Month: July 2023

Sodra – the South group of Second Division – provided no drama. One team dominated the championship.
Falkenbergs FF – last with 16 points and relegated.
Ifo/Bromolla IF – 13th with 21 points and relegated on worse goal-difference.
Kalmar AIK – also with 21 points, but survived taking 12th place on better goal-difference.
Karlskrona AIF – 11th with 22 points.

Jonsereds IF – 10th with 22 points.
Markaryds IF – 9th with 22 points.
Landskrona BoIS – 8th with 22 points.
BK Hacken – 7th with 26 points.
Mjallby AIF – 6th with 27 points.
Kalmar FF – 5th with 27 points.
IK Oddevold – 4th with 31 points.
IF Elfsborg – 3rd with 32 points.
Trelleborgs FF – 2nd with 32 points.
Osters IF dominated the championship and finished without losing a single match: 17 wins and 9 ties. 69-20 goal-difference and 43 points – 11 more than the nearest pursuer. Thus, Osters returned to top flight.

Second Division. Divided into 2 groups of 14 teams each. The last 2 were relegated to the third level and the winners – promoted to First Division.
Norra. Interesting and dramatic championship – 3 teams battled for top position and two of them finished not only with the same points. But also with equal goal-difference. The winner was decided by secondary rules: either more wins or more goals scored.
Karlstad BK wa the weakest team in the whole Second Division: they were last in the Northern group with 6 points! Of course, relegated.
Atvidabergs FF – 13th with 17 points and relegated. Hard even to imagine they were champions once upon a time…
IFK Holmsund – managed to survive: 12th with 18 points.
Vasby IK – 11th with 23 points.
IF Brommapojkarna – 10th with 24 points.
IFK Eskilstuna – 9th with 24 points.

Gefle IF – 8th with 26 points.
Vasteras SK – 7th with 29 points.
Lulea FF/IFK – 6th with 30 points.
Motala AIF – 5th with 30 points.
BK Forward – 4th with 31 points.
Kiruna FF – strong season for the little known club, but they eventually lost the race for promotion: 3rd with 34 points.
Vasalunds IF – what a misfortune! They lost promotion only because of secondary rules. 15 wins, 6 ties, 5 losses, 43-18 goal-difference and 36 points. Points and goal-difference of +25 – exactly the same as the record of their rivals. So… it depended on either who won more games or score more goals – and Vasalunds IF lost. May be a final play-off would have been more just way to decide the champion.
Hammarby IF – lucky winners. 16 wins, 4 ties, 6 losses, 49-24 goal-difference. Same as Vasalunds’ final record: 36 points and +25. They won 1 more game and scored 6 more goals than Vasalunds and one of those tipped the scales in their favour. Great for Hammarby to climb back to First Division, but one can be really sorry for Vasalunds.

Sweden. Ranked 11th. A curious championship: Sweden maintained 2-phased formula for 8th season already – a championship play-offs followed the regular league season. This year the final was of 3 games instead of 2, as it was in the previous years, but the change was not all that interesting – rules for qualifying to the European tournaments were interesting. According to them, the champion of the country was not the team representing Sweden in the European Champions Cup, but the winner of the regular league championship. That in case the winners were different, of course. This year they were and the new Swedish champion went to play in the UEFA Cup and league winner in the European Champions Cup. This also affected the Cup Winners Cup representative of the country – the losing finalist benefited by the strange rule of representation in the European Champions Cup, for the league winner also won the Swedish Cup. Well, rules are weird sometimes.
The Third Division winners – it was a division of 4 groups – were promoted to Second Division as always. They were:
Gunnilse IS,
Sparvagens GoIF (Stockholm),
Tyreso FF, and
Helsingborgs IF.
Good luck to the newcomers to Second Division.

The Czechoslovak Cup, as ever, opposed the winners of the Czech and the Slovak Cups. Sparta won the Czech Cup, beating Slavia at the final, and Slovan won the Slovak Cup prevailing over ZVL Povazska Bystrica. Too bad the Second Division team did not win, but still this was the best ever season of ZVL. The Czechoslovak final was not much of a contest, for Sparta was clearly too strong and they won 3-0.
Slovan was unable to win the Czechoslovak Cup – they were too weak for that, but as a losing finalists they were going to play in the Cup Winners Cup, which was great for moral. After all, Slovan suffered greatly during the 1980s, they were relegated to Second Division, and just came back from it. Good names here, but they would become known largely during the 1990s as Slovak national team players, after Czechoslovakia split. Presently, they were still too young and inexperienced for real success.
Sparta won its 6th Cup and an important double, confirming that they were the strongest Czechoslovak team at the moment. Nothing surprising, really… Sparta had a squad studded with national team players, already well known abroad and desired by foreign clubs. No other club at home had even remotely similar squad, so winning became routine. There is little use to argue the wealth of this squad – it will suffice to say that one of the greatest goalscorers of the Czech Republic, Horst Siegel, was not even a regular starter.