FESTERS FROM ROBBED LEEDS
important game of my club career.
“The European Cup Final, then and now, is the biggest game in club football. It was an enormous match to play the reigning champions, a team right at the top, with world-class players like Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller.
“You had fought your way through for the right to be there. It is the summit.”
Jordan was a fearsome centre-forward with Leeds,
Manchester United, AC Milan, Verona and Scotland in a distinguished career. He was, and is, also a football man of deep integrity.
What he recalls with abiding enthusiasm is the ferocious battles of the time, the quality of opponents and the brilliance of that Leeds team.
Often neglected is the fact they beat a Barcelona side with Johan Cruyff to reach that 1975 final.
“The second leg in the Nou Camp was a rough match,” says Jordan, now 68, whose nose was broken that night by a flying elbow. “That was football then. You just got on with it because you had to accept it, accept the interpretation of whoever the referee was on the night.the game was a lot more physical.
“We came through it and marched on to Paris. Cruyff was a special player, an incredible talent. He is one of those footballers who change the game as an individual, who take it to another level. He was a star in my eyes. He was world-class and so was Beckenbauer, who was the leader of Bayern. He was like Bobby Moore – he would read the game with and without the ball.”
As Jordan speaks you get the sense of just how good Leeds were – a team to rival the best anywhere on the planet.
“Yes, it was a fantastic team,” he says. “I arrived in 1970 and it was a good place for me to grow up. Every time you played, you had to be up to the mark.”
Victory in that 1975 final would have been the crowning glory for Leeds.
“It wasn’t to be,” says Jordan with one last sigh. “A long time has passed now. It’s a memory.”
Silence reigns again. “It could have been better,” he says finally.