On 24 May 1989, at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, Arrigo Sacchi's Milan faced Steaua Bucharest in the European Cup final. On 24 May 2027 it will be 38 years since one of the most one-sided nights in the history of the final. Within 46 minutes the score was 4-0 and Europe had seen a team that played differently.

Two teams in form

Milan got past Bulgaria's Vitosha and then, with great difficulty, Red Star Belgrade, after two 1-1 draws and penalties in Belgrade. Werder Bremen followed, beaten 1-0. In the semi-finals, after a 1-1 draw in Madrid, they crushed Real 5-0 at San Siro with five different scorers: Ancelotti, Rijkaard, Gullit, Van Basten and Donadoni.

Steaua, three years after Seville, were now coached by Anghel Iordănescu, with Gheorghe Hagi as their star. They won 5-1 at Sparta in Prague and knocked out Spartak Moscow. In the quarter-finals they lost 1-0 in Gothenburg but hit back 5-1 at home, and in the semi-finals they got past Galatasaray with a 4-0 win in Bucharest and a 1-1 draw in Istanbul.

An Italian crowd in Barcelona

Almost 100,000 spectators packed the Camp Nou and, according to UEFA, around 80,000 of them were Milan fans. Romania was still a closed country under Ceaușescu, so very few Steaua supporters were able to travel.

Barcelona's stadium thus looked like a giant San Siro. Kick-off was at 20:15 and the referee was West Germany's Karl-Heinz Tritschler.

White and dark blue

Milan's red and black stripes and Steaua's red and blue caused a colour problem, so both teams changed. The Italians wore a plain all-white kit, different from their usual change shirt, that recalled the white of 1963, when Milan won their first European Cup at Wembley.

White then became Milan's "final kit", with special white shirts again in 1990, 1994 and 1995. Steaua played in a dark blue adidas shirt with sky-blue shorts and socks, and the red numbers were hard to read once the shirt was soaked with sweat.

Milan's white was so plain that the shorts and socks did not even carry Kappa logos. Steaua's blue was again an adidas design, like the white of Seville, but this time with the crest on the chest.

Four goals in 46 minutes

Ruud Gullit had already hit the post when he opened the scoring in the 18th minute. Ten minutes later Marco van Basten made it 2-0 with a header.

In the 38th minute Gullit took a pass from Donadoni and blasted in the third. One minute after the restart, in the 46th, Van Basten finished a pass from Frank Rijkaard with a diagonal shot, and the final was decided.

The Romanians, who had scored five or seven goals over two legs in every round, could not even find a consolation goal. The 4-0 stood until the end.

Sacchi's heroes

The three Dutchmen, Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard, were the face of that Milan. Behind them, though, was a defence with Franco Baresi and a young Paolo Maldini that pushed up and closed down space.

Sacchi had built a team that pressed high and moved as one body. Hagi's Steaua, a very good side, simply never had time to breathe.

Why it went down in history

It was Milan's third European Cup and their first in 20 years. The 4-0 equalled the record winning margin in a final of the competition, and a year later the Rossoneri did it again, once more in white, against Benfica.

For Steaua it was their second final on a Spanish ground in three years, this time without a happy ending. It was also the last great European stop of a golden era, a few months before the fall of the regime. For collectors, Milan's white shirt of 1989 is one of the most recognisable in the history of the final.

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Photo: the Camp Nou in Barcelona (2008) – nakhon100, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0.