The 1st Exhibition Cities Cup was held from 1955 to 1958 . The competition began with a group stage in which each team played a home and an away game against every other team in the group. There were two points for a win and one point for a draw. The first of the four groups qualified for the semi-finals. Subsequently, the semi-finals and final were played in the first and second leg. If no winner was then determined, a replay was played.
Although the trade fair trophy was intended as a competition for city selections from European trade fair cities, some cities sent club teams. One of these club teams, CF Barcelona , won the final of the first-ever cup against the London city selection .
Copenhagen refused to play against Vienna, because they only wanted to send a B-Elf and not the Austrian national team, identical to the Viennese selection, which was third in the World Cup a year earlier. Since the Austrian national team played an international match in Wrexham against Wales (2-1) on the same day, the game was canceled and Vienna was eliminated from the trade fair cup.
Group B
The games took place between May 15, 1956 and April 7, 1957.
The 3-2 success of the London city selection at Wembley Stadium on October 26, 1955 against the Frankfurt national team was the first floodlit match in the stadium.
Semifinals
The first leg took place on September 16/23. October, the second leg on October 23/13. November 1957.
* Helenio Herrera has been training the team since April 22nd. However, his contract did not officially begin until June 1, 1958, so that Domènec Balmanya still acted as the coach in charge of the second leg.
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CF Barcelona (1st title)
Norbert Eschmann Cliff Holton Evaristo de Macedo Justo Tejada (4 each)
Copenhagen
Vienna
Inter Milan
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Zagreb
Leipzig
1: 1 Jimmy Greaves (10th)