It’s March 20th 1991, the night of the Champions League quarter final between AC Milan (the defending champions) and l’Olympique de Marseille at the Stade Vélodrome. La Canebiere is buzzing with excitement!

It’s been 11 months since the injustice of Vata’s hand, in the semi final the previous year’s European Cup (known eventually as the Champions League a year later) and the OM fans have only just recovered from this bitter disappointment.

After a 1-1 draw in the first leg, at the recently renovated San Siro, AC Milan and l’Olympique de Marseille teams met again for a very heated second leg.

The game is tense and physical, with plenty of opportunities for both teams. to score. However, the score remains 0-0 until the 75th minute until, finally, a certain Chris Waddle opens the score for Marseille. 

Then with only 2 minutes of the game left, half of the stadium’s floodlights go out! The referee has no choice but to stop the game for over 10 minutes, until the lights finally came back on… but Adriano Galliani (Milan’s director) refuses for his team to restart and finish the game. 

Gullit, Baresi, Ancelotti and Co strongly protest too. They’re outraged by the situation… and the score line no doubt. The crowd and the audience watching the game on TV are confused. The referee grabs the ball and tells the AC Milan players to restart the game where the action stopped few minutes earlier; with a goal kick.

It’s final! The Rossoneri refuse to return to the field: AC Milan would not kick the ball again that night.

UEFA will end up declaring it an AC Milan forfeit, giving a 3-0 victory (and the qualification to the next round) to Marseille.

That year l’Olympique de Marseille reached the final, losing to a surprising Red Star Belgrade team full of talent. For refusing the restart the game, AC Milan would banned from all European competitions for a year.

(By FootballShirtA1 on Twitter)