The 1970 European Cup final was a football match held at the San Siro, Milan, on 6 May 1970, that saw Feijenoord[a] of the Netherlands defeat Celtic of Scotland 2–1 after extra time. Ove Kindvall's goal in the 117th minute meant the trophy was won by a Dutch club for the first time. It remains Feyenoord's only European Cup triumph.
For losing finalists Celtic, this marked the second, and to date most recent, European Cup final appearance in club history, after the famous win by the "Lisbon Lions" side in the 1967 edition. The match nearly never took place due to massive strikes throughout Italy during 1970; the Italian Football Federation backed down to ensure that their own clubs would be able to compete in further UEFA competitions.[citation needed]
In contrast to their win in the European Cup final three years prior, in which they had gone into the match as heavy underdogs against Inter Milan, this time around, Celtic entered the final as strong favourites over Feyenoord.[citation needed] However, despite Celtic's Tommy Gemmell opening the scoring after 30 minutes, they were outplayed by the Dutch outfit, whose manager, Ernst Happel, ensured Celtic winger Jimmy Johnstone was double marked at all times, whilst the midfield trio of Franz Hasil, Willem van Hanegem, and Wim Jansen dominated their Scottish counterparts. Rinus Israël quickly equalised with his head; remarkably, this was the first goal of Feyenoord's European campaign that they scored away from their home stadium.[b] Early in the first half of extra time John Hughes intercepted a sloppy pass from Israel and burst past two Feynoord defenders and into the penalty area but he overran the ball slightly and could not quite clip the ball over the goalkeeper but then a Feynoord defender's passback to the goalkeeper almost resulted in an own goal. Highlights of a poor quality are on Youtube.In the second half, Celtic managed to hold on at 1–1 to force extra time.[2] With just a few minutes of extra-time remaining, a long free-kick from the Feyenoord half was sent towards the Celtic penalty area. Celtic defender and captain Billy McNeill stumbled and misjudged the ball, and as he tried to recover he appeared to punch the ball away. Before the referee had a chance to award a penalty, Ove Kindvall reacted quickly, running on and chipping the ball over the advancing goalkeeper Evan Williams to seal a 2–1 win for Feyenoord.[3][4]
^Though the club was invariably referred to as either SC Feijenoord (the original Dutch spelling) or Feyenoord (the spelling used internationally) in the years prior, it would not be until 1974 that the club officially changed its name to Feyenoord, which is an Anglicanised spelling.[1]
^ abDespite the first leg being officially designated as an "away" match, both legs of Feyenoord's first round tie against Icelandic minnows KR were actually played at the Stadion Feijenoord in Rotterdam.
^"Wist u dat..."stadionfeijenoord.nl (in Dutch). Stadion Feijenoord N.V. Archived from the original on 31 December 2007. zowel Stadion Feijenoord als Feyenoord Rotterdam met een lange ij geschreven werd. Pas in 1974 besloot de voetbalclub een y te gebruiken, de lange ij gaf namelijk problemen met de uitspraak in het buitenland