1995/96: Klinsmann sparks Bayern triumph

FC Bayern München 2-0 FC Girondins de Bordeaux
(Helmer 34, Scholl 60)
FC Girondins de Bordeaux 1-3 FC Bayern München
(Dutuel 76; Scholl 53, Kostadinov 65, Klinsmann 78)
(agg: 5-1 to Bayern)

Serie A's stranglehold on the UEFA Cup was broken in 1996; and it was FC Bayern München who did the damage. Bayern beat FC Girondins de Bordeaux to become only the third side after Juventus and AFC Ajax to lift all three European trophies.

However, Bordeaux were just as influential in ending the Italian hegemony. In a game voted France Football magazine's match of the year, they overturned a two-goal deficit to defeat AC Milan 3-0 in their quarter-final second leg at Parc Lescure. For a side that had come through the newly-intorduced UEFA Intertoto Cup the previous summer – the only team who would ever progress to the UEFA Cup final via that route – it was a remarkable achievement. But while SK Slavia Praha would go the way of Milan (plus Karlsruhe SC, FK Vardar, SC Rotor Volgograd and Real Betis Balompié) in the semi-finals, Bordeaux's long campaign had to catch up with them.

Bayern's season, meanwhile, had been marred by a public row between star players Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann. Yet this did not stop Matthäus leading the team to a 2-1 victory at FC Barcelona in the last four after a 2-2 draw in Munich; nor prevent Klinsmann scoring a record 15 goals in the competition. The last of them came at Bordeaux in the final second leg. Bayern won 3-1 despite the presence in the home ranks of Christophe Dugarry and Zinédine Zidane. Crucially, though, the latter pair had missed the first leg at the Olympiastadion, notable for strikes by Thomas Helmer and Mehmet Scholl for Franz Beckenbauer's side.