PHOTO: Bildbyrån + TT
There is only one question I ask myself after tonight’s episode of “The History of Football”.
Why don’t we talk more about Malmö FF’s matchless European feat?
Because it is so much bigger than IFK Göteborg’s Uefa Cup victories.
Tonight it was time for the seventh episode of the acclaimed SVT program “Footbollens historia”. When you realized that it would be about Staffan Tapper and Malmö FF, you already felt a certain distance immediately.
Brave’s Punishment
It should never have been done. What a captivating episode we get to follow for half an hour of Swedish football history. Tapper is of course best known for that penalty miss that burned itself into the consciousness of all Swedes from the 70s.
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Staffan misses the penalty in the World Cup 1974 against Poland, which sends Sweden out of the championship, and we thereby squander a huge opportunity to salvage a historic World Cup medal. He becomes a big scapegoat and gets the sad nickname “Tappan Straffer” for the rest of his life.
Malmö’s feat
That penalty haunted Tapper for the rest of his football career. And precisely because of this, many have forgotten what he managed to achieve at the end of his time as a footballer.
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He was the team captain of the Malmö FF that dominated Swedish football in the 70s and in 1979 they wrote incredible, blue-yellow football history. Led by the iconic coach Bob Houghton the amateur players in MFF manage to make it all the way to the final in the biggest club team tournament there was – namely the European Cup, the Champions League at the time.
Bigger than Blåvitt
My God, they manage to pressure Nottingham Forest itself, then England’s best club team and thus one of Europe’s very best teams, which was packed with full-time professionals over 90 minutes. Malmö lose the final 0-1 but are forever heroes in the club’s history and we need to talk more about this fantastic performance.
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Because in my eyes it is actually bigger than IFK Göteborg winning the Uefa Cup on two different occasions, which is usually highlighted as the greatest achievement of Swedish club teams. For the European Cup with all of Europe’s champion teams was the best you could play at the time and a level above what the Uefa Cup was – and you’d rather come second in the World Cup than win the European Championship, right?
Would you rather come second in the Allsvenskan than win the Superettan? I don’t want to take anything away from Blåvitt’s performance, because it is incomparably good too, but we really have to appreciate more what Malmö FF actually achieved in 1979 and pay tribute to Staffan Tapper, who played the final with a broken toe(!), that much more.
What do you think of Malmö’s European feat in 1979? Share the article and have your say!
READ MORE: It still hurts to see Torbjörn Nilsson in “Football history” – the new photos of the football legend make everyone wonder
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