European Cup 1990–91
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 19 September 1990 – 29 May 1991 |
| Teams | 31 |
| Final positions | |
| Champions |
 Red Star Belgrade (1st title)
|
| Runners-up |
 Olympique de Marseille
|
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 59 |
| Goals scored | 190 (3.22 per match) |
| Top scorer(s) |
 Peter Pacult Jean-Pierre Papin(6 goals each) |
The 1990–91 European Cup was the 36th season of the European Cup, a tournament for men's football clubs in nations affiliated to the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). It was won for the first time by Red Star Belgrade on penalties in the final against Marseille. This was only the second time that an Eastern European side had won the competition, after Steaua București of Romania (1986). It was also the last tournament to be solely knock-out based, with a group stage added for the next season. Red Star managed to win the tournament as the only Yugoslavian club shortly before the breakup of Yugoslavia.
This tournament would have marked the return of English clubs after a five-year ban resulting from the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985 but English champions Liverpool had been banned for an additional year, so could not participate. Ajax, the Dutch champions, were not allowed to participate in a European Cup competition because of the poor behaviour of their fans during a game the previous season, so their spot in the qualification was simply vacated, giving Milan a first-round bye.
Milan were the defending champions and were given a bye to the second round due to the absence of both an English and a Dutch side in the tournament, before being eliminated by Marseille in the quarter-finals after the second leg had been awarded as a 3–0 win for Marseille when the eventual runners-up were leading 1–0, and 2–1 on aggregate, in injury time, when the floodlights failed. Milan refused to play on when floodlights were fixed and were banned, giving Marseille a 3–0 automatic win.
...
Wikipedia