European Cup of National Football Teams

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The entire article does not have a single source

The European Cup , officially Coupe Internationale européenne , was the first regular competition for national football teams in Europe and takes on the forerunner role of the UEFA European Championship, which was initially held under a similar name, namely the European Cup of Nations , since 1960 . It was held a total of six times between 1927 and 1960 and produced, among others, the Austrian miracle team , the Hungarian golden team and the famous Italian team of the 1930s.

history

The European Cup was created in 1927 at the instigation of the Austrian sports official Hugo Meisl . The background was the prevalence of professionalism in (central) European football at that time. It all started with Austria, which in 1924 was the first country on the European continent to completely switch to a professional championship system. Hungary followed suit in 1925, Czechoslovakia in 1926 and soon Italy too. This step secured these countries supremacy in continental European football for a longer period of time, but from an economic point of view, this system was difficult to sustain without international competitive games by clubs and national teams. After long-term negotiations with FIFA about European championships failed, in July 1927 it was decided to introduce the Mitropa Cup (club teams) and a European Cup (national teams) in Venice, Italy .

The first European Cup competition was held between 1927 and 1930 with great success. For example, the number of spectators at that time exceeded today's average for a European championship, this being due in particular to the larger stadiums at the time with lots of standing room. The first competition was only decided with the last game on May 11, 1930: Vittorio Pozzo's Italian team defeated Hungary 5-0, with Giuseppe Meazza alone scoring three goals, becoming the first winner of the trophy donated by Antonín Švehla . The second European Cup in 1931 and 1932 brought out the famous Austrian “ miracle team ”, which was able to win the competition around captain Matthias Sindelar . Italy, which had to be content with second place, was able to regain the trophy as early as 1935, after the Squadra Azzurra had become world champions for the first time just a year earlier. During its fourth edition, the European Cup, which was very popular with the spectators, had to be canceled due to the Second World War . By then, two amateur competitions had also been held, from which Poland and Romania emerged as winners.

Just a few months after the end of the war, the former European Cup countries tried to resurrect the competition, which was played again from 1948. The first winner in the post-war period was the Hungarian national team around Ferenc Puskás , then known as the “ Golden Elf ”. The last time the European Cup was played jointly with UEFA was from 1954 to 1960 . The last winner was Czechoslovakia, which only two years later reached the World Cup final in Chile. With the end of the sixth competition in 1960, he was replaced as planned by the European Cup of Nations , a European championship in cup form.

mode

Switzerland joined the four founding countries Austria , Italy , Czechoslovakia and Hungary , which dominated continental European football at the time, in the first season . Later came Yugoslavia should, Romania had participated in another host. In addition, due to the interest of other countries in participating in the competition, which did not want to or could not compete against professional teams, a separate edition for amateur national teams was held. These were the national teams of Poland and Romania and the amateur teams of Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The participants in the professional competition were able to defend their supremacy in European football until the early 1950s - only teams from these nations reached the final both at the 1934 and 1938 World Cups . All of the eight European Cup participants played at the first UEFA European Championship from 1958 to 1960 . Many of the other countries - including the Federal Republic of Germany - had no interest in such a competition or in the then divided Europe to play various reservations against certain other countries.

Unlike the UEFA European Championship, the European Cup was designed as a permanent competition, as this was the only way to get regular competitive matches. The national teams met in a championship mode, each in a home and an away game. The competition lasted about two to three years. On the one hand, each participant should be guaranteed the same number of games and, in addition, this system was considered more equitable to find the European champion at the time. In addition, the fact that it was always a home game for a national team guaranteed a high level of spectator interest, which was not the case with numerous games in the early days of the later European Football Championship in the tournament system.

designation

The European Cup appears in football literature under different names, resulting from the fact that the meaning of the competition name in the languages ​​of the individual participating countries was not identical. In German-speaking countries, the names "European Cup" and "European Championship" - similar to the Hungarian name Európa Kupa - were equally present in the media, while the name "International Cup", as it is in Italy as Coppa Internazionale or in Czechoslovakia as mezinárodní póhar was common, was rarely used. In many cases, there was also confusion between the names of the competition and the names of the trophies that have been played throughout the history of the competition. In the interwar period, the so-called Švehla Cup, named after its founder, the Czechoslovak Prime Minister Antonín Švehla, was played . The trophy, which was played in the post-war period, initially remained unchanged, but was given the name of the suddenly deceased Austrian ÖFB President Josef Gerö in 1954 , in recognition of his contribution to reactivating the competition after the end of the war. This is roughly comparable to the naming of the World Cup trophy after Jules Rimet two years later. In the English-language literature in particular, however, the name "Josef Gerö Cup" is widely used for the competition, and even for the period from 1927 onwards. However, "International Cup" is also used.

The tournaments at a glance

year	Final stands
	winner	Points	2nd place	Points	3rd place	Points
1927-1930 details	Italy	11	Austria	10	Czechoslovakia	9
1931-1932 details	Austria	11	Italy	9	Hungary	8th
1933-1935 details	Italy	11	Austria	9	Hungary	9
1936-1938 details	The fourth European Cup was canceled after the annexation of Austria by the German Reich on March 12, 1938.
1948-1953 details	Hungary	11	Czechoslovakia	9	Austria	9
1955-1960 details	Czechoslovakia	16	Hungary	15th	Austria	11
year	Final results (amateur competition)
	winner	Points	2nd place	Points	3rd place	Points
1929-1930	Poland	7th	Hungary (A)	6th	Austria (A)	6th
1931-1934	Romania	9	Hungary (A)	6th	Czechoslovakia (A)	5

Top scorer

Ferenc Puskás - with 15 goals one of the most successful shooters in the European Cup

competition	Top scorer (s)	Gates
1927-1930	Julio Libonatti Gino Rossetti	6th
1931-1932	István Avar 1	8th
1933-1935	Leopold Kielholz György Sárosi	7th
1936-1938	György Sárosi	10
1948-1953	Ferenc Puskás	10
1955-1960	Lajos Tichy	7th

¹ This is Stefan Auer , a football player of old Austrian origin who played for Hungary under this name.