Insight

Final thoughts

When it comes to the Champions League showpiece, success requires tactical nous and forensic preparation. Just ask Craig Thompson…

WORDS Dan Poole | ILLUSTRATION Neil Stevens

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“Any little thing that went wrong was a huge problem, because it was the final.” So says Craig Thompson, who oversaw seven Champions League finals between 1995 and 2001. No, he isn’t the greatest manager you’ve never heard of, but he was a crucial cog in the machine that brought the Champions League to life.

Thompson’s first outing in charge of logistics and operations was Vienna in 1995. “The final had been run in the same way for a long time,” he says. “In Vienna, everything changed. We came in with all our checklists and 50 members of staff, all sorts of rigmarole. It was tough.”

So tough, in fact, that Thompson didn’t sleep so soundly the following season. “I started having nightmares,” he says. “The first time was a couple of nights before the Rome final in 1996. Always the same thing: somehow I wasn’t able to be in the meetings in the last few days before the final. And then, in my dream, I didn’t wake up in time on the day and had to be specially driven to the stadium. People would be looking at me, like, ‘Where have you been?’”

Another nightmare was the pre-mobiles mode of communication that Thompson and his colleagues used when on site. “We had to put our radios on six different channels: one for broadcasters, one for sponsors, one for security, etc. You would say, ‘This is Craig Thompson, switching from channel 1 to channel 2.’ Then, ‘This is Craig Thompson on channel 2, can I please speak to…’ You’d have that conversation, then, ‘This is Craig Thompson switching from channel 2 to channel 3.’ And everyone had to keep a list of who was on which channel. It was crazy.”

Those radios must have been busy on the morning of the 1996 final, when the police arrived to inspect the hospitality village outside the Stadio Olimpico. “They said, ‘You cannot serve beer in a public place!’ We said, ‘This isn’t a public space! You need a ticket to get in.’ They said, ‘No, no! Remove the beer!’” Fortunately that issue got ironed out – and the village visitors who came by later were pleased with the outcome. “Everyone was having such a good time that they didn’t want to go to the match,” says Thompson. “Finally we just had to get everybody out.”

“it was so interesting working in Europe because every culture is so different; they’re all wonderful people but just such a different approach to life.”

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