Category: 1987

Scotland – ranked 7th. At the top – a huge return of Glasgow Rangers, which will become something entirely new and unprecedented in the history of Scottish football. At the bottom – the already establsihed dark reality: whoever climbed up almost immediately went back to second level. 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie.
Second Division – Scottish Division 1.
Dunfermline Athletic finished 2nd with 56 points. Quite successful run up for them: in the previous season they won promotion from 3rd level and now – returning to top flight for the first time since the reorganization before 1982-83 season.
Greenock Morton won the second level championship with 57 points: 24 wins, 9 ties, 11 losses, 88-56. One more attempt to find place among the best… winning and promoted from second level in 1983-84, they were relegated back to it the next season.
First Division – Scottish Premier. The last 2 relegated, as usual. And it was just usual the newly promoted to find top flight hostile environment…
Hamilton Academicals finished last with 21 points. They won Second Division in the previous season, but were going back to it immediately.

Clydebank – 11th with 24 points and relegated. Promoted in 1984-85, last in 1985-86 and staying in the league only because the enlargement of it to 12 teams… now: out.
Falkirk – 10th with 26 points. Just promoted and nothing much – one of the three outsiders this season, but the lucky one.
Hibernian – 9th with 33 points. Belonging to a group of 3 teams much stronger than the outsiders, but also significantly weaker than the best 6 teams.
Motherwell – 8th with 34 points.
St. Mirren – 7th with 36 points. Weak, but this season was also one of their best achievements.
Dundee – 6th with 48 points. Perfect mid-table team… nothing to do with the strongest, but nothing to do with the weak either.

Aberdeen – 4th with 58 points. Strong, but… the good years were over. And Alex Ferguson was not with them anymore.
Dundee United – 3rd with 60 points. Running strong, but like Aberdeen, a title was somewhat unthinkable.
Celtic – 2nd with 63 points. Retrospectively, one can say Celtic missed the boat this season: Rangers changed the whole approach and Celtic was going to play second fiddle for quite a long time. And second fiddle is not what they want.
Glasgow Rangers came back with a vengeance: 31 wins, 7 ties, 6 losses, 85-23 and 69 points – 6 points ahead of Celtic. Almost 10 terrible years ended and Rangers was champion again! But there was more to it: traditionally, Scottish clubs were exporters, not importers – their best talent went to England. Coming back was the occasional veteran, going home to play his last days. Prime English talent going to play in Scotland? Unthinkable. But that was exactly what Rangers did, wisely deciding that the time demanded new approach – it was no longer enough to depend on home-grown Scots. If a club wanted to be really strong in the 1980s, it had to spend a lot and bring top stars. Rangers decided to spend a fortune and really gamble with its money: spend a lot and may be there will be returns making the books. So, Graeme Souness, Terry Butcher, and Chris Woods arrived. Souness – well, tradition, one may still say – a great Scot, coming back to help in his last playing days. But English stars Butcher and Woods were entrirely new thing: not some tired old men, but stars at their prime, Butcher fresh from the 1986 World Cup finals… No wander Rangers won the cchampionship with confidence.

The Cup. A Croatian final – Hajduk vs Rijeka. No controversy and high drama. 1-1 after overtime. Aljosa Asanovic, not yet the famous star, gave the lead to Hajduk in the 43rd minute. From a penalty. Rijeka equalized in the 85th minute. Radmanovic scored for them. Penalties ruled the game at the end – the outcome had to be decided by penalty shoot-out, which was tough and went for quite a time until Hajduk extracted victory 9-8. All together 23 penalties – 1 in regular time and 22 in the shoot-out. Quite amazing.
Hajduk triumphed at the end and got the Cup.
Rijeka was particularly unfortunate to lose the final entirely on penalties, but that was their tough bad luck. Since they rarely won trophies, too bad they missed this one. The team was good… but nothing.
Dramatic and chancy victory for Hajduk, perhaps making the trophy even more enjoyable. Lucky, but fair win – so unlike the events in the championship.
Perhaps not very strong vintage, but Hajduk was never short on good players. Yet, this squad was not the one playing at the final – Gudelj, Vulic, Miljus, and Gracan were not among the winners. By the end of the 1986-87 Hajduk had new leaders – Asanovic, Robert Jarni. Gracan too. Josip Skoblar was coaching them, which was interesting too – the success of Rijeka in the previous years was closely related to his coaching the team. Now he was beating his former club, however minimally.

First Division. Because of the complications of the season, ending with 2 final tables, here only one will be given: the one at the actual end of the season, according to the Federation and its point-deductions. In brackets the later places will be given, according to the court decision in favour of the clubs and restoration of deducted points.
Spartak (Subotica) – very weak newcomers: last and relegated with 19 points. The court decision gave them 1 point more, but so what?

FK Sarajevo – 17th with 27 points. 6 points deducted. According to this table, they were relegated. After the court abolished the 6-point penalty, they climbed to safety – 13th in the table, according to the court decision.
Celik (Zenica) – 16th with 27 points, thanks to better goal-differnce than FK Sarajevo. After 6 points were restored to their record, they climbed to 12th position.
Dinamo (Vinkovci) – 15th with 28 points. Poor guys… they had 2 points added after the court decision and… sunk down to 17th place and relegated on worse goal-difference. Was it fair? Standing from left: Tanjga, Budincevic, Jerkan, Borovnica, Rucevic, Bogdan. Crouching: Zahirovic, Biogradlija, Cop, Bogdanovic, S. Lusic.
Radnicki (Nis) – 14th with 28 points. Also a team not penalized, but they were safe at the end: ended 14th with 30 points after the court ruling. And awarded with Kent cigarettes for that… From left to right:Vojinović, Gavrilović,Nikolić, Kitanoski, Mitrović, Ivanović, Vasilijević, Aleksić, Punišić, Gajić, Milošević.
Sloboda (Tuzla) – 13th with 28 points. After the court ruling: 15th with 30 points.
Sutjeska (Niksic) – 12th with 28 points. After the court decision: 10th with 34 points.
Zeljeznicar (Sarajevo) – 11th with 28 points. After the court decision: 9th with 34 points.

Pristina – 10th with 29 points. After the court decision: 14th with 30 points.
Buducnost (Titograd) – 9th with 31 points. After the court decision: 7th with 37 points.
Dinamo (Zagreb) – 8th with 31 points. After the court decision: 6th with 37 points.
NK Rijeka – 7th with 32 points. After the court decision: 4th with 38 points.
NK Osijek – 6th with 32 points. After the court decision: 11th with 34 points.
Crvena zvezda – 5th with 35 points. After the court decision – 3rd with 41 points.
Hajduk (Split) – 4th with 36 points. After the court decision: 8th with 36 points. Evidently, stupid to play by the Federation rules…
Velez (Mostar) – 3rd with 36 points. After the court decision – 2nd with 42 points. Going to play in the UEFA Cup, though – in their case, no matter by which final table. Top row from left: Sedin Tanovic, Josko Popovic, Zdenko Jedvaj, Vladimir Gudelj, Dzevad Rastoder, Zijad Repak, Vela Pudar.
Middle row: Avdo Kalajdzic, Mili-Toza Hadziabdic, Drazenko Prskalo, Vukasin Petranovic, Ivica Barbaric, Adnan Medjedovic.
Sitting: pok. Senad Glavovic, Anel Karabeg, Veselin Djurasovic, Vladimir Skocajic, Predrag Juric, Goran Juric, Sead Kajtaz, Semir Tuce.
Velez recovered from their relatively weak years, although this squad was never considered equal to the great team of the 1970s.
Partizan (Belgrade) – 2nd with 37 points. They were the prime movers and shakers of the court case and after the rulling they were proclaimed champions with full record of 43 points. How good or bad this team was is immaterial – the court made them champions. Their position according to the Federation gave them only UEFA Cup spot.
Vardar (Skopje) – 1st with 38 points. 15 wins, 8 ties, 11 losses, 40-39 goal-difference. Weak record, true, but according to the Federation they were champions. The photo was taken after the end of the fall half of the season, when they were first in the table. So far… fine. But the court ruling moved them down to 5th position, for they had no deducted points. Proclaimed champions, then the title was taken away and given to Partizan. Which was the strongest team, if there were no penalties…
Terrible… here it is, just after the end of the season – champions! And then they were not… but going to play in the European Champions Cup. For many – even today – they were the rightful champions. For many – even today – the real final table is the one the season ended with. It was good squad, having a big world-class star – Darko Pancev. It was one of the best ever selections the club had and this was its biggest success. But for a short time… Frankly, too bad they were stripped from the title.
And at the end… the country ended with 2 champions – Vardar and Partizan, neither truly convincing.

East Group. Just a notch more dramatic than the West Group – 2 teams competed for first place and promotion.
Bokelj – last with 25 points and relegated.

Trepca – 17th and relegated with 30 points.

Belasica (Strumica) – 16th with 31 points and relegated. Standing from left: N. Sekulov, B. Istatov, K. Sekulov, B. Mitev, V. Stojkov, T. Pecev, I. Andreev, D. Gorgiev. Crouching: P. Andreev, T. Mastev, T. Stojanov, K. Kostadinov, T. Aljokov, R. Ancev.
Napredak (Krusevac) – 15th with 32 points and lucky this season: because there was no team relegated from First Division to this group, they were not relegated.
Crvena zvezda (Gnjilane) – 14th with 33 points.
Pobeda (Prilep) – 13th with 33 points.
Radnicki (Kragujevac) – 12th with 33 points.
FK Ivangrad (in white, pictured here before a game with Crvena zvezda Belgrade) – 11th with 33 points.
Vlaznimi (Dakovica) – 10th with 33 points.
Borac (Cacak) – 9th with 33 points.
Teteks (Tetovo) – 8th with 33 points.
Sloboda (Titovo Uzice) – 7th with 33 points.
Radnicki (Pirot) – 6th with 33 points.
Majdanpek – 5th with 33 points.
Pelister (Bitola) – 4th with 34 points.
Novi Pazar – 3rd with 35 points.
OFK Beograd (Belgrade) – 2nd with 46 points. Tried hard to return to top flight, but failed.
Rad (Belgrade) – prevailed in the Belgrade battle for the first place and won teh championship with 49 points. 20 wins, 9 ties, 5 losses, 54-15 goal-difference. Great success of one of the youngest clubs in the capital, which so far never played top league football. It was just wonderful to be a champion and get promoted.

Second Division. The usual 2 groups of 18 teams each and no high drama at the top. One group was dominated by one team, and the other – by two.
West Group. Since the relegated team from First Division happened to be from this half of Yugoslavia, 5 teams were relegated from the group.
Sloga (Doboj) was last and out with 20 points.
RNK Split – 17th with 22 points and relegated.
Maribor – 16th with 28 points and relegated.
Dinamo (Pancevo) – 15th with 30 points and relegated.
Vrbas – 14th with 31 points. Unlucky, for under normal circumstances they sgould have been safe. But since the two relegated from First Division teams happened to belong to the West, Vrbas was relegated.

Famos (Hrasnica) – 13th with 33 points.
Rudar (Lublja) – 12th with 34 points.
Sibenik – 11th with 34 points.
Iskra (Bugojno) – 10th with 35 points.
Jedinstvo (Brcko) – 9th with 35 points.
Mladost (Petrinja) – 8th with 35 points.
Proleter (Zrenjanin) – 7th with 36 points.
Borac (Banja Luka) – 6th with 36 points.
GOSK Jug – 5th with 37 points.
Leotar (Trebinje) – 4rth with 37 points.
Kikinda – 3rd with 38 points.

RFK Novi Sad – 2nd with 42 points. Strong season, but unable to rival their city neighbours Vojvodina.
Vojvodina (Novi Sad) – dominant this season. 20 wins, 9 ties, 5 losses, 60-26 goal-difference, 49 points. Nobody managed to come close tp them and Vojvodina was easily promoted. Standing from left: Zovko, Alempić,Dimitrić, ?, Ćurčić, Milovac.
Crouching: Cimbal, Šestić, Popović, Mijić, Beganović.

Yugoslavia – ranked 8th. Weird championship, sygnaling the coming of new era in which playing was secondary. Who won this championship? It depends… there was one final table, followed by another. This championship ended in court and decision of a judge changed final positions already recognized by UEFA.Thus, today there are 2 final tables and depending to local fanaticism – two champions. All started with infringement of rules of fair play, leading to penalties given by the Yugoslavian Federation: Partizan (Belgrade), Crvena zvezda (Belgrade), Velez (Mostar), Rijeka (Rijeka), Dinamo (Zagreb), Buducnost (Titograd), Zeljeznicar (Sarajevo), Sutjeska (Niksic), Celik (Zenica), and FK Sarajevo (Sarajevo) had 6 points deducted. Severe punishment of more than half of the league suggests wide-spread violation of rules, most likely bribery and match-fixing, but the guilty decided to fight the Federation in court – at least some of them. And they won in court, the deducted points were restored. But that was quite after the end of teh season, which had official final table and according to which the Yugoslav participnats in the European club tournaments were already submitted to UEFA and recignized by UEFA. The new final table after the court decision was different – the first champion was stripped from the title and there was problem with one of the relegated teams. At the end, it looked like the mighty got their way and the smaller clubs, having nothing to do with the wide-spread violations of rules were… punished. There is bitter tast, still hurting. Justice was violated so much, there is no way to take sides – the guilty became innocent, the innocent were punished, a whole new avenue was opened: if you cannot win on the field, you can go to court and prevail. Why play the game at all? It looked like a victory of corruption. Luckily, Second Division did not suffer from the same, for if it was the whole Yugoslavian football pyramid may have collapsed.
Let start with teams from lower leagues – just a taste. Teams, which used to play top level football, or had solid place in Yugoslav minds, or came out of obscurity after the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
11 oktomvri (Prilep)
Obilic (Belgrade).
Kolubara
Balkan (Skopje)
Metallurg (Skopje)
BSK Slavonski Brod
Segesta (Sisak)
Koper (Beltinci)

Lirija (Prizren).

The Cup final was Lisbon derby – Benfica vs Sporting. Of course, Sporting wanted to beat the arch-enemy, but Benfica prevailed 2-1.
Too bad Sporting ended the season without a trophy, but it was quite fair to see them lose: at least the objective strength was preserved: Sporting was not as good as Benfica and FC Porto.
Benfica won the Cup for a third year in a row. The whole total was 21 Cups and 27 titles – fantastic record of success and also it was a double, so it was nice – from Benfica’s point of view – to best so categorically the team which conquered Europe.

First Division. No matter how good generation Portugal had – or did not have – the championship was always a matter of 2-3 teams competing at the top, leaving all others far behind. Nothing new this season…
O Elvas – hopeless outsiders and last with 14 points. But lucky – the decision to increase the league saved them well deserved relegation.
Farense – 15th with 21 points. Also saved from relegation because of the enlargement of the league.
Salgueiros – 14th with 24 points. In the relegation zone as well and also saved from going down.
Rio Ave – 13th with 25 points, but in danger of relegation. Under normal circumstances, they should have been in danger – going to the promotion/relegation tournament with the 3 second-place teams in the Second Division zones. But those weaker than Rio Ave and normally directly relegated were saved and Rio Ave was not. Weird and unfair – luckily, Rio Ave managed to win the promotion/relegation tournament and stay in the league.
Maritimo (Funchal) – 12th with 25 points. Rules were entirely against poor Rio Ave this season: Maritimo took the safe 12th position not even on better goal-difference – their record was worse than Rio Ave’s. But rules stipulated head-to-head record to be considered first in case of teams with same points. And Maritimo escaped trouble.

Portimonense – 11th with 26 points.
Academica (Coimbra) – 10th with 26 points.
Sporting (Braga) – 9th with 26 points.
Boavista – 8th with 27 points.
Varzim – 7th with 29 points. Strong season for them, even unusually strong season.

Belenenses – 6th with 30 points. A good chance for revival, if possible – because of the strong Portuguese international record Belenenses got a UEFA Cup spot.
Chaves – 5th with 33 points. Going to play in the UEFA Cup as well.
Sporting (Lisbon) – 4th with 38 points. Stronger than most of the league, but no match to the leading teams. Standing from left: Venâncio, Oceano, Duílio, Gabriel, Meade, Damas.
First row: Fernando Mendes, Zinho, Manuel Fernandes (cap), Negrete, Mário.
Vitoria (Guimaraes) – 3rd with 41 points. Battling with Sporting only, but bronze medals were great. Also UEFA Cup participant.
FC Porto – excellent season, as the title of the poster shows. May be the European campaign took its toll on the boys and they failed to win the championship. 2nd with 46 points. They had the best goal-difference: +45 and also scored most goals and shared the best defensive record: 67-22.
Benfica won yet another title. They had strong opponent, but luck had little to do with their victory: 20 wins, 9 ties, only 1 lost match (FC Porto lost 3), 51-23 goal-difference, 49 points.

Portugal – ranked 9th. One of the greatest seasons on international club level, but domestically perhaps the messy increase of the top league was the most intriguing event. The championship was dominated by two teams and behind them another two were stronger than the rest of the league. In view of that, making the top division larger hardly made any sense. However, it was going to be 20-team strong in the next season and seemingly the decision for that was taken quite late – normally, the last three teams were relegated directly to second level and the 13th went to promotion/relegation tournament with the 3 second-placed teams from the Second Division groups and the winner in it was going to play top-league football. The 13th went to this tournament, but those at the last three positions stayed in the league – in order of increasing the First Division to 20 teams, there was no relegation. Thus, weirdly, the team above direct relegation zone was the only one in danger of going down this season.
Second Division. The usual 3 groups, winners promoted, second-place teams going to promotion/relegation tournament.
Zona Norte. The usual mix of former top-league members and little known teams.
Freamunde – one of the clubs never going higher then second level. 8th with 30 points.
Gil Vicente – 3rd with 34 points. Unable to return to top league football.
Penafiel – 2nd with 37 points and going to promotion/relegation tournament.
SC Espinho – won the group with 40 points and directly promoted. 16 wins, 8 ties, 6 losses, 52-20 goal-difference.
Zona Centro.
Est. Portalegre – 13th with 27 points.
AC Marinhense – 7th with 31 points.
Feirense – 2nd and going to promotion/relegation tournament with 37 points.
Sporting Covilha – had no rivals and won the group with 45 points. 18 wins, 9 ties, 3 lost games, 40-17 goal-difference. This was great season for Covliha – not only promoted up, but champions of Second Division too – they won the tournament of the group champions after the season.
Zona Sul. The leaders were hardly challenged in any group, but here the top team was most dominant.
Uniao Madeira – 8th with 30 points.
Olhanense – 5th with 34 points.
Estrella Amadora – 2nd with 39 points and going to the promotion/relegation tournament.
Vitoria Setubal – very strong and winning the group with 48 points. 21 wins, 6 ties, 3 losses, 57-16 goal-difference. Return to First Division was the aim and was achieved. Vitoria – by name and regular season performance – should have been the champion of Second Division and they tried, but in the mini-tournament of zonal champions they lost to Sporting Covilha – on worse head-to-head results.
The tournament of champions: Espinho took the last place with 2 points: 1 win, 3 losses, 6-8. Vitoria Setubal had the best numbers, but if goal-difference counted: 2 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss, 10-8, 5 points.
Same points for Sporting Covilha – 2 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss, 5-5 goal-difference, but better head-to-head record against Vitoria made the Second Division champions.
With zonal champions going up, the promotion/relegation tournament was slightly revised in order of completing the new 20-team First Division: the top 2 teams in it were going to play top league.
Estrella Amadora (Zona Sul) was the weakest now – last with 2 points. 1 win, 5 losses, 5-9.
Feirense (Zona Centro) ended 3rd with 4 points – 1 win, 2 ties, 3 losses, 4-9.
Penafiel (Zona Norte) won 3 games, tied 1 and lost 2. 7-7 goal-difference and 7 points. Unable to win the tournament, but strong second and thus promoted. Mission accomplished – back to First Division.
Rio Ave (13th in First Division) was way too strong for second-level clubs – they won 5 games and tied 1. 11-2 goal-difference and 11 points. Frankly, it was only fair – Rio Ave was the only top-league team in danger of relegation and they finished above direct relegation zone. If the weakest were saved by fiat, why Rio Ave should go down? But they strong enough and avoided the risk.
So: going to play in the 20-team First Division – Sporting Covilha, Vitoria Setubal, SC Espinho, and Penafiel.

The Cup. Good luck and bad luck… Austria did not reach the final, but Rapid did. The other finalist was Swarovski Tirol. Rapid was stronger – they won the home leg 2-0 and managed a 2-2 tie in Innsbruck.
FC Swarovski-Tirol (Innsbruck) simply confirmed that they were 3rd and only 3rd… It may be picky, but their squad reveals the whole difference: the great West German Hansi Muller joined them in 1985, but he was now 30-years old and his game was going downhill after 1982. The other 2 foreigners were good Yugoslavs – the goalkeeper Tomislav Ivkovic (27) and Ivica Kalinic (31) – good, but not first class. Add the Austrian national team striker Peter Pacult and stop… that was all. Not enough to compete with Rapid and Austria. Not enough to win a trophy.
Rapid had it relatively easier this time, but still they were running more on good luck than anything. Lucky or not, they won a double – which was great! 28th title and 13th Cup.