Football Journey

Second Division. The usual two groups, reshuffled almost entirely. The winners directly promoted, one team going to promotion/relegation play-offs against the 18th in the top league. The last 3 – going down, unless there were more teams going from First Division to one Second Division group.
Group A

Red Star (Paris) – last and relegated with 12 points.
Amiens – 17th with 23 points and relegated.
Saint Dizier – 16th with 24 points, but they survived. Hard to tell why, but they did.
Abbeville – 15th with 26 points.
La Roche-sur-Yon – 14th with 29 points.
Valenciennes – 13th with 31 points.
Angers – 12th with 32 points.
Orleans – 11th with 32 points.
En Avant Guingamp – 10th with 32 points. Szarmach still playing.
RC Strasbourg – 9th with 32 points. Didier Six here, but apparently he moved away.
Dunkerque – 8th with 33 points.
Tours – 7th with 35 points.
Beauvais – 6th with 38 points.
Stade Quimperois – 5th with 41 points.

Stade Reims – with Vercruisse in the team and Carlos Bianchi coaching them, but only 4th with 43 points.
Mulhouse – 3rd with 46 points.
Caen – 2nd with 48 points. Unable to really challenge the leader, but why they did not go to promotion/relegation play-off is unclear.
Chamois Niort – confident winners with 55 points from 24 wins, 7 ties, and 3 lost games, 48-15 goal-difference. Rather surprising to see them and not some of the better known former top league members win, but they were simply the best. Happily promoted.

France – ranked 15th. Strange to see such low ranking – unlike Dutch football, the French were not in decline in the first half of the 1980s, but were going up and had fantastic players. Yet, in the same time certain decline of their club football was noticed – St. Etienne most strongly, but to a point Nantes was weakening. Funny, in a way – the French were almost as good, or bad, as the Swiss. And that at time when France was one of the most exciting and formidable national teams in the world – and the Swiss were in trouble and reorganizing as a result. Anyhow… Arguably, the best season ever for Bordeaux, inability of Paris SG to keep pace, strong recovery of Marseille.
Beyond the two professional leagues – some former full professional clubs of different degrees of familiarity:
FC Martigny

Le Mans
Troyes.
6 teams, however, realized their dreams of going up – or rather returning – to professional level:
Dijon
Melun
FC Lorient
Chatellerault
FC Grenoble and
FC Rouen.

The Cup. Young Boys and Servette met at the final and the clash ended 2-2. Young Boys prevailed in the extra-time, scoring 2 unanswered goals and triumphed 4-2.

The happy winners, all smiles and fit for more running after 120 minutes of playing. The trophy in their hands gave them wings.
Servette lost and finished the season empty-handed. Missing a little was enough to miss much: unable to come even close to bronze medals, losing the Cup in overtime, but by 2 goals.
Young Boys had big success – this was their 6th Cup, but the previous one was won 10 years ago.
Crouching from left: Aleksander Mandziara -coach, Bjorn Nilsson, Joachim Siwek, Jean-Marie Conz, Robert Prytz, Martin Jeitzinger, Adam Mandziara, Jurg Wittwer, Urs Zurbuchen.
Standing: Dario Zuffi, Erich Hanzi, Stefan Knutti, Rene Sutter, Martin Weber, Reto Gertschen, Alain Baumann, Urs Bamert, Henner (?) – superintendent.
Well, a typically unassuming Swiss team, depending largely on few strong players, usually foreigners. The big names here were Swedish stars – Nilsson and especially Prytz. There was another foreigner, although he was not really an imported player – the son the coach, Adam Mandziara, is often listed as Polish, as his father. But he never played in Poland, unlike Joachim Siwek, a real Polish import. Well, Prytz, Nilsson, Siwek, and Swiss strong players Weber and Sutter… quite enough to win a trophy. However, there was young talent here, something for the future: Adam Mandziara could be considered such promise, if only for the moment, but more so Rene Sutter and his younger brother Alain Sutter. But no matter how promising the team was, Young Boys will not win 7th Cup to this very day.

Switzerland – ranked 16th. There was new formula coming next season: the top league was going to be smaller, 12 teams instead of 16. Because of that, there was no direct promotion from Second Division, but promotion/relegation play-offs involving 8 teams – the top 4 in the Second Division and those taking 11-14th places in the top league. The last 2 teams were directly relegated.
FC Grenchen won the Second Division with 47 points, followed by FC Lugano with 42 points, FC Bulle – 3rd with 42 points, and ES Malley – 4th with 37 points.
Relatively unknown clubs on top, but as a whole the second level was made of similar clubs.
FC Winterthur was pretty much the best known club playing in the Second Division now and they were doing poorly: 10th with 25 points. Top row from left: Viktor Frank (President), Siegfried Thus, Rolf Müller, Vladimir Jakovljev, Ulrich Tschanz, Ernst Rief (Masseur).
Middle row: Hans Kodric (Coach), Roland Klein, Bruno Graf, Ota Danek, Marcel Rapp, Sepp Roth, Norbert Schneider, Dr. Bruno Peter (Arzt).
Sitting: Markus Schneider, Urs Egli, Wolfgang Vöge, André von Niederhäusern, Armin Bischofberger, Daniel Bernauer, Thomas Unseld.
Pretty much the reasons for reorganization of the championship was shown this way: smallish clubs in the second level and and not enough competitive teams in the top league. Anyhow, the top 4 went to the promotion/relegation play-offs, where they played against FC Wettingen, 14th with 19 points, FC Vevey-sports – 13th with 20 points, FC Basel – 12th with 24 points, and FC Aarau – 11th with 26 points.
The last two in the First Division went directly down: FC La Chaux-de-Fonds – 16th with 6 points and FC Locarno – 15th with 19 points. FC La Chaux-de-Fonds was another example of the need for change: they won only 1 match this season.
The 8 teams in the play-offs were combined by their final positions in the leagues in 2-legged direct eliminations. Only one of the second level teams went ahead in the first round – FC Lugano eliminated FC Vevey-sports 1-1 and 1-0. FC Bulle was pretty close to making a big sensation, but at the end FC Basel prevailed in penalty shoot-out – both legs ended 2-2. FC Aarau had no problem against ES Malley – 3-1 and 6-0, and FC Wettingen was without problems as well against FC Grenchen – 4-0 and 0-0. But the great supremacy of the top league clubs was mots evident in the final round: FC Basel destroyed FC Wettingen 7-0 and 1-2, and FC Aarau did the same to FC Lugano – 5-0 and 0-1.

Very poor season for FC Basel – 12th in the championship and almost eliminated in the first round of the promotion/relegation play-offs, but at the end – relief.
FC Aarau was slightly better than Basel in the regular season – 11th – but had no troubles in the promotion/relegation stage.
So, the best-placed top league clubs secured positions in the new reduced league of 1987-88.

BSC Young Boys (Bern) avoided the risk of relegation – 10th with 28 points.
AC Bellinzona – 9th with 31 points.

Lausanne Sports – 8th with 32 points.

FC St. Gallen – 7th with 34 points.
FC Zurich – 6th with 36 points.
FC Luzern – 5th with 36 points.
Servette (Geneve) – 4th with 36 points. Top row from left: Cacciapalia, Schnyder, Hasler, Bianchi, Genghini, Geiger
Middle row: Buri, Sinval, Kok, Guillou, Besnard, Favre, Trinchero
Sitting: Decastel, Erikson, Burgener, Mutter, Pavoni, Castella.
Not a bad squad on the surface. Yet, also an illustration of the need for reorganization – if one aging star (Genghini) is enough to keep a team at the top of the league, then the general level is quite low…
FC Sion – 3rd with 42 points. Great season for this club, usually well behind the best known clubs of the country.

Grasshopper (Zurich) – 2nd with 43 points. They managed to get ahead of FC Sion, but were not real runners for the title.

Thus, new and somewhat surprise winner – Xamax (Neuchatel). They won 21 games, tied 6, lost just 3. Scored 75 goals, allowed 27. 48 points at the end – 5 more than Grasshopper’s. The strong and confident season was not coming out of the blue – Xamax were having good period – but such a domination was surprising mostly in terms of the weakness of traditional leaders of Swiss football – Grasshopper, Zurich, Basel, Servette. Nevertheless, it was historic victory – the first title for Xamax. It was a testimony of the wonderful work done by their French coach Gilbert Gress. Two great names contributed on the field: the Irish striker Don Givens, whose peak was in the mid-1970s. Now he was 38 years old, but perhaps hos influence inspired his teammates to reach the top – he joined Xamax in 1981. And in 1985 arrived Uli Stielike directly from Real Madrid. Aging too and no longer the great world-class star, but at 33 he was still the top player of the Swiss team and his influence was strongly felt. Xamax was nice team, may be not very strong, but playing with great spirit and no one-time;wonder.
Well deserved first title,
Great triumph and joy.

The Cup. Interesting provincial final between Iraklis and OFI. Iraklis had won the Cup once – their only trophy, a 10-years old triumph. OFI had no trophies at all. Iraklis was seemingly the more solid team – two foreigners plus two Soviet-born players, one of them the great star Hatzipanagis. OFI depended on their Chilean midfielder Alejandro Hisis, but they were in great shape, up and coming team. Yet, it was equal match – 1-1 – which went to penalty shoot-out and OFI prevailed 3-1.
OFI triumphed with the Cup!
Iraklis was unable to win a second trophy and it was too bad, because this was pretty much the last chance of the great and quite unlucky Vassilis Hadzipanagis to win: he was already 33-years old and age was showing: he was unable to finish the final and its extra-time, substituted in the 98th minute.
Very likely the whole island of Crete danced the night – OFI won its first trophy ever and they were the club of the island. Difficult and may be chancy victory, but well deserved too – OFI was steadily going up in the last 5-6 years, they managed to build solid squad and their Dutch coach Eugene (Gene) Gerards knew his job. One has to appreciate this team: OFI had no chance to get or keep big talent. They had to use somewhat secondary players – players which were not going to attract the attention and the appetite of the big clubs from Athens, Piraeus, and Thessaloniki. And that applied to imports too – so they got little known Chilean midfielder and that was all. Even the coach was not famous… The risks were real anyway – Gerards was snatched by bigger club right after the Cup victory. But it was fantastic moment, the best ever season of OFI.

First Division. The clubs went on strike and refused to play the last three rounds of the championship – all except Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, OFI, and Panionios. That led to 6 points deducted from the records of the rebellious teams. AEK carried further 3-point deduction for match-fixing in the previous championship. However, the penalties did not affect the race for the title – there was none, Olympiakos reigned supreme.
PAS Giannina was last with 11 points and relegated.
Apollon (Athens) – 15th with 14 points, and Doxa (Drama) – 14th with 15 points were also relegated.
Diagoras (Rodos) survived – 13th with 16 points.
Apollon Kalamarias (Thessaloniki) – 12th with 17 points.

Aris (Thessaloniki) – 11th with 18 points.
Ethnikos (Piraeus) – 10th with 18 points.
Veria – 9th with 19th points.
Larissa – 8th with 19 points.
AEK (Athens) – 7th with 19 points.
Iraklis (Thessaloniki) – 6th with 25 points. The picture may be from this season – just may be.
PAOK (Thessaloniki) – 5th with 29 points.
Panionios (Athens) – 4th with 33 points. Decided not to go on strike and thus secure UEFA Cup spot – which was unlikely, if there was no strike. If Panionios joined the strike – no such spot either, for after point-deduction they would have been behind PAOK. Call it greed? Well, sportsmanship is not the word…
OFI (Crete) – 3rd with 38 points. Their best season ever. Did not go on strike and thus maintained bronze medal position – since Panionios refused to go on strike, if OFI did, they would have ended behind Panionios and without medals.
Panathinaikos – 2nd with 39 points. Not going on strike was decided perhaps in order to keep second position, but in any case this season was disappointment: they were far, far behind the arch-rivals.
Olympiakos (Piraeus) dominated the championship and won it with massive 10-point lead. They won 22 games, tied 5, lost 3, amassing 49 points. Scored 54 goals, allowed 24. True, three wins were just awarded, for the opponents were on strike, but the champions had no real rival this season. They too did not join the strike, but in the case it was not a matter of keeping position – perhaps they felt above such things like strikes.
Just for the sake of variety, a picture of the familiar champions dressed in their reserve kit. Good work of arguably the best known Greek coach in the 1970s and 1980s – Alketas Panagoulias. The squad was of course made of Greek national team players, although less famous than some other squads of Olympiakos. Naturally, imports played major role – the 31-years old Yugoslavian striker Milos Sestic, the 26-years old Uruguayan midfielder Jorge Barrios, and just in case somebody was injured – the 22-years old Canadian striker Igor Vrablic, fresh from the 1986 World Cup finals. Compared to the foreigners Panathinaikos had (Velimir Zajec, Marton Esterhazy, and Juan Rocha), Olympiakos’ stars were somewhat less famous, but younger.

Greece – ranked 17th, a clear sign of the continuous development and improvement of Greek football. Yet, in the same time it was football full of problems and this season was perhaps the most troublesome, because 7 teams in the Second Division and 12 of the 16 First Division teams had points deducted. The championship itself was dominated by one team, so all drama happened not at the top, but at the bottom.
Beyond second division clubs like
Kalamata and
Ionikos Asteras played, out of sight and out of mind.
Second Division, 20-team strong, had a big turn-over currently: 3 teams were promoted and 6 relegated. Survival was the big concerns for almost whole league, which perhaps led many to infringement of rules, to put it mildly. Pierikos, Kavala, Proodeftiki, and Kilkisiakos had 1 point deducted; Kastoria and Charavgiagos – 2 points deducted, and Egaleo (Athens) – 4 points deducted. Three of the penalized teams ended relegated. Relegation decreased the numbers of Athens clubs by 2, Piraeus and Thessaloniki by 1 each city. However, all that was somewhat set apart from the top the table, where 3 teams – exactly the number set for promotion – were far stronger than the rest. Anyhow, just a taste of the league:
Makedonikos N. Efkarpia (Thessaloniki) ended 16th and relegated.
Athinaikos Vironas (Athens) finished 12th – 2 points better than relegation zone. Athens lost 2 teams – Egaleo (20th) and Atromitos (18th) – but the other 2 teams from the capital survived: Athinaikos, Acharnaikos (13th) and Charavgiagos (10th). None, however, was strong enough.
And Kastoria, which had their best time not long ago, was lowly now – 5th, but hardly trying to get promoted. They were not the only former top league member now playing second level football and the season’s leaders were such clubs:
Levadiakos (Levadia) finsihed 3rd with 46 points.
Panserraikos (Serres) was 2nd – they came ahead of Levadiakos on better goal-difference.
Panachaiki (Patras) won the championship with 22 wins, 5 ties, 11 losses, 71-39 goal-difference and 49 points – 3 points ahead of Panserraikos and Levadiakos. Champions of Second Division was not bad at all, but promotion back to First Division was most important and the top three teams achieved that. All of them returning to top flight and naturally hoping to stay there.

The Cup. Ujpesti Dosza met Pecs at the final, which was played in front of only 3000 fans. It was a sorry match of the record of lowest attendance at Cup final of two years earlier – something of a comment on the state of Hungarian football. Ujpesti Dosza prevailed 3-2.

One may be sorry for the underdog for they came very close to winning the Cup, but… nothing for Pecsi MSC – or Pecs.
Ujpesti Dosza won its 6th Cup and the season was wrapped finely, but the revival was somewhat relative – this squad was inferior to the team of the first half of the 1970s by far.

First Division. Two outsiders and nothing much all the way to the very top, where two teams, way ahead of the rest, fought for the title. It was old Budapest rivalry, yet a bit odd and accidental.
Eger SE finished last with 17 points. True, they were last only on worse goal-difference, but even if they had better record, they were still going down.
Dunaujvaros FC bested Eger, but they were also hopeless outsiders and relegated – 15th with 17 points.
Crouching from left: Kiss, Ruppert, Miskovicz, Nemeth, Toro, Dupai, Florian (?), Tobar (?).
Middle row: Kornis (?) – administartor, Csorba, Lengyel, Kalmar, Jokob (?) – assistant coach, A. Kovacs – coach, Vilmos (?) – assistant coach, Ress, Grof, Szulya (?) – doctor.
Top row: Kruk (?), Sagi, Boldoczky, Hollo, Menyhart, E. Kovacs (?), Lehota, Lodis (?) – caretaker.
Both relegated teams just came back from Second Division and slipped down right away.
Videoton SC – 14th with 23 points. Not in danger of relegation, but what a slump… it was ‘only yesterday’ when they played European final. Terrible decline.

Siofoki Banyasz SE – 13th with 27 points. Staying in the league was their usual aim, so the season ended well enough.
Debreceni MVSC – 12th with 28 points.
Zalaegerszegi TE – 11th with 29 points.
Gyori ETO FC – looked like they lost part of their previous name: used to be Raba ETO – was another club in sharp decline: 10th with 29 points.
Szombathelyi Haladas – 9th with 30 points. The usual.

Bekescsabai Elore Spartacus – 8th with 31 points.
Pecsi MSC – 7th with 31 points.
Vasas SC (Budapest) – 6th with 32 points.

Ferencvaros – or Ferencvarosi TC (Budapest) – 5th with 33 points. Weak season, but not surprisingly so.
Honved – or Budapest Honved FC – was only 4th with 35 points. They lost bronze medals on worse goal-difference, but really it was a decline: they looked so firmly established as leaders just a year or two ago and now were entirely outside the race for the title.

Tatabanyai Banasz SC – 3rd with 35 points, beating Honved on goal-difference. Strong period for Tatabanya, which was mostly due to their ability to keep their few stars, particularly Kiprich – not an easy task for a provincial club and may be even more difficult at this time, when the big clubs did not have enough class and in the same time were busily selling players abroad. Of course, Tatabanya was not strong enough to run for the title.
Budapest was leading, apparently recovering from the strong provincial assault in the first half of the 1980s. Familiar rivals – Ujpesti Dosza and MTK – but somewhat not the central rivals. Both teams were way ahead of the rest of the league this season.
Eventually Ujpesti Dosza lost the race and finished 2nd with 40 points.
MTK Hungaria FC – or MTK-VM, or plainly MTK – the oldest Hungarian club won the championship with 43 points: 17 wins, 9 ties, 4 lost games. 52-24 goal-difference – the best scorers in the league. What a joy for the fans – this was the 19th title of their beloved club, but the title came after almost 30 years waiting – the last time MTK was champion in 1958! However, the victory seemed accidental – the team, solid as it was, was not great. The weakness of the other teams – Ujpesti Dosza included – helped MTK considerably. The new champions did not look like a team going to stay on top, but rather like one-time-wonder. And they were… had to wait another 10 years for the next title. But it was sweet, no matter the objective reality, to see the old club winning again.

Hungary – ranked 18th. In a nut shell: decline of the leading clubs of recent years – Honved, but most alarming Gyori ETO and Videoton. Ujpesti Dosza climbed back to leading position and Tatabanya enjoyed good spell. Surprising champion to a point. Hungary was leading Eastern Europe in professionalization of the sport, no doubt – now even Second Division clubs had sponsor’s adds on their shirts – but the effect was minimal: no matter what, Hungarian football was declining for a long, long time, and the increasing exodus of best players to the West probably accelerated the process. Still 2 points for a win, twp teams relegated from the top division and two promoted from the second level.
Second Division. Half of the 20-team league were former top league members, but the season was dominated by two teams, so there was no much excitement.
Csepel FC (Budapest) ended 4th with 46 points, but this was hardly a strong season. They lost 3rd place on goal-difference to even smaller neighbour – Volan SC (Budapest) – yet the battle for 3rd place was their best.
Vaci Izzo MTE from the small city of Vac, 20 km from Budapest, was comfortably ahead of the big city clubs – they fought for first place and lost it by a point, finishing with 51 points. But such a loss was not big deal – the team won promotion anyway and that mattered most.
Kaposvari Rakoszi SC won the championship with 52 points from 21 wins, 10 ties, 7 losses. 52-35 goal-difference – neither the best scorers, nor the best defenders, but who would care? They were going to play top league football again.