Contemporary football fans may be surprised to learn that the Mitropa Cup, an ante litteram version of the Champions League, was reserved for clubs from nations, with the exception of Italy, which have disappeared from the map of football that counts. Countries such as Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia evoke, in the most scattered exploits, outstanding performances that can be traced back to a few editions of World Cups or European Championships that took place over the decades. In the same way, modern fans might be surprised that European football was dominated almost 100 years ago by teams that have fallen into oblivion. A quick glance at the list of Mitropa winners, for example, reveals the absence of the German, Spanish, Dutch and English teams that would dominate the scene after the second world war. In addition, when fans think of the Mitropa their minds tend to go to the most recent editions, those played between 1979 and 1992 which were reserved for the winners of the nations’ respective second divisions. The event, which in each European nation took on one or more different names – in Italian newspapers, for example, it was renamed the Coppa Europa – took its name from the German company Mitropa AG, founded in 1916, which managed the sleeping and dining cars of the trains that travelled through central Europe. Starting in the 1920s, Mitropa AG began to sponsor sporting events, albeit indirectly and by granting discounts, and thanks to the founding of the Mitropa competition it acquired a hitherto unheard-of customer: the fan who travelled across the continent to attend their team’s away matches. Some clarifications are necessary: although the tournament was a progenitor of the Champions Cup, the latter would later enjoy a much greater resonance by virtue of a decidedly amplified media exposure. A key role in slowing the metamorphosis of football into a fully fledged international product was played by the sports publications of the 1920s: soaked in propaganda and strongly influenced by the unstable political and diplomatic relations of those years, they dispensed rivers of ink to praise their own clubs, often concealing the successes of teams from rival countries. This happened for two reasons: on the one hand it was the local sport that had to be celebrated and on the other the fans’ interest in foreign championships and competitions was a marginal phenomenon, something that would take hold only a few years later. A good example of this is the chronicle of the first World Cup in history, played in Uruguay, in which Italy, like the other main European football powers, did not participate. On 31 July 1930, the day after the final between Uruguay and Argentina, La Gazzetta dello Sport dedicated to the match a paragraph about 10 lines long on the last page, while a different article appeared on the cover about Italian footballers and rowers about to start the World University Championships. Similarly, on the day of the final, in the edition of the then weekly Guerin Sportivo, an article entitled Argentineide was published. The piece mentioned two players who would take part in the match, Juan Evaristo and Guillermo Stabile, but not because they were involved in the event of the day, but rather because of market rumours that the two would move to Roma and Genova at the end of the competition. More generally, the World Cup in Uruguay was the subject of scanty articles with few details. The same trend concerned, at least during the early years, the matches of the Mitropa: with the exception of Gazzetta, no Italian newspaper dedicated itself to the first two editions of the event, those of 1927 and 1928, due to the absence of Italian teams. And Gazzetta itself would in many cases not print match reports the following day. This attitude would change considerably from 1929, the year that marked the beginning of Italian participation. Due to the political vicissitudes of the time, the tension was often palpable on the field: when the Italian teams faced Austrian, Hungarian or Czechoslovakian teams, the matches often pitted youngsters who had been orphaned during the Great War against each other. This was the case for, among others, two of the most representative champions of the period: Ambrosiana’s star player Giuseppe Meazza and his Austrian alter ego Matthias Sindelar. In spite of these circumstances, Italy’s newspapers did not hide their feelings: the football of central Europe, that which was played along the Danube in particular in Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia and which the Italians called “Danubian football”, was the model to follow. Rapid Vienna were described as the team to beat and any defeat suffered by an Italian team would not be seen as a disgrace. But there is another phenomenon that would testify to the high opinion in which Italian football held central European football: the large number of coaches born under the Austro-Hungarian Empire who coached in Italy during the 1920s and 30s. In every season between 1927 and 1939, more Danubian coaches sat on the benches of Italian clubs than Italian ones. This led to an interpenetration between the Italian style of play, of a purely defensive nature and inspired by the English school carried out by Vittorio Pozzo, and the central European style of play, which favoured an offensive game of short passes borrowed from Scottish coaches – and in some cases from English coaches but supporters of the Scottish model – who had settled on the continent in previous years. The tendency to prefer Magyar and Austrian coaches waned slightly – without disappearing – in the first years after the second world war, partly because of the relationship between Italy and Austria and partly because of the successes that Pozzo had achieved with the Italian national team. The fact of having won two World Cups, two International Cups and the Olympic Games in Berlin led several clubs to turn towards the Italian style of play. Compared with today’s Champions League, there were also differences in the rules: if the teams scored the same number of goals in the first leg and the second leg, a playoff was played. And if the result was still tied, a second one would be played, as penalties were not yet allowed. Over the years, there were other organisational and political changes that influenced the tournament, including the opening to seven federations in 1937 – the year in which Mitropa took on more or less the features of today’s Champions League – or the Anschluss of 1938, which coincided with the exclusion of the Austrian teams and, for reasons of political expediency, of the Swiss ones. Then, in 1940, due to the winds of war blowing ever more threateningly over Europe, the event was interrupted. But to better explain the scenario of European football at the time, a brief historical excursus is necessary, which begins with the arrival of the ball – foot-ball – in Europe, continues with the advent of professional football and culminates, if one can say so, with the birth of the first international tournaments. This is an edited extract from The Forgotten Cup by Jo Araf, published by Pitch Publishing (£19.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply