Month: August 2015

The 1970s were a decade of steady ascent of Greek football, culminating with Greece playing at 1980 European Championship finals. But there was dark side to Greek football, making it an enigma. Success and scandal went hand in hand, as if there was no way to better the game without illegal means. 1979-80 was no exception: the Federation announced that Greek football was to be professional , starting with the next championship. This decision immediately triggered a strike of the players. There were some bugging questions and unsolved to this very day problems, but the most immediate result was penalties. The decision of the Federation concerned only first division – the players of the second division felt unfairly treated and went on strike. Since the championship was nearing its end, the Federation decided to award wins to these clubs which fielded players in the last games. In case of both teams not showing up, the no-show game had no winner and nobody got points. Fair and simple? No… A glance of the final tables of the 2 groups of Second Division shows that only 1 of the 40 participating clubs finished without deducted points! 39 clubs had points deducted, ranging from 1 (Atromitos) to 11 (Levadiakos). Perhaps nowhere in the world there was ever been such a dirty championship. The sole exception, therefore, deserves mentioning:

A.O. Vizas Megaron. They finished 2nd in the Southern Group of Second Division, unfortunately far behind the winners, so… fairplay did not pay out. The winners had 2 games in which they did not get points for failing to show up, plus 1 point deducted – and were promoted.

Well, that is almost all what is clear. The RSSSF website provides something like explaination: because of the strike, ‘the last four days of the championship were not played. Not all teams went on strike, and these won their matches 2-0.’ This explaination does not match deductions and awarded games: 4 days in practical terms means just one round. Yet, some teams are shown with more than one awarded game. May be what is meant is ‘the last four rounds’? This doesn’t tally either. Nothing is said about deductions – if we consider that actually teams were penalized with deuctions for not showing up, 4 rounds barely make sense – yet, short of justifying deductions of more than 8 points. Most likely teams were penalized for other infringements, which paints very unpleasant picture: 39 of 40 clubs were found guilty! Corruption of so vast scale is scarry even to think about it, immediately suggesting that it was not peculiar only to second division – at the end, the big clubs were untouchable… And because of that, the small fry was not really punished either – there had to be 2 promotions and with only one clean club in the Second Division… promotions went to the unclean. But this is not all.

The strike itself triggers the question what was the status of Greek players until 1980? Amateurs? Impossible, because of the massive presence of foreign players: in the 1979-80 season Olympiakos had 8 foreigners! When foreigners were allowed to play in Greece is ever-lasting mystery – there were foreigners since the late 1950s, but officially even in the 1970s foreigners were not allowed… and fake documents were made to them, often changing the original names to Greek ones. But not every name was changed… ‘Oriundi’ rule had been applied for a long time: foreign players of Greek descent were considered domestic. This perhaps applied to Cypriots as well. Inventing ‘Greek roots’ helped bending the general rule of using foreign players in the 1970s: 2 per game. A glance at line-ups shows that on paper Greek clubs followed this rule (international games were different matter – UEFA had no rules about foreigners, so in the European torunaments not only the Greeks often used more foreigners than allowed by the domestic leagues). Many foreign players were fielded as Greeks – and this explains why Olympiakos had such a big number – but the mess was tremendous. Who was domestic and why? The German born Maik Galakos was listed as Greek in the Olympiakos squad – yet, when he played in West Germany, he was listed as German! At the same time Panathinaikos listed Helmut Kirisitz – seemingly, of Greek descent – as Austrian import. Yet, Panathinaikos also had a certain player named Niko Kovi, listed under Turkish nationality – not the first Turkish-born Greek, who came to Greece – and as a rule of thumb, getting Greek citizenship according to etnicity, the very reason for emigration. But Olympiakos topped that: Christos Kaltsas, born 1956, is given as Romanian. Yes, he was born in Romania – but he did not play in Romania at all: his first club is a Greek one, and he joined it in 1973! From the dates, it is quite clear that he came to Greece as teenager, most likely his parents decided to return to their homeland. So, how was he a foreign player? Meantime some genuine foreigners took Greek citizenship (and some settled in Greece for the rest of their lives!) – naturalization is hardly ever shown in statistics: such players are listed as foreigners. Case in point: the Uruguayan born Julio Losada of Olympiakos. Contrary to his case is the one of Vassilis Hatzipanagis, biographically listed with dual citizenship – Greek and Soviet – but statistically given as domestic Greek player. The mess has one practical application, though: the foreigners were not amateurs. And if they were not, Greek stars were not either – Hatzipanagis always speaks about his restrictive contract with Iraklis, preventing him of playing for bigger clubs, including Arsenal (London). And get this: Iraklis was relegated at the end of 1979-80 season to the remaining non-professional Second Division! What was he in the next season? If amateur, what stopped him from moving to bigger club? All boils down to constant infringement and violation of rules and massive corruption, which was a public knowledge and the general attitude was to pretend not seeing it. So the championship ended with finals tables ‘normalizing’ the situation.

Atromitos (Athens) won the Southern Group and was promoted to First Division. They got no points for 2 matches, apparently striking players did not show up, and 1 point deducted for something else. With such record, they finished 6 points ahead of clean Vizas (Megaron).

Panserraikos (Serres) won the Northern Group – they also failedto show up at 2 games and got no points and had 2 points deducted for who knows what. No worries… they still finished 8 points ahead of Niki Volou and moved up to top flight.

 

The battle between new and old was not decisive. Malmo FF reached the Cup final, which turned out to be a challenge between the ‘losers’ of the championship – IK Brage was the other finalist. Attendance was low, so fans just missed the fun: the final ended 3-3 and went to penalty shoot-out. In it Malmo FF won 4-3.

Unfortunately for IK Brage, they were just a tiny bit bellow the other strong clubs this year. Fortunately for Malmo, the team was still strong enough and transition perhaps was going to end well – the season was not lost at all, they still won a trophy.

Winning the cup was perhaps vastly important for Malmo, because the moment was crucial: this was no longer the old great team. Their already legendary coach Bob Houghton returned to England. Gone were stars of the 1970s – Bo Larsson, Staffan Tapper, Jan Moller. As most often happens with strong teams, the sign of coming decline is when the least significant members of the old great squad becomes the defining star of the moment – Ingemar Erlandsson here. The newcomers were a bit alarming: another English coach was hired to replace Houghton. But when Houghton arrived, he was at least young and promissing coach – with his development the team developed. Keith Blunt was not young and so far not successful – he came from Sutton United, a club not even a member of the professional leagues. His arrival suggested stagnation, not development. He also brought two English players with him: Tim Parkin, b. 1957, formerly of Blackburn Rovers, and Paul McKinnon, b. 1958, who played for Blunt in Sutton United. Young players, but… when unknown players from low leagues are imported, that means trouble: Malmo apparently had no strong players left and the general quality was so low, that unknown imports were the only solution. So it looked like… and may be so it was, and the club needed to jump over difficult hurdle – if winning something this year, they had a good chance of avoiding crisis. If not – it was going down all the way. It is familiar story. Malmo FF won the Cup. They also had rapidly rising new star – Robert Prytz.

 

 

Sweden went through a minor decline at the end of the 1970s. It was mot visible at the 1978 World Cup – at club level it was different: Malmo FF achieved the biggset success ever of a Swedish club at the same time. The problem was peculiar and unlike any other country: since Swedish clubs were never relly strong, they were pretty much the same. The crisis was visible in the national team and international transfers: the great players of the first half of the 1970s aged, but there were no new stars coming. Transitional period of changing generations. 1980 was perhaps the turning point – the next generation was taking charge, but it was till too young to make really strong impression. Tiny signs defined the moment: Malmo FF changed their coach and employed foreign players, as if stating that locals were not good enough. And the team stpped back a bit, becoming a second fiddle. In the same time IFK Goteborg was rising, but was not dominant force yet. On the surface, Swedish football looked the same, though – like Denmark, ups and downs were common, for there were no big clubs dominating the scene. Perhaps IFK Sundsvall captures Swedish football best:

Domestic squad, not a single recognizable name, thus similar to almost any other Swedish team. They finished 7th in 1980 – right in the middle of the table, with 26 points of 26 matches. It would have been possible to finish higher, it would have been possible to finish lower – depending to the momentary form not only of the squad, but also depending on the form of the other clubs. Anonymous team. But not so bad compared to some more familiar names…

Second Division winners were at least well known names:

Örgryte IS (Goteborg), the oldest club in the country, and

AIK (Stockholm). A testimony for the strength of the Swedish clubs – ‘big’ names struggled in Second division when little known clubs played relatively well in top flight. But these two managed to go up rather quickly.

There was little drama at the bottom of First Division – two teams were obviously bellow the class of the league.

Mjällby AIF were last with 11 points.

Landskrona BoIS ended with 6 points more than poor Mjällby AIF, but they also had 4 points less than the nearest teams above them. 13th place was there and that was the second relegation spot. At 12th place finished Djurgardens IF and 11th – Atvidabergs FF. Gone were the years when these two clubs were among the best. If Djurgardens IF was moving up and down, as most Swedish clubs did depending on momentary form, Atvidabergs FF was just fading away, going further and further down, and permanently.

At the end, what really mattered was the top of the league. Four clubs were clearly better than the rest and contested the title.

IF Brage finsihed 4th with 33 points. Strong season for one of the traditionally lesser clubs For some reason the magazine which published their picture credited Brage with bronze medals, but even without them it was great season for the boys. Brage rarely finished that high and earned a spot in the UEFA Cup.

IFK Goteborg finished 3rd. The club had rather mediocre decade, but now were going up. Few young promising players were in the squad – the next generation of great Swedish players: Glenn Hysen, Dan Corneliusson, Olle Nordin, Tord Holmgren. Still too young for success, but talented enough to move Goteborg up the ladder. Similarly young was their coach – Sven-Goran Eriksson. This was the team for the future, going up, but not yet at its peak.

Malmo FF finished 2nd with 35 points – one more than IFK Goteborg. To a point, this was the club going down. The best team of the 1970s was unable to win the title. It was not real decline, but inevitable changing of generations. It looked like Malmo was staying among the best just on inertia and there was the big risk of sinking unless a new team was build quick enough.

With Malmo over the hill and Goteborg not at its peak yet, another club took advantage.

Östers IF won the championship in 1978, which was more or less a surprize, but they were best in 1980 too. Not supreme, but just a bit better than their opponents. They lost only 2 games this season and finished with 37 points – 2 more than Malmo FF, 4 more than Brage. As is often the case of not so great champions, they depended on defense – the best in the league – which helped squirrel point here, point there, and at the end – more than anybody else. But the champions also had few of the next generation stars: Tomas Ravelli, Peter Stromberg, Andreas Ravelli, Hakan Arvidson. Two foreigners aleso helped: the Finnish national team player Peter Utriainen and one of solid Icelandic players, who impressed Europe in the 1980s – Teitur Thordarson (who eventually became well respected coach in the early 21st century). Their young coach Bosse Johansson was instrumental and rising – with time, he was to coach the national teams of Iceland and Denmark. May be not a great team at big scale, but these years were perhaps the strongest period in the history of the club – second title in three years, and not the last one either.