Cyprus – ranked 27th. 2 points for a win and 1 for a draw. The championship was dominated by one team and at the bottom there was no drama either, for there were 2 hopeless outsiders and everybody else was absolutely safe. So, the only news was a novelty of a kind: In the fall of 1986 APOEL was drawn against Besiktas for the second round of the Champions Cup. This was the first occasion a Cypriot and Turkish club were going to face each other. But the political tensions which split Cyprus years ago were very much alive and the Cypriot government prohibited APOEL from playing against Besiktas. For refusing to play, UEFA penalized APOEL with one year disqualification from playing in any European tournament. That would have been a problem if APOEL won the championship, but they did not. Apart from that, there was the enlargement of the top leagues, which meant that practically no old members of the top division were now in the second tier, but various tiny clubs were. Although Cypriot football improved a lot in recent years and continued to grow stronger, the problem of quality remained – second division was clearly very weak and it was not going to provide competitive team to the top league any time soon.
Teams like Evagoras (Paphos) played in Second Division, even less known. Evagoras finished 6th.
Three teams battled for the two top positions giving promotion. Orfeas (Nicosia0 lost the race, finishing 3rd with 40 points.
Anagennisi (Deryneia) clinched second place with 41 points and was promoted.
APEP won the championship with 43 points from 19 wins, 5 ties, 4 losses, and 53-25 goal-difference. One can imagine the joy – they were going to play for the first time in First Division. Quite an achievement too, for the club was formed only in 1979 – true, from a merger of older clubs. However wonderful it was in the home town, APEP was most likely to be relegated right away, but that was not to spoil happiness. Winners are winners.
The ugly face of the future of the Second Division winners was presented in the final table of the top league: Ermis, newly promoted, was last and relegated. They managed to earn only 6 points, won just one match, scored 19 goal in 30 games, but received 108! Ahead of them were the other newcomers – Omonia (Aradippou). Slightly better… they won 2 games and earned `3 points, but went down as well. Safe at 14 place were Ethnikos with 22 points.
Such was the effect of the enlarged league: teams, which previously meandered between first and second division, never able to dream of more than temporary survival, now were quite relaxed and definitely safe among the best: APOP (Paphos) finished 9th with 27 points.
But that was the life of most clubs – just safe existence far away from a title.
EPA (Larnaca) curely had strong season and they ended with bronze medals, but that was the maximum – even 2nd place was out of their reach, they finished 4 points behind APOEL. But luck was on their side – since APOEL was banished from UEFA, EPA was going to represent Cyprus in the UEFA Cup. Wonderful for them.
APOEL was sure 2nd, but the title was out of their reach: with 47 points, they were no challenge to arch-enemy Omonia. APOEL, however, excelled defensively – they allowed only 11 goals in their net. That is 1 goal every third game played!
Omonia (Nicosia) easily won the championship with 52 points from 26 wins and 4 losses. Curiously, they did not tie even one match and it was pretty much their traditional approach: attacking football. It showed in their scoring record: 86-28. Constantly attacking and scoring as much as they could. The next best scorers scored 24 goals less! After the brief slip in the previous year, Omonia were back in their usual and long lasting dominant position. It was their 15th title and once again it was their traditional ‘Bulgarian connection’ keeping them superior – three Bulgarians drove them to success, just like almost all previous titles. The coach Yoncho Arssov (sitting 4th from left to right), the center-forward Spas Dzhevizov (4th from left, middle row), and imaginative playmaker Petar Zekhtinsky (2nd from left, middle row). The Bulgarians delivered once again.
The Cup final opposed lower clubs: AEL and Apollon. AEL prevailed 1-0.
AEL (Limassol) won its 5th Cup, which was great and also the most a team could hope for, since the championship title was seemingly reserved for Omonia (Nicosia). AEL was nothing to brag about in the championship – they finished 4th, but 7 points behind 3rd-placed EPA. So, winning the Cup was truly fantastic.