Category: 1988

The Cup. French football is such that doubles were hardly ever possible… so, true to tradition the Cup finalists were not those leading in the championship. Metz vs Sochaux. Mid-table First Division club vs leader of Second Division. Normally, top-league team wins… Unless… The final ended 1-1 with Metz actually trailing back and equalizing in the last minute of the first half. Equal game, coming to penalty shoot-out and in the chancy shooting Metz’ players did not miss, but Sachaux eventually missed one penalty. 5-4 Metz. Today it is even amusing – the shooters for Sochaux (Hadzibegic, Sauzee, Paille, Rousset, and Madar) are better known players than Metz’ kickers (Zenier, Hinschberger, Zanon, Bracconi, and Kastendeuch) – but that is from today point of view: Sauzee, Paille, Rousset and Madar eventually became leading players in the 1990s, they were not that in 1988. Anyhow, Metz clinched the victory in front of over 44 000 fans Parc des Princes, Paris.
One can be sorry for Sochaux-Montbeliard – they had wonderful season and only luck betrayed them, they did not really lose to Metz. Well, one is always sorry for the underdog. Standing from left: Gilles Rousset, Faruk Hadzibegic, Francis Peltier, Laurent Croci, Franck Sauzée, Mickaël Madar, Stéphane Paille.
Front row: Silvester Takac (coach), Fabrice Henry, Franck Silvestre, Jean-Christophe Thomas, Philippe Morin, Mehmed Bazdarevic, Jacky Colin.
Nice team really and no wonder they were so strong in the Second Division – this squad was more impressive than half of First Division teams! But misfortunate… at least they got promoted to First Division.
Great success for Metz, no matter how difficult and chancy – this was their 2nd Cup. One may be sorry for Sochaux on principle, but let face it – the final opposed two underdogs, clubs with little success and relatively marginal existence. Luck was on the side of Metz, having rather modest squad, so it was great for the boys to win a trophy. A moment to engrave in memory.

First Division. Dominant Monaco and 8 teams battling for survival. Typically, not a single team was well-rounded and exceptionally strong and looked like oldish players no longer needed in Italy were moving to France. A flock of good coaches, who were not yet at their prime. Talented new generation of players was also at hand and hailed as securing the bright future of French football, but the future would prove different, at least for awhile.
Le Havre – somewhat an outsider. Last with 27 points an relegated. The Czechoslovak striker Vizek was not enough.
Brest – 19th with 32 points. Modest Brest was unable to avoid relegation.
Niort – or Chamois Niortais – ended ahead of Brest on better goal-difference: 18th with 32 points. Perhaps the most anonymous squad in the league, they managed to avoid direct relegation, but eventually lost the promotion/relegation play-off against Caen and went down.
Lens – 17th with 33 points. Lucky to survive, but finished with the worst goal-difference in the championship: -22.
Nice – 16th with 33 points. Struggling to stay in the league, but the decline started quite a long time ago. Their former Yugoslav star Nenad Bjekovic was coaching them and one could say that when he arrived back in the 1970s, he had stronger teammates than Bravo had at the moment.
Paris SG – 15th with 34 points. Frankly, much more was expected by this squad coached by Houllier. Aging Ray Wilkins was perhaps the biggest name among well known stars – yet, the team just struggled to escape relegation.
Laval – nothing special, yet, they finished ahead of Paris SG, if only on better goal-difference: 14th with 34 points. Actually, neutral goal-difference: 38-38.
Toulouse – 13th with 35 points. Strongly dependent on bunch of aging stars – Rocheteau, Bergeroo, the 1978 World champion Tarantini, his fellow Argentine Marcico, Stopyra. Santini, part of the great 1970s St. Etienne squad, was coaching them. Well, they escaped relegation.
Cannes – 12th with 37 points. Not bad… for a modest team. Like most smallish clubs, they depended on few aging veterans: the Yugoslav duo Savic and Primorac and almost forgotten by now Emon.
Cannes deserves a second picture for this reason: sponsorship had its own demands, so the team had to actually promote the goods their sponsor peddled – in their case, home supplies. A question for the future, of course – would they be in the fridge, or burning on the stove, or just washed and dried?
Lille – 11th with 37 points. Rather typical mid-table performance.
Nantes – 10th with 39 points. Struggling for some time – decline is almost inevitable in football, but seemingly Nantes missed the moment to start rebuilding. Perhaps this season was the turning point: good foreign stars at hand: the Argentine Burruchaga, the Scot Johnston, and aging Belgian Vercauteren plus bright young talent – Deschamps, Desailly, Kombouare, but also remains from the past getting too long in the tooth: Bertrand-Demanes, Rio, Amisse.
Auxerre – 9th with 39 points. Was it another club this season would have been considered a disaster, but Auxerre and its fans were humble and kept solidly their feet on the ground. The most important thing was to play with heart and not get unreasonable expectations. 9th place? Nothing dramatic – most important was developing their own talent and there was plenty of it. Cantona was an interesting example of this philosophy: hailed as major talent and he proved his worth in time, but did not really made it in France – instead, became famous for his successful play in England. Auxerre knew its best players would be bought by richer clubs, so the trick was to develop more youngsters on one hand and loyally depend on Polish imports – the string of reliable Poles was not broken: Matysik and Zgutczynski were the current workhorses.
Metz – 8th with 40 points. Keeping their usual in the championship, but this season was remarkable for them.
Matra Racing – 7th with 41 points. The ambitious project worked so far – the team came back from obscurity and clearly aimed to make an impact in French football. The Uruguayan Paz was perhaps the only great star in this squad, but he was not alone (Tusseau, Fernandez) and there was even young talent (Olmeta, Blondeau). However, the biggest asset was their coach – the Portuguese Jorge. Well, so far, so good – compared to fellow Parisian rivals Paris SG they did very well with poorer squad.
Olympique Marseille – 6th with 41 points. Ahead of Matra Racing only on better goal-difference, but they were similarly ambitious projects both. Not coming to fruition yet, but the aims were clear and so were the methods: hire great coach, buy famous players. Wanting to come back to leading position Marseille had Hidalgo as sporting director, Gili coaching, and impressive names in the squad: the West Germans Forster and Allofs, the Cameroonian Bell, Giresse, Genghini, Domergue, Le Roux, Ayache, Papin. A bit on the aging side, but solid foundation with enormous experience and success and since money were no longer a problem, it was sure fresher talent will be added quickly.
Toulon – 5th with 41 points. A great season for them and overall a pleasant surprise. Since the squad was relatively modest (Ginola was still only a promising youngster), they perhaps overperformed, but also serve as comparative example to teams ambitiously going up, but not ready yet for real success: modest Toulon was, at the moment, equal to Marseille and Matra Racing (ahead of them not on points, but on goal-difference), but the bigger clubs were coming out of decline and were still in building process. Thus, relatively modest, but at its prime team, was practically equal to ambitious, yet unfinished, climbers. As an another example Toulon served well too: Delio Onnis was their assistant-coach. Not only one of the many great players of the 1970s who were now trying to make names as coaches as well, but also continuing the great rivalry with fellow Argentine Carlos Bianchi – for years they fought between themselves who will be the top scorer of the French league, now they were competing again as young coaches.
St. Etienne – 4th with 42 points. Looked like the crisis was over and they came back to its familiar leading position. Herve Herbin was back at the helm and that was the biggest sign of revival – instantly his magic worked and helped by one of the his great 1970s team, Saramagna (and another – Repellini – was coaching the second team), the past seemingly was coming back. However, it was an illusion… it was enough to look at the squad: back in the great 1970s St. Etienne was studded with talent and untypically for French team had about 15 national team players. Now… their Bulgarian defender Georgi Dimitrov was unable to adjust to living abroad and wanted to go home, Castaneda never made it more than occasional back-up goalkeeper in the national team (and that was already in the past), and apart from Krimau and maybe Ribar, there was nothing else. Good season, but just an oddity, a sudden burst and nothing more.
Montpellier – 3rd with 45 points. Great season for them even if they were not real title contender. However, they scored most goals this championship (68) and finished with best goal-difference (+30). The squad was not impressive, but it was a great example of achieving more with less. Practically, just a few solid stars: Brazilian Julio Cezar, the Yugoslav Stojkovic, the Cameroonian Roger Milla, the veteran goalkeeper Rust, and the promising youngster Laurent Blanc, but it was enough of a skeleton to provide stable reliability. It was a team practically at its peak and healthy appetite and soon will be re-enforced by enormous South American talent: it was not a team to stay satisfied with its current success, even if having no means for actually running for the title.
Bordeaux – 2nd with 46 points. On the surface, they were still strong leading club, but the fact they were distant second this season and clinched silver only by a point ahead of weaker squad, betrays bitter reality – Bordeaux was already beyond their peak and going downhill. Was it going to be a terrible decline was a matter of quick measures taken right after the end of the season, but in any case rebuilding is rocky time and it is always difficult to discard great names. But reality is already tough: Jacquet was leading coach, but somewhat yesterday’s news, already challenged by younger generation, even bypassed by some already. And similarly the squad – sounds so impressive to have Dropsy, Vercruysse, Girard, Tigana, Ferreri, Thouvenel, the Vujovic brothers… but all of them were dangerously aging and younger stars in other teams were already ahead of them. Bordeaux had little younger talent – Roche, Gnako, Bijotat, Lallane – and they somehow did not look like first-rate. The team was getting too old for its own good and radical rebuilding was needed urgently: after all, they were not match to a team with no exceptional talent this season.
Monaco – champions with 52 points from 20 wins, 12 ties, 6 losses and 53-29 goal-difference. Great season in which they practically had no rival, leaving Bordeaux 6 points behind. Praise to Arsene Wenger most of all, for Monaco hardly ever had really great squad and this season did not contradict tradition. Tradition of sudden ups and downs and the reasons perhaps was the policy of short-term assemblage – when it worked, they went up; when it did not, they went down. This season it worked, so again praise to Wenger. Not a bad squad – the English stars Hateley (coming from Italy) and Hoddle, well known Frenchmen – Amoros, Bellone, Ettori, Batiston. Let add Fofana, Dib and Puel… not enough for a full well-rounded team. The stars were aging all… Hoddle was suffering with constant injuries… one can question the consistency of Bellone… Hateley may have played for Milan, but was never real first choice for the Englsih national team… Ettori was not truly great keeper and easily replaced when a decent keeper popped-up in the French national team… the best years of Battiston were already in the past… to a point, it was one-time affair, largely due to the ability of Wenger to motivate and squeeze the best of experienced aging players. It worked to the delight of Monaco’s fans – it worked even better than it should. The champions collected the 5th title for the club. However, the chances of repeating the success next year were practically nill.

Group B. If one team shined unchallenged in Group A, the big drama was here – goal-difference decided the champion!
Lorient was last and relegated with 23 points.
Melun Entente 77 beat Lorient on goal-difference, but still going down – 17th with 23 points.
Saint Dizier – 16th with 25 points and relegated.
La Roche sur Yon – 15th with 26 points. Escaped relegation by a point.
Stade Quimperois – 14th with 29 points. The eternal mystery of writing club names in France… sometimes full names, sometimes only the familiar city name, but in the same source one club could be written with full name and another with just the city name.
Beauvais – 13th with 31 points.
En Avant Guingamp – 12th with 31 points. Here it is again… Guingamp in the magazine introducing the teams, En Avant Guingamp in the statistical records.
Abbeville – 11th with 31 points.
Stade Rennais – 10th with 32 points. Two well known former players at the helm (Rampillon and Keruzore), the Hungarian Garaba, with 2 World Cups behind him, Cantona… and nothing. Cantona? He was also listed and pictured in his original club, Auxerre, this season. If anything, it shows the difficulties he had in his native France – a misfit of a kind.
Valenciennes – 9th with 33 points. They were no strangers to second tier football, but First Division was more of their place for years – so, a bit of speculation: in the past they had steady string of Polish players. No Poles now… and no good at all.
Dunkerque – 8th with 34 points. Like Nimes in Group A, they finished with goal-difference of 0: 34-34.

Stade Reims – 7th with 35 points. May be only one thing to note: Carlos Bianchi was coaching – still far away from fame as a coach, still largely remembered as a great goal-scorer.
Angers – 6th with 38 points. Let say they had better seasons.
Nancy – 5th with 38 points. Rather sad to see the club which gave to the world Michel Platini that low, but it was always a modest club.
Rouen – 4th with 40 points. Modest as ever. If anything, just an example of increasing export from Eastern Europe – the Czechoslovak Jarolim here. Well respected at home, but not well known abroad – by now even second raters were exported, that’s the point.
Mulhouse – 3rd with 45 points. Strong season, a team certainly improving and going up, but eventually dropped out of the promotion race. Well, the future was theirs to take.

Caen lost dramatic race for top position – they finished with 49 points and almost identical record with their rivals. Only scored 2 less goals… and that meant losing the championship and direct promotion. But there was another chance – the play-off against the 18th in the First Division. That chance Caen did not miss and still got promoted after winning against Chamois Niortais. However, the dramatic battle for first place is worth showing in numbers: 20 wins, 9 ties, 5 losses, 54-22. Now see the record of the winners.
Racing Club Strasbourg prevailed: 20 wins, 9 ties, 5 losses, 56-22, 49 points. Just 2 goals made the final difference and Strasbourg clinched the 1st place of the Group B championship and direct promotion to top flight. Not an easy victory, but still a return to their familiar First Division was achieved and that was all that mattered. As for the future… hard to say. Like many other clubs, Strasbourg had young coaches, who used to be famous players – Kasperczak and Gemmrich – but the squad was rather anonymous. The veteran Leonard Specht was hardly a player for the future and he was practically the only recognizable name in the squad. Looks like quick recruitment of solid guys was in order… or may be not. Anyway, the next season will tell.

Second Division. Sochaux had exelent season and dominated Group A with very impressive performance.
Chatellerault finished last with 27 points and was relegated. Remember Hugo Bargas? Well, few remembered him by that year…
Tours – 17th with 27 points. Ahead of Chatellerault on better goal-difference, but relegated anyway. Used to play top league football? That was in the past.
Ajaccio – Gazelec Ajaccio to be precise, because of the other club with almost identical name – ended 16th with 27 and was the third relegated team.
Dijon – 15th with 28 points. Survived by a point.
Istres – 14th with 28 points. Lucky to survive as well.
Le Puy – 13th with 28 points. Goal-difference placed them above Istres and Dijon.
Sete – 12th with 29 points. Bathenay trying his hand at coaching, but coaching a team no longer even remembering playing First Division football was serious trial.
Martigues – 11th with 31 points.
Gueugnon – 10th with 31 points.
Grenoble – 9th with 32 points. Who could envision a future world champion in this team.
Bastia – 8th with 33 points. Glory days were 10 years ago already.
Cuiseaux-Louhans – 7th with 33 points. Not bad at all.
Nimes Olympique – 6th with 36 points. 40-40 goal-difference – a rarity.
Orleans – 5th with 36 points.
Montceau-les-Mines – 4th with 40 points. Quite an achievement.
Olympique Ales – 3rd with 41 points. Strong season.
Olympique Lyonnais – 2nd with 44 points. Unable to really fight for promotion – perhaps the squad tells why: it is rather modest.
Sochaux-Montbeliard – powerful champions with 61 points. 17 points ahead of Lyon! 29 wins, 3 ties and only 2 lost games. But their scoring record was fantastic: 97-17. Goal-difference of +80! Going back to top flight and more – this season was quite remarkable and due to strong Yugoslavian presence: coach Takac plus well known Bazdarevic and Hadzibegic.

France. Ranked 14th. Plentiful of strong and famous players, yet, low ranking – but that is French football. Fairly equal and competitive championship with somewhat domineering leaders in the top division and Group A of Second Division.
The teams who earned promotion from Third Division this season were:
Clermont,
Rodez and
Annecy – going to Group B.
Creteil-Lusitanos,

Le Touquet and
Le Mans, going to Group A of Second Division.

The Cup repeated the championship: Steaua vs Dinamo at the final, the Army prevailed by one goal in the last minute. Lacatus gave them the lead in the 27th minute. Dinamo equalized 3 minutes before the last whistle, courtesy of Raducioiu, but Balint still made it 2-1 Steaua in the 90th minute. Wait a minute… there was no 90th minute… or was it? The game stopped earlier. Television broadcast went black. Steaua decided to walk away. The final was forfeit. The reason for all that? Steaua scored second goal in the 87th minute, which was disallowed by the referee. The match ended at this point and Dinamo’s players took the Cup with themselves. Or may be they kidnapped the Cup? The match was never finished, contrary to the false record of Balint scoring in the 90th minute. The game and the Cup was awarded to Steaua later by the Federation and the referee was disqualified for one year. Speaking of political clashes behind the scene…
This is a possible photo of 1987-88 Dinamo (Bucharest). Full of great talent and backed up by ominous state power they failed twice this season, thus repeating 1986-87. Lost by tiny margin both championship and Cup, lost in the last minute. That was unfortunate, but then again… was it just football?
Possible photo of the 1987-88 Cup winners. Strangely both Steaua and Dinamo left almost no pictorial records of 1987-88 – true, the teams were pretty much the same as the previous and the next year. May be most people were happy seeing Steaua winning and Securitate’s pets two years in a row second in every tournament. May be… because it is hard to sympathize with not just Army’s club, but already a pet project of the son of ominous Ceausescu. Who depended on Securitate… For all the records, for all the talent of coaches and players, there is more than a grain of salt: were these two rivals really all that strong and great? How much was fixed in the backrooms? What kind of games were played behind the scene? Of course, if one is Steaua fan nothing but victory matters and that is the only truth and justice. And when it comes to just that, Steaua won its 16th Cup and another double. When the dust settles down, it is a somewhat curious record: Steaua so far won more Cups than titles.

First Division. Well, dramatic battle between Steaua and Dinamo and big part of it was backroom battle between Securitate (Dinamo) and Army – Ceausescu’s son (Steaua). Intriguing in itself, for that was a battle inside the Communist Party between formidable foes and one major reason both clubs had the best players and coaches in the country. No doubt, there was tampering of games – part of it became internationally known by the scandalous manipulations to win the Golden Shoe award to the point of killing it. Yet, on the field, the rival teams were objectively too strong for anybody else – one can hardly attribute artificiality of the talent of Hagi, Belodedici, Boloni, Lacatus, Piturca (Steaua) or Raducioiu, Rednic, Mateut, Andone, Camataru (Dinamo), to name but a few. And new talent already was popping up: Dan Petrescu, Dumitrescu, and others. Both clubs used their mighty powers to scoop whatever talent emerged in the country, fighting each other all the way. It was hard to see anything else behind the battle of the giants – perhaps there was not a lot left to see, but the strong performance of Victoria (Bucharest) is worth mentioning: originally a farm club of Dinamo, they were recently promoted and hastily renamed to Victoria to cut at least the most obvious ties to Dinamo. How independent was Victoria is hard to say – to satisfy UEFA they were made an independent club, at least on the surface. Domestically, Steaua’s powerful backing perhaps played controlling role, watching closely Victoria’s behavior, so perhaps they would not act just as Dinamo’s helpers, but coach and some players were formerly Dinamo stuff. Again, apart from the dirty schemes, Victoria had surprisingly good team and performed very well. On the field, they were fresh and somewhat pleasant surprise, reaching international stage as well – no more than the UEFA Cup, but that was all left by dominant Steaua and Dinamo to the rest of Romania.
CSM Suceava finished last with 25 points and was relegated.
Petrolul (Ploiesti) – 17th with 26 points and relegated.
Politehnica (Timisoara) – 16th with 26 points and relegated.
Olt (Scornicesti) – 15th with 28 points.

Sportul Studentesc (Bucharest) – 14th with 28 points.

Rapid (Bucharest) – 13th with 29 points.
SC Bacau – 12th with 29 points.
ASA (Targu Mures) – 11th with 29 points.
Universitatea (Cluj) – 10th with 29 points.
Arges (Pitesti) – 9th with 29 points.
FCM Brasov – 8th with 29 points.
Corvinul (Hunedoara) – 7th with 30 points.
Flacara (Moreni) – 6th with 33 points.
Universitatea (Craiova) – 5th with 36 points.
Otelul (Galati) – 4th with 39 points.

Victoria (Bucharest) – 3rd with 40 points. The best bellow Steaua-Dinamo, but still with strong Dinamo tint: long time Dinamo coach Dumitru Nicolae-Nicusor was at the helm, for instance.
Dinamo (Bucharest) – 2nd with 63 points. Observe the difference: 23 points ahead of 3rd placed Victoria. They lost only 1 match. Won 30 out of 34 rounds. Scored 107 goals. Permitted only 25 in their own net. And such fantastic record was still not enough for winning the championship…
Steaua (Bucharest) prevailed over the arch-enemy by a point. If Dinamo’s record was fantastic, Steaua bested it – 30 wins and 4 ties. Not a single lost match. 114-18 scoring record, very likely the best ever in the world: +96 goal-difference. 64 points and the title was theirs, like the year before. Now they had 13 titles altogether.

Romania. Ranked 13th. The season left incredible record: Steaua and Dinamo not only battled heavily between themselves, but they were as if on another planet, having practically separate championship and Cup. Their combined record was fantastic: only one lost match. 221 goals scored and only 43 received. Even if their received goals are combined, only one team had better defensive record than both of the leaders together! The rest is beyond any comparing. No wonder both teams were so strong: they had the best player of Romania, so the battle was practically between two sides of the national team, most stars already internationally well known and on the road of becoming world-famous – a long list of the great players at or almost at their prime. Such rosy picture was not so rosy, but backroom scheming and maneuvering cannot dismiss the class of teams the bitter rivals had. Bellow them… another universe.
Second Division, as ever divided into 3 groups of 18 teams. The winners promoted, the last 4 in evry group relegated to Third Division. As it happened, only in Serie III there was a battle for top position between 2 teams and like in the top league the leaders were way above the rest of the teams – effectively, 4 teams dominated the Second Division. As for the rest – Second Division are hardly interesting outside their own countries, most participants are practically unknown. If anything, perhaps the miserable season of smaller Bucharest clubs should be mentioned: there were 4, playing in Serie II and they finished at the last 4 positions, thus, relegated. Just for amusement, the unfortunates were Autobuzul, Mecanica Fina, Metalul, and Progresul Vulcan. Of them, Progresul Vulcan was hopeless outsider and the club really falling down – back in time Progresul was strong First Division member, but that was already nearly forgotten: the decline of the club started back in 1970s and even the amalgamation with another club, changing their name to Progresul Vulcan did not stop the downfall.
And since Second Division produced little interest, just a little taste of it:
Progresul (Braila) – 3rd in Serie I with 39 points. Finished 10 points behind the group winners.
Sportul Muncitoresc (Caracal) – 14th with 33 points in Serie II. Escaped relegation by a point.
Paroseni Vulcan (Paroseni) – 7th in Serie III with 33 points.
Well, most members of Second Division were such unknown clubs, but still there were some familiar names; teams used to playing top level football. Of them only Gloria (Bistrita) was strong this season, but they lost the battle for promotion in Serie III.
UTA (Arad) was arguably the best known club playing now in the Second Division, but old successes were just memory now: they finished 3rd in Serie III with 43 points. Stronger than most of the league, but 5 points behind second-placed Gloria (Bistrita).
What counted was the winners:
FC Constanta easily won Serie I: 19 wins, 11 ties, 4 losses, 63-27, 49 points. They left the nearest pursuer, Politehnica (Iasi), 9 points behind. Quick return to First Division, but the name is a bit confusing: the club from the city of Constanta is known as Farul (Lighthouse), but they were briefly renamed after the home city. And won the championship as FC Constanta, either going back to their usual name Farul right after the end of the season, or publications by habit used their original name – hence, the discrepancy here.
Inter (Sibiu) just as easily won Serie II: 23 wins, 5 ties, 6 losses, 62-27, 51 points. Better known Jiul (Petrosani) was not a rival at all – they were distant 2nd, 7 points behind. Standing from left: Viorel Hizo (assistant coach), Văsîi, M. Zamfir, V. Marcel, Boar, Chiriac, Şişoe, Ciobanu, Marian Bondrea (coach)
Middle row: M. Stănescu, Bolborea, Jurcă, I. Cristian, C. Cozma, Bîrsan, L. Cotora
Front: C. Zamfir, V. Armenean, Radu II, D. Mărginean, Şoarece, Istvan.
This club originally had different name, but recently was renamed to Inter and became known as Inter – going to play top league football was big success for them.
As mentioned, Serie III was the only group with lively battle for top position and the race was won by Bihor (Oradea) – with 21 wins, 8 ties, 5 losses, 85-28, 50 points, they ended 2 points ahead of Gloria (Bistrita). They were the highest-scoring team in all groups – Gloria again was second-best with 77 goals – which was promising recommendation for the future. As FC Constanta, they were returning to First Division.

The Czechoslovak Cup – it may be tedious reminder, but it was unique formula, existing nowhere else: the national Cup was not full tournament, but a final between the winners of Czech Cup and Slovak Cup. Dominant Sparta won the Czech Cup. Inter (Bratislava) won the Slovak Cup. The Czechoslovak final was entirely predictable and did not go off course: Sparta won 2-0.
As much as Inter (Bratislava) – or Internacional Slovnaft ZTS – wanted to win, they were facing almost the whole Czechoslovakian national team and had no chance to beat the stars. Yet, they were going to play in the Cup Winners Cup as losing finalists and that at least was great – especially at home in Bratislava, where the big boys Slovan only got promotion to come back in First Division. On the down side… Inter had much stronger teams in the 1970s.

Sparta (Prague) finished with a double – a perfect season of supremacy. So far: 16 titles and 18 Cups. And judging from their recent years, this was not going to be the end of their records.

First Division. Sparta (Prague) dominated the 1980s, so little surprise they were alone and far away from all the rest at the top. More interesting was the strong performance of recent newcomer DAC Dunajska Streda, now among the best teams. At the bottom it was rather familiar: two outsiders, often finding themselves in the same situation.
Tatran (Presov) – terrible season: last with 10 points. They won only 3 games this season. Relegated.
TJ ZVL Zilina – 15th with 21 points. Not as bad as Tatran, but still an outsider – 15th with 21 points and relegated. The story of these Slovak clubs… up and down, down and up. Would be interesting to count how many times they were relegated from the top league and how many times promoted to it. Never ending meandering between the two divisions.
Spartak (Hradec Kralove) – 14th, but with 27 points they were hardly in danger of relegation well before the end of the season.
FK Inter (Bratislava) – 13th with 27 points. Came back from Second Division the year before and doing quite poorly, but still the best of Bratislava at the moment – even Slovan was in the Second Division and the smaller clubs were naturally bellow Slovan, Petrzalka already in Third Division.
FC Bohemians – or Bohemians CKD (Prague). Good years were evidently over – 12th with 29 points.
Ruda hvezda (Cheb) – 11th with 29 points.
FC Spartak (Trnava) – on the left before the match against DAC Dunajska Streda. Struggling and not coming back to leading position for sure. 10th with 29 points.
FK Dukla (Banska Bystrica) – 9th with 29 points.
FC Vitkovice – or TJ Vitkovice – 8th with 29 points. The champions of 1986, as expected, were unable to stay at the top – mid-table position was their proper place.
Plastika (Nitra) – or TJ Plastika – 7th with 30 points. Doing quite well for generally modest club.
Slavia (Prague) – or Slavia Praha IPS – 6th with 31 points. Lubos Kubik, Ivo Knoflicek… but nothing special. Somewhat Slavia was unable to build a winning team.
SK Sigma (Olomouc) – 5th with 32 points. Slowly and somewhat quietly rising up.
FC Banik (Ostrava) – 4th with 34 points. Keeping themselves among the top teams, but a far cry from the great team of the 1970s-early80s.
DAC 1904 (Dunajska Streda) – now, that was a pleasing team. They came from nowhere only a few years ago and so far were doing exceptionally well in the First Division. Part of the name used in Second Division was lost somehow and there was no longer ‘Pol’nohospodar’ in it – it was just DAC, sometimes DAC 1904, but mostly plain Dunajska Streda, the name of their small hometown. Darlings.
Dukla (Prague) – 2nd with 39 points. If one looks only at the final table, Dukla appeared fine – perhaps losing a bitter battle against city rivals Sparta, and next year… there was no going to be next year, for there was no bitter battle – Dukla ended 10 points behind Sparta and what they did was only coming ahead of DAC Dunajska Streda, their real rival at least this season. Very few top class players here and that spelled out not only the present, but also the future. To a point, Dukla was lucky to finish that high.
Sparta (Prague) – or Sparta CKD – were unchallenged champions: 22 wins, 5 ties, 3 losses, 82-22, 49 points. Note their scoring record – 82 goals! A rare number in Czechoslovak football. Apart from that – nothing new, one more success for the dominant Czechoslovak team of this decade. No surprise at all: the best players were here coached by Vaclav Jezek.