having watched with envy as their city rivals, milan won the cup, the previous season, ınter milan were determined to win the cup for the first time to appease their fans at the expense of perennial finalists, real madrid.
the final was held in vienna, which provided the fanatical ınter supporters the opportunity to travel in their thousands to the game.
for the first time in european cup history there was a mass movement of fans from one country to another as the ınter hordes descended on austria.
a crowd of over 70,000 with many thousands of them from ıtaly, crammed into the praterstadion to see if the attacking maestro's of madrid could outfox the young catenaccio kings from milan on the biggest stage of all.
the match itself proved to be the end of an era as ınter powered their way to the european title.
despite their defeat, real madrid would return as a force in europe's major club competition, but the two men who had been so instrumental in the clubs success would never be seen in a european final again.
up against the dynamic efficiency of the ıtalian champions, puskas and di stefano were no longer able to compete.
puskas found himself stranded up front, now totally reliant on the service from his team-mates, while di stefano was shackled by the ıtalian man markers and merely flitted in and out of the game.
with suarez running the midfield, ınter not only stifled their opponents, but also managed to puncture real's defence on three occasions through mazzola on 43 and 76 minutes, and milani on the hour.
when real did get forward they came up against a tight and ruthlessly marshalled defence which gave them little hope of success.
felo did score acrobatically from a puskas corner on 70 minutes and the great hungarian did strike a post, but ınter's triumph was never seriously in doubt.
real's defeat brought to an end the glorious era of puskas and di stefano. these two greats had dominated the early years of the european cup and had appeared, on occasion, to win games for real madrid on their own.
