The ‘small’ final for the third place. Instead of playing for gold, USSR and Yugoslavia met for bronze. The Yugoslavs made few changes, the Russians stuck to their usual team. Nothing new, nothing exciting… both teams made many mistakes, the Russians possessed the ball more, the Yugoslavs depended on wingers. Nothing exciting and no goals in the first half. In the break Beskov replaced Gazzaev with Oganesyan and the change invigorated the Russians.
Oganesyan attacking. In the 67th minute he scored. Andreev scored second goal in the 82nd minute. Dassaev saved one or two dangerous Yugoslavian shots and that was all: USSR 2 – Yugoslavia 0. Toplak was a bit dismissive of the last game – he said that Yugoslavia traditionally loses from USSR, his players were tired after having no vacation during the summer, but preparing for the Olympic, and that matches for 3rd place ‘have their own logic’ – a veiled nonsense, hiding the obvious fact that Yugoslavia was not interested in this match, even the coach. Beskov said what Soviet coaches said for years after one more failure: that Soviet players as a whole – not just his selection – must increase physical preparation, must work on tactics, learn to fight for possession of the ball, and work hard on organizing attacks. Long lasting platitudes, familiar to everybody in USSR. His real criticism, if not hot anger, was addressed to his strikers: he said their finishing shots evoked only sadness in him. With this comments stopped and the team was forgotten – so much so, that even a picture of the bronze medalists seemingly does not exist. One more failure, marking the end of terrible decade.
Perhaps the closest to the Olympic team photo is from June 1980 of the team who played against Brazil at Maracana: standing from left: K. Beskov – coach, O. Romantzev, V. Bessonov, A. Chivadze, R. Dassaev, V. Pilguy, Yu. Gavrilov, S. Shavlo, T. Sulakvelidze, S. Borovsky.
Crouching: V. Khidiatulin, V. Evtushenko, R. Chelebadze, S. Rodionov, Kh. Oganesyan, S. Andreev, F. Cherenkov.
Borovsky, Evtushenko, and Rodionov were not in the team for the Olympics; Gazzaev, Baltacha, Nikulin, and Prokopenko were not in the squad above, but were included in the team which finished with bronze medals.
And the great final at last. As the whole Olympic tournament, the culmination was more gray than great. DDR depended on its athletic, physical collective kind of football – and this team was visibly not capable of anything else. Czechoslovakia was careful, slower, also with strong emphasis on collectivity. The opponents clashed in unpleasant way: the Germans were rough, the Czechoslovakians responded in kind, both teams committed many fouls, and eventually 6 cards were shown – 4 yellow and 2 red. Berger (Czechoslovakia) and Steinbach (DDR) were sent off. The best moments of the game were curiously provoked by the heavy rain which started 10 minutes before the end of the match. If there is something to sum the final, it was the single goal – it saved the viewers from suffering extra time under the pouring rain. The ball deflected from the chest of the German goalkeepr Rudwaleit towards Svoboda and kicked it in the net in the 77th minute.
Ball in the net – the whole difference between winning and losing. There is something in this photo… Czechoslovakian relief and German resignation. As if both teams knew this is the end and nothing else can be done: the whites lucky, the blacks unlucky.
Final: Moscow, Lenin Stadium.
Czechoslovakia: 1. Stanislav SEMAN, 2. Ludek MACELA, 3. Josef MAZURA, 4. Libor RADIMEC, 5. Zdenek RYGEL, 7. Ladislav VIZEK, 8. Jan BERGER, 10. Lubos POKLUDA (63′ – 6. Petr NEMEC), 11. Werner LICKA (73′ – 9. Jindrich SVOBODA), 14. Oldrich ROTT, 16. Frantisek STAMBACHER.
DDR: 1.Bodo RUDWALEIT, 2. Artur ULLRICH, 3. Lothar HAUSE (81′ – 14.Mathias LIEBERS), 5. Frank BAUM, 6. Ruediger SCHNUPHASE, 7. Frank TERLETZKI, 8. Wolfgang STEINBACH, 11. Dieter KUHN (58′ – 10. Werner PETER), 12. Norbert TRIELOFF, 13. Matthias MULLER, 17. Wolf-Reudiger NETZ.
Goal: Svoboda, 77′
DDR – silver medalists. Their coach Krause was happy after the final – he stressed on the positive: the team was new, but managed to prevail over USSR (in a friendly before the games), the top team of 1979 – Yugoslavia (although the Olympic team Yugoslavia had little to do with the A team of the same country), and it was not a shame to lose by a single goal by the bronze medalist of the 1980 European championship (although the A team of Czechoslovakia had little resemblance to their Olympic squad). Krause modestly pointed out that his team was the least experienced of the top four teams (although his own team list said otherwise) and expressed his satisfaction that his boys followed his ideas during the tournament (that much was true, although the ideas were torturous to watch). Now it was time to look to the future, that was all. The East Germans were right to be happy – they were Olympic champions in 1976, now got silver – success is success.
The new Olympic champions: first row from left: Zdenek Sreiner, Petr Nemec, Oldrich Roth, Frantisek Stambachr, Werner Licka, Zdenek Rygel, Michalko (?) – team doctor.
Standing: Rostislav Vaclavicek, Libor Radimec, Ludek Macela, Josef Mazura, Frantisek Kunzo, Stanislav Seman, Jindrich Svoboda, Jaroslav Netolicka, Zigel (?) – masseur, Knecht (?) – team’s chief.
Missing on the photo: Ladislav Vizek, Jan Berger, Lubomir Pokluda, and coach Frantisek Havranek.
Havranek was happy – Czechoslovakia won Olympic gold for the first time – but commented less than the East German coach: he praised the East Germans for their athleticism and expressed satisfaction that he was able to prepare few good strikers during the years working with the Olympic team. As for the future, he echoed the German coach – it was too early to say, he was going to talk in length with Czechoslovakian national team coach, but he thought some players will become first players in the coming qualification campaign for the 1982 World Cup. Modesty was understandable – apart from the expected politeness after Olympic final, there was not much to say about football: the tournament was obviously weak and getting weaker. Olympic football was rapidly losing ground. The teams were not exciting, very few players impressed and among them were hardly any discoveries. The boycott changes almost half of the participants in the last minute: Nigeria played instead of Ghana, Zambia replaced Egypt, Iraq instead of Malaysia, Syria instead of Iran, Cuba instead of USA, Venezuela instead of Argentina, and Finland instead of Norway. It was not substantial change, though – those boycotting were hardly better than their replacements. What was clear, but the time was right to say, was that Olympic football needed big change if wanting to attract some attention: change of players’ eligibility. Allowing professionals to participate. But such a change required change of eligibility rules for all sports – the direction was clear and in a way sad, but needed time. For the game of football itself, the 1980 Olympics contributed absolutely nothing – Olympic football was declining into obscurity, into not even second-rate, but into utterly unimportant competition.
The Moscow Olympics got another evaluation – not everyone was happy with the games. Many years later one of the Nigerian players recollected his time in Moscow.
Segun Odegbami was one of the biggest Nigerian stars of the 1970s, playing for Shooting Stars and for Pensylvania Stoners of ASL – American Soccer League, one of the lower North American leagues, in 1980. He was a member of the Nigeria Olympic football team that traveled to North America for the Montreal Summer Games in 1976 but ending up boycotting the athletic event at the last minute. The player known as “Mathematical” because of his formal university training as an engineer in addition to a high technical level of skill counted two goals when Nigeria blanked Algeria 3-0 in the Final of the African Cup of Nations in March of 1980, just four months ahead of the Moscow Summer Games. The Green Eagles goal-scorer recalled his time in the Soviet Union in an article, “My Olympic Moment – Segun Odegbami”, appearing at the official website of the Nigeria Olympic Committee: “ Montreal was very different from communist Russia (the Soviet Union). The atmosphere was totally different. Where you eat, sleep and feel freedom in Montreal, Moscow was so secretive everything was done in fear. You didn’t know who was watching you.
In Canada you could move freely but in Moscow even to get in the Games village (for athletes) there was all kinds of gadgets and security gates.
Even within your room there were all kinds of restrictions as to what you could do. You couldn’t plug your tape recorder into the light socket. We were told everyone was being seriously watched.
It really was like being in prison …” It was not only football, which was kind of bland in USSR, it seems.
One of them, as it happened often in the Cup’s history, reached the final – Shrewsbury Town. The other finalist was Welsh – Newport County AFC. Internationally, it was OK – even if the English club won, Wales was going to be represented in the Cup Winners Cup by the losing finalist. But it was better than that – Newport won both legs of the final: 2-1 and 3-0.
A historic victory, considering that Wales had its own ‘big clubs’ – Cardiff City and particularly Swansea Town, which enjoyed its best years exactly at that time, climbing up to the 1st English division. First trophy is a great moment in the history of any club, but in the case of Newport County it turned out to be the greatest moment ever, for the 1979-80 success was never repeated again – it remains the only trophy won by the club, which hit hard times almost 10 years later and disappeared for awhile. Since the distant future was unknown, the club enjoyed the moment – and more: after winning promotion and Cup, they had excellent run in the Cup Winners Cup. However, even this was still unknown yet.
