, the House That Maradona Built. 00:00 – Intro 00:30 – Napoli 04:45 – Diego Maradona 08:45 – Magica 18:45 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Italian football has a big three: Juventus, Milan and Inter. One’s successful back home, the other more so abroad and the other… neither here nor there. This is Inter Milan, a team that can dominate but often prefers to keep its success brief, with long distances between. However, there was a moment—just one moment—when they might just have been the best Italy had ever seen. And it is when Germany controlled Calcio. 00:00 – Introduction 00:35 – Inter 05:40 – Trap 10:50 – The Germans 13:50 – Germany x Inter 23:25 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you were told to mention the greatest teams in the history of Italian football you’d throw in clubs like Juventus, Milan, Inter, maybe even a Napoli or one from the capital. You’d mention players like Baggio, Platini, Zidane, Maradona, Totti and the like. But they’re not the best Calcio ever seen. This is, and it’s the story of Il Grande Torino: the best football team you’ve never heard of. 00:00 – Intro 00:30 – A Brief History of Italian Football and Torino 03:15 – Erno Erbstein 06:35 – Lucchese: The Blueprint 09:20 – The False Start 16:35 – When Torino Became Grande 23:35 – Il Grande Torino 31:05 – Up On Superga Hill 36:25 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Think of Italian football and you probably think of Juventus first. They’re the ones with the most Italian championships and their history is stacked with a litany of the world’s greatest to ever play football. This is how they got to become Italy’s biggest football club. Through decadence, dominance and disasters: this is how The Old Lady grew up. 00:00 – Intro 00:25 – The Beginning of Juventus 04:55 – The First Great Juventus team 08:45 – The Decline 10:20 – The Void Left by Superga 14:35 – Il Trio Magico 30:20 – Legacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices