Category: 1982

First Division had very exciting finish. Perhaps that is all to be said… Two, relatively speaking, outsiders at the bottom end of the table: Motor (Lublin) – 16th with 19 points and Arka (Gdynia) – 15th with 22 points. Both relegated. Arka had some good luck in the recent past, but no more.

Ruch (Chorzow) was unusually low – 14th with 25 points.

Baltyk (Gdynia) bested Ruch by a point, taking 13th place. Polish football never had truly big and dominant clubs, but Ruch was historically among the strongest and Baltyk – among the weakest, more often found in second division. But it was not only Ruch in the tight spot this season – LKS (Lodz) was 12th, Lech (Poznan) – 10th, Szombierki (Bytom), the champions of 1979-80, were 9th. Wisla (Krakow) was not in the race for the title either – they were 8th with 29 points.

Gornik (Zabrze) ended 5th and the squad tells why: Apart from Palasz and Matysik, not a single recognizable name. Export of players was the reason and that affected the whole Polish football.

Stal (Mielec) finished 3rd with 35 points. Not bad, yet, nothing great. Slask (Wroclaw), which emerged from anonymity after 1975 was going well and fought for the title. To the end – they finished with 39 points. Unfortunately, their rival also finished with 39 points. Goal-difference was the decisive factor in Poland and Slask lost. Unfortunate, but numbers are numbers and Slask was 3 goals short.

Dramatic winners – Widzew (Lodz). Third row: Romke, Jeżewski, Plich, Klepczyński, Młynarczyk, Boniek, Grębosz, Żmuda.

Middle row: Żmuda (coach), Surlit, Pięta, Woźniak, Tłokiński, Mierzwiński, Filipczak, Sajewicz, Lonka, Pęczek (masseur).

First row: Gapiński (assistant coach), Rozborski, Smolarek, Łuczyński, Możejko, Kamiński.

Second consecutive title – and their 2nd in history too. Widzew was not overwhelming champion neither season, but its group of stars (Boniek, Zmuda, Smolarek, Mlynarczyk) and talented coach were enough to finish victoriously. Of course, that was a squad becoming instant club legend, but one has to consider few other factors as well: the relative weakness of traditionally stronger clubs, notably Gornik, Lagia, Ruch, and Wisla. All due, at least to some degree, to the exodus of stars, by now including lesser know, but otherwise solid players. Widzew was lucky to have stars of younger generation and that was its advantage (advantage, which changed after Boniek was sold to Juventus, thus braking down the established long time ago age rule). The sudden impoverishment of the leading clubs was astutely noticed in 1980, when pedestrian Szombierki (Bytom) surprisingly won the title – Widzew followed the ‘weakest ever’ Polish champion and was much stronger than it: after all, Zbigniew Boniek, rapidly establishing himself as a world-class star, played for Widzew. Political unrest most likely affected the strength of some clubs, but Widzew not immune – Mlynarczyk, Boniek, and Smolarek were in the middle of big scandal in 1981 – and suffered penalties. But still Widzew won and not once, but twice in a row – this was fantastic, even if the team was dominant and victory was, to a point, lucky. Yet, the future did not bright… after the end of the season Boniek was sold to Juventus; Zmuda, Smolarek, and Mlynarczyk were next to leave. Worries for the future were probably present already, but for the moment and especially for the fans it was just great.

 

Football was probably not in the Polish agenda, since the country was preoccupied with political and economic crisis, but the championships went on. Nothing much to talk about… except that teams perhaps were not great, but fairly equal. If anything, the championships were decided in the last moment and by the tiniest margins. Second Division naturally was out of foreign interest altogether. The teams there were a mix: some former first division members, smaller second and third clubs of some cities, and insignificant clubs from smaller cities.

Piast (Gliwice) was 7th in Group 1 of Second Division. Perhaps today the name rings a bell, but not in the 1980s.

Stilon (Gorzow) ended 3rd – they are still unknown outside Poland.

BKS Bielsko, another unheard of club, finished 2nd with 40 points. They came very close to surprise promotion, but better known team bested them by a point.

GKS Katowice won Group 1 with 41 points. They were promoted, which was great – the club was still trying to reach and somehow establish itself in the top league.

In Group 2 the battle was equally fierce, if not great.

Błękitni Kielce finished 4th – another never heard of club, which is now quite well known. Under different name, though.

Polonia Bytom took the 2nd place with 38 points.

Cracovia Krakow won Group 2 with 40 points. One of the old Polish clubs, which faded away with time – by now, Cracovia was the second and smaller club of Krakow, quite insignificant compared to Wisla. But they managed to win promotion and may be some kind of revival was in the cards. Whether revival was happening… only the future could tell.

Sweden introduced a new formula of the championship – after the regular season the top 8 teams of First Division proceeded to the next phase: cup-like direct elimination culminating with a final. The bottom 4 teams went to promotion-relegation play-offs against the top 2 teams of each Second Division group.

Djurgardens IF won Division 2 Norra with 30 points, followed by

Gefle IF, also with 30 points, but worse goal-difference.

Division 2 Sodra was won by

Mjallby AIF with 31 points and

BK Hacken finished 2nd with 30 points.

Those four teams were to meet the last 4 in the First Division. At the end of the regular part of the season they were: Atvidabergs FF, 12th with 10 points, AIK, 11th with 18 points, IFK Norrkoping – 10th with 19 points and Kalmar FF – 9th with 19 points.

Kalmar FF – 9th with 19 points.

Gefle played with Kalmar FF and won; Hacken won against Norrkoping, and Mjallby – against Atvidabergs. Three of the second division teams were promoted. Only AIK kept its place in the top league after beating Norrkoping – thus, the champion of Division 2 Norra was not promoted.

The first phase of the championship mattered only for qualifying to the direct elimination phase, which practically meant that the 8th placed team had a good chance to emerge as champions, no matter how poorly they performed in the regular season.

Halmstads BK was 8th with 21 points.

Örgryte IS was 7th also with 21 points.

IK Brage – 6th with 24 points.

Östers IF – 5th with 24 points.

Malmo FF ended 4th with 25 points.

IF Elfsborg was 3rd with 26 points, Hammarby IF – 2nd with 28 points, and IFK Goteborg – 1st with 29 points.

The direct elimination stage acknowledged the regular season – the 1st played against the 8th, 7th against 2nd, and so on – thus, chances of the weakest teams winning the title were reduced, but still had good chances. Theoretically. In fact, the stronger clubs won easily and not just at the quarterfinals – in the ½ finals IFK Gotebord completely destroyed Malmo FF – 3-0 and 5-1. Hammarby, thoug, got the sacre – IF Elsfborg won the home leg 3-1 and Hammarby managed to reach the final only after winning 3-0 their home leg.

So, nothing unusual happened – the top two teams of the regular stage reached the final. The first leg was in Goteborg and the first surprise happened: Hammarby won 2-1. Looked like they had the title in the bag… but in Stockholm happened the second surprise – IFK Goteborg prevailed 3-1 and snatched the title.

Hammarby IF, pictured here together with their women team and wearing something like Christmas hats, did very well this year. They lost the title, unfortunately, but 2nd place was good enough at the end.

The Cup final opposed IFK Goteborg to Östers IF. Naturally, both teams had their own ambitions. May be because of that, may be because Goteborg was popular team, but the final in Stockholm was well attended – after reaching the all-time lowest attendance in 1981, when only 2200 fans showed up, this year the number jumped to 13 859! Not an impressive number for almost any other country, but this is Sweden – people were not all that crazy about football, and such a number was high. The finalists delivered dramatic match and IFK Goteborg extracted a 3-2 win. The Cup was theirs.

Östers IF came close, but left the final emptyhanded. Still, well done. Standing from left: Tommy Svensson, Mats Rhodin, Peter Truedsson, Andreas Ravelli, Peter Svensson, Thomas Nyman.

Middle row: Leif Widén, Per-Olof Bild, Jan Matsson, Karl-Gunnar Björklund, Mats Nordgren, Vilmos Varszegi, Stig Svensson

Sitting: Gudmundur Steinson, Johnny Gustavsson, Thomas Ravelli, Stefan Gustafsson, Greger Hallén, Tommy Evesson.

Young Thomas Ravelli was making his name, although his best years were to come between the goalposts of another club – no other, but IFK Goteborg.

IFK Goteborg ended the season with a double. Wait… a treble! They won the UEFA Cup before conquering domestic football.

Third row from left:   Dan Corneliusson, Thomas Hansson, Stig Fredriksson, Torbjörn Nilsson,  Conny Karlsson, Glenn Strömberg, Glenn Hysén, Thomas Karlsson, Ruben Svensson

Middle row: assistant coach Gunder Bengtsson, coach Sven-Göran Eriksson, Tommy Holmgren, Martin Holmberg, Jan-Erik Nilsson, Jerry Carlsson, Tord Holmgren, Glenn Holm.

Sitting: Glenn Schiller, Thomas Wernersson, Ove Tobiasson, Håkan Sandberg.

This became the best ever squad of the club – at least to date, but very likely the best ever even now. The first Swedish team winning European tournament, adding a domestic double – the boys won everything this year. It was their 8th title and 2nd Cup. It was their first domestic double. The whole team was becoming instantly famous – and with that: the trouble. No Swedish club was capable of keeping star players and coaches. It was just a great opportunity for the new stars to get good foreign contracts – and if some names are very familiar even today, they are associated with other clubs… Sven-Goran Eriksson, Dan Corneliusson, Glenn Hysen, Torbjorn Nilsson, Glen Stromberg – all of them made their names this year with IFK Goteborg. So far, the strongest ever Swedish team – after all, the strong Malmo FF of the 1970s lost international finals.

 

The Cup final opposed lowly AE Larissa (10th in the championship) to Panathinaikos. It was a matter of ambition and pride – of course, Larissa, never winning anything so far, wanted to get a trophy at last. Of course, Panathinaikos had to win something to salvage the season. So, contrary to expectation, it was tough final – eventually Panathinaikos won, but only 1-0. No matter – winners are winners.

The new Cup winners were curiously similar to their arch-enemies Olympiakos: domestic players were the real stars of the team. The foreigners were almost unknown – the Romanian import Nicolae Doru (his name somewhat made sounding Greek – shortened to Nicolae) in his second season with PAO, the Norwegian national team striker Arne Dokken, and two anonymous Argentines – Roberto N. Agueropolis and Juan Ramon Rocha. May be not very impressive squad, but they won the Cup for 7th time.

The Greek First Division went through very familiar season – 2 hopeless outsiders, so nobody else worried about relegation, and two favourites at the top, going shoulder to shoulder to the end. The traditional strong clubs stayed strong, the not so- strong continued to be not so-strong. Nothing new.

AE Korinthos was 18th with 16 points. AE Kavala -17th with 18 points. Those were the relegated.

Panserraikos (Serrai, or Serres) fininshed 16th , but with 25 points. Lowly, as ever, but not for a minute in danger of relegation.

PAS Giannina was slipping down – 14th this season. Their good years were already over for some time.

The top of the table was occupied by the usual suspect, finishing quite to the point of traditional ranking:

Panionios (Athens) was 7th with 36 points.

Iraklis (Thesaloniki) was 6th with 40 points. They had two new recruits this season – the former Bulgarian national team defenders Angel Rangelov and Boko Dimitrov. The duo never played together before, but apparently clicked well together in the center of Iraklis defense.

Aris (Thesaloniki) finished 5th with 41 points.

AEK (Athens) ended 4th with 45 points. They also had a new Bulgarian recruit – one of the best ever players of the country and the best internationally known Bulgarian of the 1970s: Christo Bonev. He helped, but unfortunately was too old already – he was 34. There is confusion about his latest playeing years – don’t read Wikipedia, because the article on him states he played for AEK between 1979 and 1982. And then went to play ‘briefly’ for English Oxford United. Real statistics show different picture: he played for AEK only this only season and returned back to his beloved club, Lokomotiv (Plovdiv), to captain it to its first trophy in 1982-83.

PAOK (Thesaloniki) was 3rd with 46 points.

And above those familiar names – above and out of reach – the eternal battle between Olympiakos and Panathinaikos went through another chapter. The bitter rivals ended equal, both with 50 points. If goal-difference was a factor, Panathinaikos should have been the winner – they had +30 to Olympiakos’ +25. But it was the decisive factor and championship play-off was played in the city of Volos (the city with 3 second division teams and none in the first division). Olympiakos clinched 2-1 victory and collected one more title.

One may say Panathinaikos was unlucky, but in such a rivalry luck is hardly the big factor – the measure is always simplistic: win or lose. Panathinaikos lost.

Olympiakos won. It was their 3rd consecutive title – another reason to rub the noses of the arch-rivals, although this victory did not come easily at all. Of course, nobody worried after the fact:

Olympiakos (Piraeus) won their 23rd title. Looking at the squad, it is interesting to note that the champions depended largely on Greek players. Foreigners were present, or course, but they were not big names – Thomas Ahlstrom (Sweden) was the best known name, but Yugoslavian second-rater Martin Novoselac (4 matches for Yugoslavian national team in the mid-70s) was essential regular plus the Cypriot striker Stavros Papadopoulos. The Uruguayan striker Vicente Estavilio played minor role.

Greece, Second Division. Two groups of 20 teams each, the winners promoted, the bottom 4 – relegated. Naturally, not many well known names here. Instead, clubs like

Kozani FS, 14th in the Northern Group, and

AS Chalkida (in white, posing with AEK Athens here) – 5th in the Southern Group.

Perhaps the interesting part of Greek second division was the many local smallish derbies – Athens had 7 teams in the Southern Group. Piraeus – two teams. In the North Volos had 3 teams, Thessaloniki – also 3. But all boiled down to the winners.

With 52 points Makedonikos Nea Efkarpia (Thessaloniki) finished 1st in the Northern Group.

In the Southern Group Panachaiki G.E. (Patras) prevailed with 50 points. Neither winner had it easy, but they were promoted at the end. And good luck to them the next season.

The Romanian Cup final opposed unlikely teams – the champions vs 2nd placed Second Division team.

FC Baia Mare was not even potential second division winner – they were distant 2nd in Seria I – but performed wonderfully in the Cup. Facing the strongest team in the country looked hopeless, but Baia Mare put excellent fight and lost only 2-3. Unfortunate, but as a consolation got a spot in the Cup Winners Cup.

A double for Dinamo (Bucharest). Excellent season, full of players responsible for the revival of Romanian football. So far – only on the domestic front, but seasons like that are cherished by any kind of club. The team showed lots of character – neither win came easy, but the boys prevailed in both championship and Cup.

First Division. Well, three teams were going down. One club was hopeless outsider – Progresul (Bucharest). They were last with 20 points.

The other two relegated teams were not so obvious – the season was practically a race for survival, involving 11 of the 18 league members. The unlucky ones were UT Arad – 17th with 29 points, and Universitatea (Cluj) – 16th with 30 points. They were relegated unfortunately – on worse goal-difference.

ASA Targu Mures was the lucky team this year – they escaped relegation on better goal-difference, ending 15th.

Politehnica (Timisoara) was a bit better – 11th with 32 points.

Arges (Pitesti) was no among the favourites this season, but among those trying to survive – they did, ending 10th, ahead of Politehnica (Timisoara) only on better goal-difference.

SC Bacau topped the huge group of outsiders -7th with 33 points. Only 6 clubs were strong, but they were divided into two groups as well – 4 teams had nothing to do with winning the title.

Steaua (Bucharest) was 6th – a very weak season for them and this was strange, for Steaua had strong team – as far as names go – as usual. Most likely Steaua was caught in the familiar painful moment when generational change was in order, but they failed to act decisively. Still 37 points was pitiful record.

With 38 points Sportul Studentesc (Bucharest) took the 5th place. Not a great scorers – their goal-difference was curious: 36-36 – but they were very difficult to beat (only the champions lost fewer matches then them) and at the end finished pretty much where they usually were at that time: near the top, but not title contenders.

Olt (Scornicesti) was 4th with 39 points, enjoying the best period of their history. How long this would last was anybody guess, but so far – so good.

The bid surprise this season – Corvinul (Hunedoara). Bronze medals for a club more familiar with second division football. They edged Olt on goal-difference, having arguably their best ever season. Title contenders they were not.

Only two teams competed for the title, unconcerned for anything and anybody – familiar names: Universitatea (Craiova) and Dinamo (Bucharest).

Universitatea continued to maintain their leading position in Romanian football, but lost the title by points, finishing 2nd with 45 points and best league scoring record – 67 goals. Nothing to worry, though – the squad was strong and full of current national team players.

With 47 points Dinamo (Bucharest) won the 1981-82 Romanian championship.

Up: Ion Marginean, Cornel Dinu, Ion Marin, Gh.Dumitrescu, Iosif Lovas, Dumitru Moraru, C-tin Eftimescu, Adrian Bumbescu, Laurentiu Moldovan, Teofil Stredie, Nelu Stanescu;

Middle: Paul Moga (official), Alexandru Chiritescu (physical preparator), Mircea Cristea (doctor), Valentin Stanescu (coach), Dumitru Nicolae-Nicusor (coach), Andrei Marin (coach);

Bellow: Cornel Talnar, Florea Vaetus, Dorel Zamfir, Gheorghe Multescu, Dudu Georgescu, Marin Dragnea, Pompiliu Iordache, Costel Orac, Nicusor Vlad;

Note: Ionel Augustin and Alexandru Custov are missing from photo.

Not an overwhelming victory, but no matter – Dinamo had strong squad and although the great scorer Dudu Georgescu was aging, it was younger team than the one the arch-rivals Steaua had. The players were not well known abroad, but some will be and soon.

Romania, II Division. Perhaps too large – 3 groups of 18 teams each. Winners promoted. A huge divide between former First Division members and the rest, which were largely clubs belonging to industrial enterprises, workers teams, playing not even second fiddle in their home towns. Only few former first division clubs, though. They ruled and if there was more than one in a group, then something like competitive race for the top place happened.

Seria I.

CSM Suceava finished 4th with 41 points.

Unirea Dinamo Focsani – 3rd with 42 points. Such clubs played in the second division and those two were among the better ones.

Gloria Bistrita clinched 2nd place on better goal-difference, but finished well behind the winners.

Politehnica (Iasi) easily won the group with 48 points. No surprise – two or three other former first division members were not in good shape, so Poilitehnica had no rivals. Up they went for another try to survive among the best.

Seria II. The only group with tight race for the top place. Rapid (Bucharest), down on their luck, lost – they ended 2nd with 50 points. Third placed Unirea Alexandria was 11 points behind, to give yoy another example of second division predicament. Rapid lost to another former top league member – Petrolul (Ploesti).

At the moment better than Rapid, they won first place and promotion with 52 points.

Seria III. Another group with single favourite, leaving the other stronger club FC Baia Mare 7 points behind.

Bihor (Oradea) won the group with 48 points, scoring the most goals in the whole Second Division – 92. Wonderful victory for them.

 

The Cup was also a duel between the two best clubs – and with championships out of reach what was left for mere mortals, but to try winning the Cup. Dynamo (Dresden) vs Dynamo (Berlin). One match provides a chance… The final became really a chance: the match ended 1-1 and penalty shoot-out followed. Dynamo (Dresden) was luckier and won 5-4.

So far Dynamo (Berlin) was unable to collect a double. Perhaps that was the only consolation for the whole country. It was also a bit strange – objectively, Dynamo was far superior to any other squad. Not only almost the whole DDR national team, but unlike other teams they were at their prime and not suffering generational change. Yet, the Cup was out of their reach.

Dynamo (Dresden) have been lucky, but they won and it was wonderful success. They were slightly weaker than Berlin, but their rebuilding was practically finished and there was nice new competitive team. They were the only team in the country able to fight Berlin on the pitch – which practically left them fighting for the Cup.