10 APRIL 1974: TRAPATTONI’S MILAN SIDE DOMINATE THE BEST BORUSSIA TEAM IN HISTORY

MILAN – Today Borussia is Dortmund but in the 1970’s, Borussia was Monchengladbach, the team of Netzer and Heynckes, then Simonsen.It was that Borussia side that Milan managed to beat 2-0 in the Semifinal of the Cup Winners Cup 40 years ago on 10 April 1974.Milan’s goals were scored by Albertino Bigon and  Luciano Chiarugi while it was Giovanni Trapattoni on the bench hoping to make up for the 5-1 derby loss two weeks previously.After that semi-final in 1974 Moenchengladbach went on to win the UEFA Cup in 1975 and got to the final of the European Cup in ’77 and won the UEFA Cup again in 1975.Milan went through to the final but lost to Magdeburg, the strongest team to ever come out of East Germany. But that 2-0 win in the semi-final kept alive the club’s European DNA prior to the arrival of Silvio Berlusconi 12 years later.