Rise and fall of the Sony MiniDisc Euro Sixes

The 2022/23 season will be always remembered for the anomaly of a World Cup played between November and December. It never happened before that clubs stopped their season for over a month for an international break. However, the idea of a tournament that is not originally included into clubs’ scheduled to be played in the middle of the season is not an absolute novelty. An example can be found in 1997 when Ajax, Liverpool, Glasgow Rangers and Milan played the Sony MiniDisc Euro Sixes. We are talking about a tournament conceived by Johan Cruyff, played on January 27th and 28th 1997 at the Amsterdam Arena, Ajax’s home ground that back then had been just inaugurated and that could be considered as the most modern stadium in Europe. It was, and still is, a work of avant-garde in sports’ architecture as they introduced a retractable roof in football for the very first time. Today it became a standard solution for any club that desires to build a brand-new stadium.

The tournament itself was a work of avant-garde too as, just like Gerard Piqué’s Kings League, Sony MiniDisc Euro Sixes was played under unique rules, completely different from the ones used for a classic game. First, matches had to be played six vs six over four periods of ten minutes each, the end of which was signaled by the sound of a siren like in basketball. Every team had at their disposal five more players on the bench and substitutions, like it happens in hockey games, could be made without stopping the play. Players that got booked had to leave the pitch for two minutes with one of their teammates taking their place. The pitch was small-sized, 60 meters in length. Three anomalies made the situation even more complicated: goals had regular size, the penalty area covered much of each half and despite the small-sized pitch, the offside rule was in action. Teams played in a group stage where they had to face each of the three opponents and, at the end of it, the two best-ranked teams would have played in the final.

Thanks to the sponsor, Sony, the four participating teams received around 120 thousand pounds each with the tacit deal of playing their best players. So, on a couple of cold January’s nights in Amsterdam, Roberto Baggio, Paul Gascoigne, Marc Overmars, and Steve McManaman played on a strange pitch made of grass and sand in what could be considered the most precious six-a-side tournament ever. For the record, Milan won the Sony MiniDisc Euro Sixes’ first edition by beating Ajax 6-2 in a final played in front of more than 20 thousand people. In that game, they wore the iconic full black with red details jersey, an iconic kit that Lotto paired with the even more iconic full red with black details kit. As well as the first, that edition in 1997 remained the last edition too of the tournament. Despite the money coming from the sponsors and the promise of having Bayern Munich and Juventus in 1998, the Sony MiniDisc Euro Sixes was never to be played again. It faded slowly into fans’ memories only to pop up from time to time on social media to reinvigorate the nostalgia effect.