Every UEFA Champions League Final Ranked From Worst To Best
24. Ajax 1-0 AC Milan (1995)
The 1995 Champions League final had all the makings of a classic, pitting the holders, Milan, against the exciting young challengers of Louis Van Gaal’s homegrown Ajax side.
The resulting 1-0 win for the Dutch had a fairytale ending too, with an 18-year-old Patrick Kluivert coming off the bench to score the winning goal six minutes from time.
Unfortunately, the preceding 84 minutes at the Ernst-Happel Stadion in Vienna were anything but enjoyable.
The two teams had faced each other in the group phase, with Van Gaal’s charges defeating the Rossoneri 2-0 home and away to top the pool.
There would be no repeat in Austria, however, with opposite number Fabio Capello adopting a decidedly defensive approach to try to stifle the slick passing approach of the Amsterdam upstarts.
Marcel Desailly was deployed to man-mark star man Jari Litmanen, while Milan’s world class back four of Christian Panucci, Alessandro Costacurta, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini sat back, inviting Ajax onto them in the hope of catching them on the break.
But despite the best efforts of Marco Simeone, Milan were wasteful in attack with Daniele Massaro – a star in the Rossoneri’s 4-0 win over Barcelona in the previous year’s final – suffering a serious off day.
It made for an abysmal spectacle. Even Kluivert’s goal, as significant as it was, only came about after a rare mistake from the Milan defence who stepped up in an attempted offside trap yet left the young Dutchman unmarked.