Category: 1988

First Division. One team dominated the championship, so it was more interesting on the bottom – 6 teams were relegated from the recently enlarged to 20 teams league. 2 outsiders settled at the very bottom, but there were 4 more dreaded positions and 8 teams fought to escape them. Thus, half the league was concerned only with survival and goal-difference decided the fate of some.
Sporting Covilha was the season’s outsider – last with 21 points.
Salgueiros was quite stronger than Covilha, but still an outsider – 19th with 25 points.
Rio Ave – at the bottom of those pretty much equal teams fighting desperately to avoid relegation. Rio Ave was among the losers of the race: 18th with 28 points.
Varzim also lost – 17th with 30 points.
Academica Coimbra – 16th with 33 points. Three teams ended with 33 points and Academica had the worst goal-difference among them.
Elvas – or O Elvas – was the last unfortunate: 15th with 33 points. Goal-difference sealed their sorry fate: a matter of 2 goals. That was the group of relegated teams – the biggest number of teams relegated from European top league.
Vitoria Guimaraes had a weird season – both weak and successful, both lucky and unlucky. They barely escaped relegation this season – 14th with 33 points and only goal-difference saved the: they finished with -2, compared to Elvas -5 and Academica Coimbra -10. What a relieve at the end.
Portimonense also managed to escape relegation, but by a point – 13th with 34 points.
Farense was lucky too: 12th with 34 points.
Sporting Braga – 11th at the end, but they finished also with 34 points and only better goal-difference placed them at the top of those fighting only for survival this season. Standing from left: Vitor Duarte,Vinicius,Gersinho,Hélder,Toni.Moroni
Crouching: Vitor Santos,Laureta,Kiki,João Mário,Valtinho.
Penafiel – 10th with 38 points.
Maritimo Funchal – 9th with 39 points.
Vitoria Setubal – 8th with 40 points. Note the fashion borrowed from baseball: black grease lines under the eyes – to make opponents see true intentions. Was anybody fooled?
GD Chaves – 7th with 40 points. Perhaps the strongest period of the modest club, made possible by the Bulgarian invasion in Portuguese football – Portugal imported many Bulgarians at that time, which were cheap enough and affordable even to clubs with modest means. Chaves had 2 Bulgarian stars – Radoslav Zdravkov and Georgi Slavkov, both former CSKA Sofia and Bulgarian national team players. Slavkov also won the Golden Shoe, but he failed to satisfy French St. Etienne and moved to Chaves. Helped as much as he could, but it was Zdravkov who contributed most – including scoring a lot, which was not his forte. Yet, the real reason for success was the coaching stuff – learned academicians, a bit of a rarity in the European football world.
Sitting from left: Ferreira da Costa, Diamantino, Gilberto, Julio Sergio, Radoslav Zdravkov, Luis Saura, Abel, Vermelinho, Sera, Vivas.
Middle row: Adelino, Almeida, Georgi Slavkov, Cesar, Professor Simoes de Oliveira, Doctor Mario Montes, Emilio Macedo, Raul Aguas, Garrido, Jorge Silvestre, Magalaes, Melo.
Top row: Vicente, Padrao, Rogerio, Edgar, Joao Fonseca, David, Jorginho, Ramadas, Serqueira.
Espinho – 6th with 40 points. Bested Chaves on better goal-difference.
Boavista – 5th with 46 points. No matter how good were the smaller clubs, the best 5 were too strong to permit closing the gap – Boavista finished 6 points clear of Espinho and Chaves.
Sporting Lisbon – 4th with 47 points. Fought for medals and lost.
Belenenses – 3rd with 48 points. Were they coming back? At least the fans hoped so.
Benfica – 2nd with 51 points. Not a title contender at all and only succeeding to come ahead of Belenenses, Sporting and Boavista. Perhaps they concentrated only on the European Champions Cup -where came second too, so overall a disappointing season. Standing from left: Carlos Pereira, Carlos Mozer, Dito, Mats Magnusson, Silvino, Alvaro.
Bottom: Chiquinho, Rui Aguas, Elzo, Diamantino, Antonio Pacheco.
FC Porto ruled unrivaled – they were so strong this season, it was practically impossible to beat them. Only 1 match they lost! 29 wins and 8 ties, 88-15 goal-difference. 66 points. Best in everything: 10 wins more than Benfica’s. Best scorers by far – the 2nd best, Sporting Lisbon, scored only 62 goals. Best defensive record also by far: Benfica and Boavista allowed 25 goals in their nets. 15 points ahead of Benfica – fantastic lead, considering that Benfica came close to winning the European Champions Cup! FC Porto was splendid this season.

Portugal. Ranked 6th and no surprise – strong generation of player, successful Benfica and especially FC Porto. Which were the main protagonists of this season, as expected and as it was for a long time now. Benfica played second fiddle, though.
Second Division – three groups of 20 teams each, the top 2 teams from every group promoted top First Division and the last 6 teams relegated to third level.
Norte.
Braganca – 10th with 39 points.
Three teams fought for the two top position, but the outcome and
Famalicao ended 1st with 53 points, but winning on better goal-difference. It was short-lived victory – the club was found guilty of corruption and expelled to Third Division. Still, they remained group champions of this season.

Leixoes finished 2nd with 53 points and was promoted to top flight.
Fafe lost the championship battle – 3rd with 53 points. But the expulsion of Famalicao made them happy – they were promoted to First Division instead of Famalicao.
Centro.
UR Mirense was one of the unfortunate – 17th with 32 points and relegated.
But it was more interesting at the top – 4 teams competed for the 2 best positions and eventually 2 teams opened a slight gap between themselves and the other pursuers.
Beira Mar finished 2nd with 53 points and promoted.
Academico Viseu won the group with 55 points and also promoted.
Sul.
Santa Clara – last with 23 points and out.
Samora Correia – 18th with 27 points and relegated.

No luck for Lusitania – 16th with 31 points and relegated.
Silves – 10th with 38 points.
Uniao Madeira – 6th with 42 points.
Barreirense – 5th with 44 points.
Estoril ended 4th with 47 points.
Only two teams competed for top positions.
Nacional Madeira lost the championship by a single point, but they were solid 2nd with 55 points and were promoted.
Estrela Amadora prevailed with 56 points, won the group championship and was promoted to First Division.
So, Estrela Amadora, Nacional, Beira Mar, Academico Viseu, Fafe and Leixoes were going up the play top league football in the next season.

The Cups. Celtic and Dundee United met at the final of the FA Cup and in front of 74 000 Celtic prevailed 2-1 – McAvennie scored twice to Celtic and Gallacher responded for Dundee.
Dundee United was unable to spoil Celtic’s party. From 1980 on Dundee United reached cup finals 8 times and lost 7 times…
Celtic really celebrated their centenary season – with a double! Can’t beat that.
The League Cup final opposed Rangers to Aberdeen. Both teams tried to compensate for a relatively weak season and produced exciting final, which was 3-3 after overtime and had to be decided by penalty shoot-out. Only at this stage Rangers prevailed 5-3.
Unlucky Aberdeen. They were keeping their ground even without Ferguson, but winning was out of reach. At least for the moment.
Glasgow Rangers won the League Cup – now called Skol Cup after the sponsor – and ended the season with a trophy, but… this expensive squad should have been much more successful. Just a League Cup was not enough.

Scottish Premier – First Division. A weird trend started with the British: the weaker the clubs, leading to reductions of top leagues, the more pompous the new name. Anyhow, two teams clearly had strength to play among the best and one team was still a bit weaker than most, so the relegation zone was clear early. And so was the top… Celtic had no rival.
Greenock Morton – last with last with 16 points. Newcomers – absolute outsiders. Won only 3 games out of 44. Permitted a round 100 goals in their net.
Dunfermline Athletic – 11th with 26 points. Like Greenock Morton, just came up and was immediately relegated.
Falkirk – 10th with 31 points. Not enough bite too and relegated.
St. Mirren – 9th with 35 points.
Motherwell – 8th with 36 points.
Dundee – 7th with 41 points.
Hibernian – 6th with 43 points.
Dundee United – 5th with 47 points.
Aberdeen – 4th with 59 points.
Glasgow Rangers – only 3rd with 60 points.
Heart of Midlothian – 2nd with 62 points.
Celtic really celebrated their 100th birthday – with title won after superior season: 31 wins, 10 ties, only 3 lost games, 79-23 and 72 points. Rangers outscored them by 6 goals, but nobody came close to their incredible defensive record: almost half-a-goal-per-game average! The squad led by Roy Aitken was not as famous as the the team of their arch-enemies Rangers and that made the victory sweeter. Billy McNeill did excellent job at the helm.

Scotland. Ranked 5th – a bit of a surprise and not realistic, but Scottish clubs played well in Europe in the recent years. 3 points for a win – still one of the first countries to use the invention conceived to encourage attacking football. Yet, things were not great at home and the top league was going to be reduced again to 10 teams – to achieve that only 1 team was promoted from second level this season and the last 3 in the top division were relegated: going to 10 teams in I Division, 14 in II Division, and 14 in III Division. The championship was dominated by Celtic – a bit surprising, because of the money Rangers poured into building formidable squad. Which finished 3rd, a distant 3rd…
Third Division – officially Scottish Division 2.
Stranraer – a hopeless outsider even at this lowly level: last with 16 points. Berwick Rangers kept them company at the bottom, but ended above them on better goal-difference.
If both teams’ records were combined, they would have been a point ahead of the 12th , Albion Rovers, which finished with 31 points.
But what mattered was the top of the table – not much of a fight. Two teams were well above the rest and battled between themselves for the league title. Promotion was secured early for both.
St. Johnstone finished 2nd with 59 points.
Ayr United won the league with 61 points from 27 wins, 7 ties and 5 losses. 95-31 – they scored most goals in all leagues this season.
Second Division – Scottish Division 1. Only the champion was promoted and the last 2 were relegated as usual. Three teams were entangled in a battle for survival – Kilmarnock won it, finishing 10th with 37 points. East Fife was 11th with 36 points and Dumbarton last also with 36 points – these two were relegated.
At the top was more intriguing, for good number of teams were quite similar in strength and the 3-point system was giving somewhat distorted impression of reality.
Partick Thistle perhaps disappointed: they finished 8th with 41 points. Back Row: John MItchell, Hugh Lyden, Archie McLean, Colin McAdam, John Brough, Tommy Elliot, Ian Spittal.
Middle Row: Jackie Husband (Physio), Eddie Gallagher, Budgie McGhee, Willie Cairns, Kenny Watson, John Workman, Alan Dinnie, Alan Pirie, Billy Simpson (Coach)
Front Row: Billy McLaren (Coach), Alan Logan, Ian McDonald, Bobby Law, Billy Lamont (Manager), Willie McGuire, Pat Kelly, Glenn Graham, Donnie McKinnon (Physio).
Meadowbank Thistle had strong season and under other circumstances would have been promoted, but since this season the second best was not going up… still, great: 2nd with 52 points.
Hamilton Academicals, freshly relegated from top flight, was determined to return to the best and succeeded: 22 wins, 11 ties, 10 losses, 67-39, 56 points. They managed to built a good 4-point advantage at the end, thus confirming reality, guiding the Scottish Federation to reducing the top league again – too many clubs too weak. Hamilton had hard times staying in the top division, yet, it was too strong for second level. But good luck to them in the next season.

Copa del Rey. Mighty Real was not up for a double – bitter rivals contested the trophy: Barcelona and Real Sociedad. Both with big ambition, especially after seeing that the championship was lost. A British coaching derby too: Toshack vs Venables. Toshack really flourished in San Sebastian, Venables suffered in Barcelona, but he had classier team and Barcelona prevailed in the final 1-0. Alexanko scored the winning goal in the 61st minute.
Happy winners – the season was somewhat saved!

One can be sorry for Real Sociedad – largely because they had few trophies and would have been great to add one more. The squad was still good, Toshack was doing wonderful job with the team – but no luck. To a point, it was a matter of limited resources – compared to those of Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid. Real Sociedad depended largely on home grown talent and it was not endless well – frankly, Real Sociedad was unable to recruit more great players and pretty much depended on the same team for years now. And predatory big clubs were eyeing some of the stars.
Barcelona saved the season with a trophy and they the Kings of Cups – this was their 21st. But Cups were no championship titles… The project led by Venables was ambitious – perhaps over ambitious, because there were too many foreigners: Schuster, Lineker, Archibald, Hughes, Nayim – more than foreigners employed by Real Madird! But the rules prohibited playing all of them in the same match, so why having that many? No wonder there were tensions and underperformance. Cup or no Cup, the coach was to be blamed and fired. Who else? Not president Nunez…

Primera Division. In a nut shell, Real Madird completely dominated the season and Barcelona had a weak one. Furious battle for survival involving 8 teams. John Toshack was thriving in Spain and Terry Venables not so.

Las Palmas – last and relegated with 29 points. Top row from left: Chano Lozano, Pedro Luis, Oscar, Almeida, Saavedra, René Hansen, Félix, Pepote, Manolo López.
Middle row: Ernesto Aparicio (masseur), Verona, Sito, Andrés González, Paco Castellano (assistant coach), Germán Dévora (coach), Ruiz Caballero (condition coach), José, Mayé, Julio Durán, Emilio Tomé (doctor).
Front: Alexis Trujillo, Koke Contreras, Javi Campos, Chinea, Manolín Perola, Narciso, Félix Oramas, Antonio Padrón, Yoyo.
Sabadell – 19th with 29 points and relegated.
Mallorca – 18th with 30 points. Lost the promotion/relegation play-off against Real Oviedo and was relegated.
Murcia – 17th with 31 points. Won the promotion/relegation play-off against Rayo Vallecano 3-0 and 0-0 and kept its place in Primera.
Real Betis – survived: 16th with 33 points.
Espanol – great European campaign, but at home… 15th with 33 points.
Hard times for Valencia – 14th with 33 points.

Logrones – 13th with 33 points.
Cadiz – 12th with 35 points.
Real Zaragoza – 11th with 36 points. Frank Rijkard spent some time with them – a clash with Cruijff was the motivation for leaving Ajax, although his real destination was Milan.
Sevilla – 10th with 37 points.
Sporting Gijon – 9th with 38 points.
Real Valladolid – 8th with 38 points.
Celta Vigo – 7th with 39 points.
Barcelona – 6th with 39 points. Terrible season – competing with Celta…
Wonderful season for Osasuna – 5th with 40 points. No European spot, but ahead of Barcelona!
Athletic Bilbao – 4th with 46 points. Too strong for those bellow, too weak for more than that.
Atletico Madrid – very good squad with Futre and Alemao, not to mention the Spanish stars, Menotti coaching, yet, only bronze – 3rd with 48 points.

Real Sociedad – 2nd with 51 points. Running strong, but not a title contender. Standing from left: Arconada,Górriz,Gajate,López Recarte,Larrañaga,Santiago Bakero. First row: Zúñiga,José Mari Bakero,Loren,Zamora,Beguiristain. Two players will achieve much more with Cruijff eventually.
Real Madird – with Leo Beenhakker at the helm, they were superior by far. Excellent squad, of course – and no need even mentioning the key stars: too many, but let say Hugo Sanchez and Butragueno were lethal. 28 wins, 6 ties, 4 losses, 95-26, 62 points. If there was some need, it was a better goalkeeper, but even without star keeper they were too strong for anybody. Aimed to beat their own records – 3rd consecutive title, opening hopes for more – perhaps beating the record of 5 titles in a row, achieved between 1961 and 1965, and may be restoring its old glory with another European Champion Cup? All that was hopes for bright future, but the present nurished such hopes.

Second Division. 20 teams. The last 4 relegated to Segunda B, the top 2 directly promoted to First Division, the 3rd and 4th going to promotion/relegation play-offs against the 17th and 18th in Primera Division. Traditionally, second teams of top-league clubs played here – they could not play in the same league with their first team, so the rules stipulated that in case of second team finished in the promotion zone they were by-passed and the next in the table should go up – either directly or at least to the promotion/relegation play-offs. Second team finished at the top of the table before and so again this season. Nothing new. There was considerable battle for survival at the bottom – one team gave up rather early, but 7 teams fought to the end. At the top 5 teams contested 4 promotional spots – somewhat divided into 2 groups: two teams fought for 1st place and 3 for 2 play-off spots. Well, that was largely theoretical, as it turned out.
Cartagena – last with 24 points. Relegated.
Granada – 19th with 27 points. Relegated.
Hercules (Alicante) – 18th with 29th points. Relegated.
Bilbao Athletic – the second team of Athletic Bilbao – 17th with 31 points. Relegated.
Deportivo La Coruna – 16th with 31 points. Survived on better head-to-head record against Bilbao Athletic.
Recreativo (Huelva) – 15th with 33 points.
Racing (Santander) – 14th with 33 points.

Real Burgos – 13th with 34 points.
CD Tenerife – 12th with 36 points.
CD Castellon – 11th with 37 points. Top row from left: González, López, Javi, Botubot, Casuco, Fontana, Emilio.
Middle row: Felices, Ximet, Salva, García Hernández, Dunai, Totó, Manchado, Alfredo, Tonín.
Sitting: Carrillo, Alcañiz, Ibeas, Pastor, Marqués, Viña, Saura, Víctor.
Sestao – 10th with 37 points.
Xerez CD – 9th with 41 points.
Barcelona Athletic – the second team of Barcelona – 8th with 41 points.
UE Figueres – 7th with 42 points.
UE Lleida – or Lerida – 6th with 42 points.
Rayo Vallecano – 5th with 45 points. Trying to climb back to Primera Division and, under normal circumstance, failing to do so on worse goal-difference. But they reached the promotion/relegation play-offs anyway – and lost to Murcia 0-3 and 1-1.

Real Oviedo – 4th with 45 points. Clinched play-off spot no matter the circumstances.
And won promotion after besting First Division Mallorca 2-1 and 0-0. Back to Primera next season.
Castilla CF – the second team of Real Madrid – 3rd with 48 points. They were illegible for promotion and thus did not go the promotion/relegation play-offs, which benefited Rayo Vallecano.
Elche CF – 2nd with 50 points and directly promoted to the top league. Standing from left: Sanchez, Robi, Cartagena, Javi, Miguel, Del Barrio.
Crouching: Bracun, Rodriguez, Sixto, Claudio, Isidro.
One more try to first division football, one of many… hoping they will stay up there.
CD Malaga – Second Division champions this season with 54 points from 22 wins, 10 ties, 6 losses, and 74-39 goal-difference. Strong season and, like Elche, once again they were going to play top-league football. To what result will be ssen next season – for the moment, it was great.

Spain. Ranked 4th by UEFA. By now Italy was the place to be, but Spain still got top foreign players. Real Madrid dominated domestic football and Barcelona disappointed in the championship its fans.
Third level – that is Segunda B Division. 80 teams divided into 4 groups – there was expansion announced the previous years from 2 to 4 groups, so 63 teams were newcomers. Geography determined the composition of the groups. The winners were promoted to Second Division and the last 4 in each group were relegated to Tercera Division – 4th level. As a general rule, only few familiar clubs played in third level.
Group 1.
Caudal ended with 28 points and was one of the relegated teams at 18th place.
Arenteiro survived – 16th with 32 points.
Endesa As Pontes – 10th with 39 points.
Real Aviles Industrial – 2nd with 53 points. Not really a title contender.
Eibar dominated the group and won it with 59 points from 26 wins, 7 ties, 5 losses and 68-21 goal-difference. Happily promoted to Second Division.
Group 2.
Mirandes was one of the relegated: 18th with 31 points.
L’Hospitalet – 5th with 45 points.
Dramatic battle for 1st place – Deportivo Aragon and Mollerussa finished with 52 points each and the same goal-difference of +25. Head-to-head results decided the winner – Mollerussa, by a single goal (1-2 and 2-0). Everything according to size – for modest Mollerussa going to play Second Division football was fantastic success. Their highest achievement so far.
Group 3. No drama here – one team dominated the championship.

Linares – 6th with 42 points.

Cordoba – 5th with 43 points.

Salamanca had no rival and with 57 points they finished 8 points ahead of second-best Badajoz. Quick return to their familiar Second Division.
Group 4. No real rival to the leader.
Mestalla went down – 16th with 31 points: 5 teams were relegated in this group, because more than one team came down from Second Division to it.
Polideportivo Almeria was lucky to survive by 1 point – 14th with 32 points.

Alcoyano – 10th with 37 points.
Gandia – 8th with 40 points.
Melilla – 7th with 40 points.
Olimpic Xativa – 4th with 48 points. With better goal-difference would have been 2nd.
UD Azira – confident winners with 52 points. Well deserved promotion.
Well, judging by tradition, only Salamanca had a chance to stay in Second Division, but who knows what may happen? Good luck to Salamanca, Mollerussa, UD Azira, and Real Aviles Industrial next season!

The Cup. Eintracht Frankfurt and VfL Bochum reached the final. Eintracht looked like the favourite, but not absolutely. Given their predicament, the only chance for Bochum to win anything was the Cup tournament. They were experienced fighters, managing to survive in the Bundesliga for a long time always playing against superior teams. Eintracht did not have good season, so there was a chance. Motivation was not an issue at all. The final was tough enough and Bochum did the best they could, but Lajos Detari scored for Eintracht and that was that.
Unfortunately, VfL Bochum lost a second Cup final. With a team like that, it was kind of expected loss – modest as ever, their only player with fame was the Polish striker Andrzey Iwan. A few years back hailed as the next great Polish player, but expectations did not materialized – amply exemplified by playing for Bochum and not some big famous club. Not enough to win a trophy. Still, Bochum tried hard and lost minimally. But lost…
Eintracht Frankfurt won its 4th Cup – it was their specialty, but earlier they were leading team. Now they were going down and had miserable season. That made them eager to compensate and there was no doubt the final was very important to them. The team – by names – was not as bad as their season went, but was not great either. Korbel and troublemaker Stein were aging dangerously, Smolarek was going somewhat downhill – a few years ago he was expected to reach the stardom of Boniek, but he did not (still, he was classier than Bochum’s Iwan, who was supposed to reach the expected stardom of Smolarek). Manfred Binz and Lajos Detari were the only players young enough to guarantee good future – and the Hungarian scored the winning goal! Well, the team was classier than Bochum’s and eventually prevailed. It was great for the morale, great for the fans, great for Korbel and Stein, for whom this was perhaps the last chance to win a trophy. Great for Detari, who would keep attention on himself and increase his value. And great for tradition: Eintracht confirmed that the Cup was their specialty. It was noticed they played Cup finals dressed in their reserve white jerseys, black shorts, white socks – lucky kit, bringing success.