When you shoot for the king, you’d better not miss, or so the old saying goes. When that king literally has “Royal” in their name, and are undefeated in the European Cup – the pinnacle of continental competition – for five years, that saying goes double. So it was in the early history of the Europe’s premier tournament. Real Madrid, patronised by General Franco, won every iteration of the competition between its inception and 1960. And then, unthinkably, they didn’t.
Continue reading “The Curse of Bela Guttmann”