UEFA Champions League - F.C. Paços de Ferreira

This year's surprise package in the play-off round of the ECL is Portugal's Pacos de Ferreira. Their home stadium holds only 5,000 spectators so their Zenit St Petersburg tie will be played elsewhere which is a shame, since the Mata Real has hosted some spectacular goal nets in the past.

Unwilling to give up their Continental D's in the box nets era, they tied the nets back in hybrid fashion.




Some years earlier the Castores played between a genre-defying method of supporting their goal nets.


What do we call these?

UEFA Champions League - AC Milan

Milan have never shied from their English heritage. Founded by two Englishmen, with an Anglicised spelling of their name (despite Mussolini running interference) and an English-style stadium with no running track, the Rossoneri's embrace of their roots extended even to the on-field architecture at San Siro, which was modelled on Wembley's.

UEFA Champions League - Zenit Saint Petersburg

When Russia was the Soviet Union and Zenit Saint Petersburg were Zenit Leningrad, Zenit played at the Kirov Stadium and the goal nets were a pique of Soviet inefficiency.

Designed for A-frames (such as those at Kyiv) the nets were strewn over the Juventus-like stanchions like a kaftan on Kate Moss.




Like Spinal Tap's mini Stonehenge - supplied exactly to size - Zenit's post Soviet 90's Continental D's look like their goals manufacturer took the Subbuteo dimensions too literally.