 Match programme cover | |||||||
| Event | 2003–04 UEFA Champions League | ||||||
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| Date | 26 May 2004 | ||||||
| Venue | Arena AufSchalke, Gelsenkirchen | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Deco (Porto)[1] | ||||||
| Referee | Kim Milton Nielsen (Denmark) | ||||||
| Attendance | 53,053[1] | ||||||
The 2004 UEFA Champions League final was an association football match played on 26 May 2004 to decide the winner of the 2003–04 UEFA Champions League. AS Monaco, a Monaco-based club representing the French Football Federation, faced Portuguese side Porto at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Porto won the match 3–0, with Carlos Alberto, Deco and Dmitri Alenichev scoring the goals in a dominant game from Jose Mourinho's Porto. Deco was named Man of the Match.
Porto's previous triumph in the competition had been in 1987 – although they had won the UEFA Cup in the previous season – while Monaco were playing in their first ever UEFA Champions League final. Both teams started their campaigns in the group stage and defeated former European champions on their way to the final: Porto beat 1968 and 1999 winners Manchester United while Monaco defeated nine-time champions Real Madrid.
Both teams were considered underdogs in the competition before reaching the final stages and were led by young managers. Monaco had hired former France national football team captain Didier Deschamps as manager and Porto were led by rising star José Mourinho, who left the club for Chelsea a week after the match.
Monaco became the fourth club representing the French league to reach the final after Reims in 1956 & 1959, Saint-Étienne in 1976, and Olympique de Marseille in 1991 & 1993. This was the fifth final in the history of the European Cup in which neither of the teams came from England, Germany, Italy or Spain, the first since the 1991 final when Red Star Belgrade of Yugoslavia beat Marseille, and as of current, the last time a team not from the four previously mentioned countries won the final.