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Under Shankly's management, Liverpool won three League Championship titles, two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup; the club's first European trophy. He retired in 1974 at the end of the season that brought them an FA Cup triumph, to be succeeded by coach Bob Paisley, who set a new record of winning 13 major tropies between then and his retirement in 1983 - including three European Cups.
In the past 30 years, they have been one of the most successful clubs in English and European football; they won four European Cups between 1977 and 1984.
The Heysel Stadium disaster made the club infamous in Europe; 39 Juventus fans died after a wall collapsed as they fled from charging Liverpool fans. The club was involved in another disaster four years later—the Hillsborough Disaster— which saw the death of 96 Liverpool fans in a crush against perimeter fencing. Flames were added to the club's crest in honour of the Liverpool fans who lost their lives at Hillsborough. Both disasters have had wide-ranging impacts on English and European football, and the club, to this day.
Liverpool remained highly successful to the end of the 1980s. Despite being banned from European competitions for six years after the tragedy at Heysel, Liverpool dominated the domestic scene under player-manager Kenny Dalglish who succeeded Joe Fagan in 1985. They joined the elite of clubs to have won the double of the league title and FA Cup in 1986, gained two further league titles in 1988 and again in 1990, and also won their fourth FA Cup in 1989.
The 1990s was a relative
ly unsuccessful decade by Liverpool standards. The 1990 league title was their most recent top division title to date, although they did win the FA Cup in 1992 and a record fifth League Cup in 1995, they never finished higher than third place after 1991 and in 1994 finished as low as eighth.
However, the 2000s has seen an upturn in fortunes for the club. They won three trophies in 2001 (the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup), finished second in the league in 2002 after 11 years outside the top two and won their seventh League Cup in 2003 under the management of Frenchman Gerard Houllier, who had been appointed in 1998. Houllier was succeeded by Rafael Benitez in 2004, and in his first season they won their fifth European Cup. Since then they have also won their seventh FA Cup as well as achieving another second place finish in the league. In spite of these success, they have still yet to win the league title since 1990.
Liverpool F.C. has played at Anfield since its formation, but plans to move to a new stadium in Stanley Park, which was due to be completed by 2011 but has been put on hold until economic conditions improve. Liverpool has a large and diverse fan base, which holds long-standing rivalries with several clubs. The most notable of these are their rivalries with Manchester United and Everton, with whom they contest the Merseyside derby.
Jacques Santini was appointed in 2000 after leaving his position at FC Sochaux-Montbéliard. Santini quickly restored the team and in 2001, Lyon had won Coupe de la Ligue (French League Cup), which surprisingly was the club's first major silverware since the 1973 Coupe de France win. He also steered the side to a 2nd place finish, which, as a result, guaranteed the club UEFA Champions League qualification. Despite these successes, Santini was still not popular with the fans, who did not approve of his defensive approach to the game.
In 2002, Santini went one better and guided Lyon to their first ever Ligue 1 title, after a win, on the last day of the season, over 2nd place finisher RC Lens. It still didn't convince the majority of Lyon supporters that he was the right man, after suffering an early knockout in the Champions League, and a fortnight after the win, Santini announced his resignation with Lyon. He opted for the France national football team.
The man who was responsible for delivering three consecutive league titles with Lyon was former Rennes manager Paul Le Guen. Le Guen was highly noted for grooming players such as El Hadji Diouf during his time at Rennes, but he was feared as another failure, according to much of the press.
He undoubtedly proved them wrong, and Lyon had improved in Ligue 1 and in the Champions League. Despite finishing third in the Champions League group stages, Lyon were only knocked out due to the goal against rule, which had meant that Lyon were placed in the UEFA Cup. Lyon lost to Turkish side, Denizlispor after drawing at home. Le Guen won the league once more by one point.
Le Guen's second season saw Lyon win their third title and second during his reign. Lyon were also top of their group in the Champions League, despite the threat of previous winners, Bayern Munich. The team had beaten Real Sociedad in the round of 16, but their luck ran out against F.C. Porto, who ultimately won the competition.
The club had won the league for a fourth time by a majority margin, but were knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the second straight season. It had looked like Lyon were going to cruise through the semi-finals, after trashing German opponents Werder Bremen 10–2 on aggregate. They were cruelly knocked out on penalties by Dutch club PSV and left Lyon fans waiting another year for a Champions League final.
A night after Lyon's league success, Le Guen resigned from his position as manager. The news surprised Lyon fans, who thought that Le Guen would sign a contract extension and commit himself to the club. He was offered a three-year extension, but decided to leave and be proud of his achievements.
Gérard Houllier was appointed as Lyon boss in 2005, after the resignation of Le Guen. He had inherited a worthy championship side, with the likes of Juninho, Sylvain Wiltord, Sidney Govou, Florent Malouda and Grégory Coupet. He placed Juninho as captain and brought Portuguese international Tiago to the club from Chelsea, in a part-exchange deal for Michael Essien.
In his first full season, he had guided the side to a fifth consecutive league title but failed to make an impact in the Champions League, after crashing out to AC Milan at the San Siro. It was their third consecutive quarter-final appearance in the Champions League. Lyon won the title after Lille's win against Bordeaux.
Houllier was successful in signing French U-21 international Jérémy Toulalan from Nantes, as well as Swedish play-maker Kim Källström from Rennes. Gérard, however, lost the services of Mali's Mahamadou Diarra, who had agreed a five-year contract with Real Madrid worth up to €25 million. In order to replace Diarra, Gérard signed another French international, Alou Diarra, from RC Lens.
Yet despite a triumphant season debut in which Lyon thrashed championship challengers Olympique de Marseille 1–4 and Lens 0–4, scoring 50 points in the first part of the season alone, Lyon didn't recover from the winter break and lost or drew nearly all the matches in January, including the Coupe de France knockout against Marseille. They managed to regain confidence by beating rivals AS Saint-Étienne 1–3, but were not in their autumn form and were decisively beaten by A.S. Roma at Gerland, thus being eliminated from the Champions League.
During the 2007–08 season, Lyon changed their coach, bringing in former Portsmouth boss Alain Perrin from Sochaux. They also recruited Italian World Cup winner Fabio Grosso, as well as Mathieu Bodmer and Abdul Kader Keïta from Lille. The season started badly, with defeats against Toulouse and Lorient, as well as important players such as Grégory Coupet and Cris being injured. The UEFA Champion's league campaign started in disaster, with the club suffering two humiliating defeats against FC Barcelona (3–0) and Rangers (0–3). These difficulties were due to a lack of defensive discipline and because of Perrin's 4-4-2 system, a formation the players weren't used to.
However, the team managed to maintain itself in first place, thanks to fantastic performances by Karim Benzema and Hatem Ben Arfa. Lyon qualified for the next stage in the Champion's League thanks to wins against VfB Stuttgart (0–2 and 4–2) and Rangers, at Ibrox Park (0–3).
The season was marked by some erratic performances, and by a much less marked domination; Bordeaux emerged as serious contenders for the title. The league was eventually decided on the final day. In Lyon's match against Auxerre, Benzema scored a goal (his twentieth that season in Ligue 1), a mere 24 seconds after kick-off, followed by goals from Fred and Källstrom, securing the League for Lyon. Had Lyon lost, Bordeaux would have been crowned champions as they also won on the final day.
Olympique Lyonnais also managed to win the Coupe de France for the first time in more than 30 years with a 1-0 (goal scored by Sidney Govou) win in extra-time against Paris Saint-Germain. This victory assured the club their first ever double.
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