The first Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971. The competition was the idea of Swiss pools supremo Ernst Thommen, Ottorino Barassi from Italy, and the English Football Association general secretary Stanley Rous, all of whom later became senior officials...

 took place over three seasons from 1955 to 1958. The competition began with a group stage with each team playing home and away against each other. Due to the competition rules which stated only one side from each city was allowed to compete, many cities with several football clubs picked the best players from those teams to create a city representative side. One of these, a London XI

London XI

The London XI was an association football representative team, specially created to take part in the 1955-58 edition of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the precursor of today's UEFA Europa League although not recognized by UEFA....

, went on to reach the final where they were beaten over two legs by Barcelona

FC Barcelona

Futbol Club Barcelona , also known as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça, is a professional football club, based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain....

.

Group A

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|align=center|3 ||align=left|   Vienna XI

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

||colspan="8"| Vienna XI withdrew from the competition.
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Group B

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Group C

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|align=center|3 ||align=left|   Cologne XI

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

|colspan="8"| Cologne XI withdrew from the competition
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Group D

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Knockout stage

• Teams playing first leg at home shown first.
• Birmingham City and Barcelona required a playoff after their semi-final finished level on aggregate. The playoff was played in Switzerland
  Switzerland
  Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
  
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Semifinals

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¹ Barcelona beat Birmingham City 2–1 in a play-off to qualify for the Final.

First leg

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Second leg

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Replay:

Final

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External links

• UEFA Inter-Cities Fair Cup results at Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation