Month: August 2017

Second Division. That it was significantly inferior to the top level was nothing new, but now it appeared even weaker: at least 8 clubs were historical nobodies. Half of the republics of USSR had no representative at all and technically it was a championship of Russia ( 9 teams) and Ukraine (7 teams). Lituania, Georgia, Moldova, Latvia, Uzbekistan, and Tadzikistan had one team each. At a glance, the championship showed the general decline of the clubs of the Army system: the highest placed was 10th. As ever, the candidates for promotion were few and high above the rest and a good chunk of the league was only concerned with escaping relegation. The sedated mid-table clubs were still very happy with their state of affairs. Scoring was low, ties were the result of preference, although the limits imposed made everybody a bit more attacking-minded: only 4 teams went above the limit and lost points and the higher number of ties was 13 – in the past it was normal for a team to tie half of their championship games. The other positive side was the race for the two promotional spots: 5 teams went head to head, an almost unheard of number. Typically, there were 2-3 teams way above indifferent league. Two hopeless outsiders at the bottom. And one a bit better.

Spartak (Kostroma) ended last with 17 points. SKA (Kiev) second to last with 20 points. SKA (Odessa) ended 20th with 34 points. These three were relegated.

The three newcomers for the season managed to sit themselves in mid-table: Dinamo (Kirov) – 15th, Rotor (Volgograd) – 14th, and Daugava (Riga) – 8th.

Dinamo (Kirov). Just keeping a place in Second Division equaled success.

Dissapointing season for some of the potential candidates for promotion: Tavria (Simferopol) – 13th, SKA (Rostov-on-Don) – 11th, and SKA Karpaty (Lvov) – 10th. The eternal mid-table teams played as ever… Metallurg (Zaporozhye) – 12th, Pamir (Dushanbe) – 9th, and Shinnik (Yaroslavl) – 7th. Zarya (Voroshilovgrad) seemingly was joining the ‘mid-table teams’ – they finished 6th, but were not aiming at promotion at all. Looked like Zarya settled for a long live in Second Division.

Interesting was only at the very top – five teams finished divided by only 2 points. Fakel (Voronezh) was 5th with 54 points.

Lokomotiv (Moscow) bested Fakel on goal-difference. Both teams exceeded the limit of ties and lost a point each – if there was no lomit, they would have been ahead of the third place, but still unable to get promoted.

Kolos (Nikopol) ended 3rd with 55 points. A raising team, keep an eye on them in the future. Lost promotion by a point, but it was very strong season well finished.

The promoted succeeded just by a point – the two top teams finished with 56 points and goal-difference decided their final position.

Nistru (Kishinev) was 2nd and going up. No doubt, a great success – they played first division football before, but very briefly. Top level was not exactly on their minds since their relegation in 1975. From this almost forgotten first division season just about 2 players remained: the captain Pavel Chebanu and Ivan Karas. Nistru settled for mid-table comfort without a care or ambition on mind for so long, the first big problem was to shake the team out of apathy. Which was aggravated by internal tensions. The squad was not particularly interesting – like every typical mid-table team, it was experienced and solid, but not first class. Like the goalkeeper Kurochkin – a good second-level player, but for a long time just that: bellow first league keeper and satisfied with that. Of course, there were talented and promising players like the goal-scorer Grigory Batich, but how long would be before he decided to fall asleep? To keep him awake meant to go up – either the whole team or he alone to transfer to first league club. One clearly positive thing this year was scoring: Nistru depended on defense for years, following ‘the wisdom’ of a mid-table club: get the point and then there is nothing to worry about. This year Nistry scored the most goals in the league: 67. Well done, but… the big test was still in the future: the squad was not strong.

Thanks to better goal-difference Zhalgiris (Vilnius) became the champion of Second Division. It was quite of a surprise: they played first division football once upon a time, but so long ago hardly anyone remembered. For years they were entirely out of mind, playing in the Third Division – practically forgotten team. Unknown. Coming finally back to Second Division a couple of years back, they were generally expected to go down rather quickly. Yes, Lithuania, made mostly of Zhalgiris players, was pleasant surprise at the last Spartakiad – the all-USSR ‘olympic games’ – but it was not a tournament most people paid attention to and republics like Russia and Ukraine did not bother to select their best players for it. Lithuanian players in First Division could have been counted on the fingers of one hand and there was not a single star among them. Lithuania was a backwater of football… Zhalgiris had unknown players, unknown coach… it looked like a freak accident. May be pure chance. Lucky to go up, only the be relegated immediately – what else to expect from a team made only from local guys with unpronounceable names. Well, it was all wrong, just wait and see.

USSR. A very difficult season for assessment. It was not normal and the results of it somewhat contradicted the general impression of ascending Soviet football. On one hand there was new champion and tremendous battle for the title to the very last moment – something rare in USSR. On the other hand the leading clubs were unconvincing. As a whole, the impressions were positive, but they went hand in hand with harsh criticism of the national team. The championship was affected by events having nothing to do with it – if it was another country, that is. In a nut shell, half of the season was concentrated on the preparation of the national team for the 1982 World Cup, then the actual event, and after that – on analyzing what happened what happened and why, culminating with the change of the national team coaches. After that Brezhnev died. Somehow the championship was secondary for the most of the year – literary so, for the coaches of Dinamo (Kiev), Spartak (Moscow), and Dinamo (Tbilisi) also coached the national team and were preoccupied with it. And the national team was largely made of players from this three clubs, thus they had to play with substitutes quite a few games. No wonder the championship became the year of the ‘dark horse’. Usually, in similar cases, some otherwise ordinary team pops up from the back, but, as a rule of thumb, such teams are one-time wonders. The new Soviet champion was not that, yet, how good they really were? There were various records set this year and most of them went to the side of the positive. This much in a nut shell. The rest was familiar, but needs reminding: there were limits to the tied games – 10 in First Division and 12 in Second Division. Going above the limit brought no points. The rule affected Second Division. The Cup final was in May, which tremendously shortened the tournament, but USSR often changed the date of the final – now the reason was seemingly the World Cup, but there was one difficulty: it was practically impossible to amalgamate Cup and championship in evaluating the season: the Cup was no real indication for the strength of a team, for everybody reached best form after May. Lastly, the Second Division was reduced from 24 to 22 teams. Two clubs changed names – in Lvov Karpaty and SKA amalgamated into SKA Karpaty, and in Dzhizak Buston was renamed to Zvezda (Star).

The Third Division brought very little attention – there was no much anyway, but this year it was reduced to almost nothing. No surprise, really – many clubs, but what kind of clubs? Some eventually climbed out of obscurity later in the 1980s, like

Niva (Vinnitza) and

Gomselmash (Rostov-on-Don).

The biggest name was Krylya Sovetov (Kyubyshev)

Dark period for a club just a few years earlier playing in the First Division.

But all that was immaterial – the only important thing was the promotional tournament. The massive Third Division was divided into 9 zones and the champions went to play-off for the three promotional places. At this final stage they were divided into 3 groups of 3 teams each, playing 2-leg round-robin. Former Second Division members were the favourites, pretty much as ever before – four clubs. The final tournament went almost as expected:

Group 1: Tekstilshtik (Ivanovo) 2 1 1 5-4 5

Spartak (Ordzhonikidze) 1 2 1 5-4 4

Kotayk (Abovyan) 1 1 2 3-5 3

 

Group 2: Dnepr (Mogilev) 3 1 0 9-3 7

Dinamo (Samarkand) 2 0 2 8-7 4

Bukovina (Chernovtzy) 1 0 3 5-10 2

 

Group 3: Kuzbass (Kemerovo) 3 1 0 9-3 7

Shakhter (Karaganda) 1 1 2 4-5 3

Lokomotiv (Chelyabinsk) 1 0 3 2-7 2

Kuzbass and Tekstilshtik returning to Second Division and Dnepr – a debutante. The promotion of Kuzbass was important not only because the team was considered the strongest among the candidates – Vitaly Razdaev was playing there. Already the top all-time scorer of Second Division with 161 goals. Already becoming a legend. It was great that he would have chance to increase his numbers and also it was interesting: he was unreachable scorer already, yet, he missed a few second division seasons.

Dnepr (Mogilev) was also interesting: first, because they were the first club from Belarus promoted to Second Division. So far, only one Belarussian club played at this level – Dinamo (Minsk) – but they came from First Division. But 1982 was Dinamo (Minsk) year and with Dnepr promoted it looked like Belarussian football finally came to live.

The Cup final was unique: the only time ever it was played in two legs. FC Utrecht and AZ’67 reached the final. In the first leg, played in Utrecht, the hosts won 1-0. It was fragile lead, considering the team AZ’67 had. In Alkmaar Utrecht was utterly destroyed – AZ’67 won 5-1. Once again the Cup was theirs.

Although FC Utrecht enjoyed a good spell at that time, it still had quite insignificant and limited squad. Nothing to be done about it… a small club had no chance. Hans van Breukelen and Jan Wouters were going to be snatched by the big clubs. Playing at the final was the highest FC Utrecht could climb.

AZ’67 (Alkmaar) was still in great shape – far stronger than FC Utrecht, they won second consecutive cup, making it their third. In short time this team won 1 championship and 3 cups, an excellent achievement. However, the greatest period in AZ’67’s history was coming to an end. Money was the big reason: it was clearly impossible to keep Metgod, Spelbos, Kift, Peters, Hovenkamp, Arnz, Tol, Nygaard (Denmark) for long. Simply no way to compete with the big three of Holland and Italian, English, and Spanish clubs. Eddy Treytel was not to last either – too old already. But so far the boys were great, establishing the club among the best in the country. A lovely team, arguably the brightest Dutch team at that time.