Second Division. 22 teams, the top 2 promoted to First Division and the last 3 relegated to Third Division. Two teams dominated the championship and there were also 2 outsiders. As a whole, the championship brought familiar and long lasting criticism. Only the winners were praised – and for good reason. The turbulent reality of USSR left its stamp, partly in football terms, partly in political terms.
SKA Karpaty (Lvov) was the absolutely hopeless outsider this season – last and relegated with 17 points. Top row from left: Saulevich, V. Yurchishin, Zhuravchik, S. Yurchishin, Kuleshevich, Bandura, Batich. Middle row: Kvasnikov, Tishtenko, Kulchitzky, Rossikhin, Potochyak, Pshik. Front: Gula, Laba, Derkach, Vassilitckik, Farkovetz, Leskiv.
If one reads Ukrainian, the opening would be a big surprise: ‘The reborn football team Karpaty’. How come a team so weak and relegated is praised? The photo must be from the end of 1989, very likely after the championship already ended and the reason for praise is nationalistic – the city of Lvov had 2 clubs ten years ago: Karpaty and SKA. Karpaty was the beloved home club with which local Ukrainians identified. SKA was Army club and because of that seen if not entirely Russian, at least representing Soviet power, which deprived Ukrainians from their own state. The amalgamation of the two clubs about 10 years earlier was disliked by local population – the idea may have been more sporting, than political, to create one solid and strong club at time when Karpaty was rapidly losing ground, but was seen mostly in political terms by the fans. Lvov was quite a cradle of Ukrainian nationalism, sometimes expressed at football games and getting stronger and more openly expressed at the 1980s progressed, so the amalgamation of the two local clubs may be aimed at suppressing it, but the likelier result was the opposite. SKA Karpaty failed to achieve its original aim and instead of going up, eventually went down, reaching the shameful point of relegation. And with that the hated club was finished, SKA was separated and Karpaty reborn. Hence, the triumphal tone – big hopes for great future… in Third Division.
Daugava (Riga) was the other outsider – much better than SKA Karpaty, but worse than anybody else. 21st with 26 points and relegated.
SKA (Rostov) was 20th with 32 points. They tried to survive, but eventually lost the race and were relegated. It was not all that long ago when SKA won the Soviet Cup and in general they were a club associated with First Division, but times were changing – even at home. Now the other club of Rostov, Rostselmash, was ascending and SKA – descending. It was quite a reverse – traditionally, SKA was the prime football representative of the city, and the club belonging to and named after to industrial plant for agricultural machinery, which was a pariah just a few years ago, not even a proper local rival, played in Third Division. Now the picture was changing and eventually was entirely reversed.
Kuban (Krasnodar) – 19th with 34 points. Like SKA, they had better days in the past and now were in crisis, but at least they managed to escape relegation.
Dinamo (Batumi) – 18th with 35 points. The Georgian club was mostly happy to maintain a place in Second Division, but this was their last season in Soviet football.
Spartak (Ordzhonikidze) – 17th with 35 points. Survival was on their minds this season, rather small aim. Their fate will change soon, pretty much as soon as their home city restored its original name Vladikavkaz. The most interesting figure in the 1989 squad was the coach – Gazziev was on his way to become one of the most successful coaches in the post-Soviet Russia.
Shinnik (Yaroslavl) – 16th with 36 points. Weak season for the league oldtimers. Yet, they avoided relegation. Front row from left: E. Kotrussov – administrator, S. Novosselov, D. Popov, Yu. Rodionov, E. Martyanov, A. Tzenin, E. Bushmanov, B. Pomazov, V. Gavrikov – masseur. Standing: V. Petrov – team chief, A. Nikolaev, B. Gravrilov – coach, Kalashnikov, R. Bilyaletdinov, I. Makarov, M. Morozov, V. Bodrov, M. Chesnokov, A. Tyutikov, S. Nikitin, V. Sotnikov, A. Kolesnikov, V. Chistyakov – doctor, V. Frolov – assistant coach.
Kuzbass (Kemerovo) – 15th with 36 points.
Rostselmash (Rostov) – 14th with 38 points. Perhaps this season was the turning point – SKA not just finished bellow their ‘lesser’ neighbours, but was relegated and Rostselmash practically became the leading club in Rostov. As it happened, there was no turning back.
Torpedo (Kutaisi) – 13th with 41 points.
Pakhtakor (Tashkent) – 12th with 43 points.
Geolog (Tyumen) – 11th with 43 points.
Nistru (Kishinev) – 10th with 43 points. Top row from left: Pivtzov, Tropanetz, Vassilyev, Rolevich, Fink, Savelyev, Slavinsky. Middle row: Chistov, Kapatzina, Goyan – administrator, Soltan – team chief, Aleskerov – coach, Tzinkler – assistant coach, Losenko – doctor, Flentya, Botnerash. Front row: Savchenko, Shulaev, Kuzhetzov, Protzenko, Safronenko, Syrbu, Pavlov, Sirotyuk.
Kotaik (Abovyan) – 9th with 44 points.
Neftchi (Baku) – 8th with 46 points.
Metalurg (Zaporozhye) – 7th with 46 points.
Tavria (Simferopol) – 6th with 48 points.
Fakel (Voronezh) – 5th with 49 points.
Dinamo (Stavropol) – 4th with 50 points.
Kairat (Alma-ata) – 3rd with 55 points.
Guria (Lanchkhuti) – 2nd with 63 points. Promoted for second time, but… there was no second season in the USSR First Division for them. On the surface, it was lovely Cinderella story – small club from small town reached the top league for a second time and may be would even stay in it longer than a single season. Highly admirable success. Bellow that… something different. It was a bit strange that in time of general decline of Georgian football,which lost its attractiveness, did not produce new great talent in some years and Dinamo (Tbilisi) lost not only its leading position in Soviet football, but dropped down to insignificance, some small Georgian clubs were going up: Dinamo (Batumi) moree or less establish itself in the Second Division, Dinamo (Sukhumi) won promotion to the Second Division, and Guria – to First Division. In time of general decline, there were going to be 2 Georgian teams in the top league and 3 in Second Division – at the time of its peak, Georgia was hardly able to make two teams – after Dinamo (Tbilisi) concentrated the best, there were barely enough good players left for Torpedo (Kutaisi) to keep a place in the Second Division. Now both traditional Georgian teams were quite weak, but smaller clubs were going up – the secret was money. There was money in Georgia and flamboyant Georgians were ready to spend for some local glory. Means were secondary to glory… so, players were lured from elsewhere, even from higher leagues, to play for solid salaries. Bribes were made… for instance, Guria, at home, beat CSKA (Moscow), but it was obvious to those who saw the game that the game was ‘doctored’. The referee was blamed and bribes were not mentioned, but complains of bad refereeing in games involving Guria were made before and usually the team benefited from that. As a team Guria had little chance to survive in the top league, unless recruiting more good players, which had to be from outside Georgia because of the lack of local talent. All that for the next season… which never came, for Georgian clubs left the Soviet championship.
CSKA (Moscow) won the Second Division championship with 64 points from 27 wins, 10 ties, and 5 lost games. 113-28 goal-difference. Top row from left: S. Kolotovkin, O. Malyukov, V. Broshin, I. Korneev, M. Kolesnikov, V. Tatarchuk, V. Shashenok -doctor.
Middle row: V. Murashko – team chief, I. Posokh – masseur, D. Bystrov, S. Krutov, D. Kuznetzov, P. Sadyrin – coach, S. Fokin, D. Galyamin, V. Kardivar – administrator, A. Kuznetzov – assistant coach, B. Kopeykin – assistant coach.
Front row: D. Gradilenko, V. Yanushevsky, M. Eremin, Yu. Shishkin, V. Massalitin, S. Dmitriev.
Special attention was paid to this team and for good reason. Winners always attract analytical attention and based on their current success very often great future was predicted, not always fulfilled. This time, however, predictions proved right, if not prophetic. The first optimistic sign was not that much their Second Division title, but the way it was done, the new approach and the implementation of it. True, CSKA prevailed over Guria by only 1 point, but it was high above the rest of the league and unlike Guria, their success was blameless. They set an all-time record of both First and Second divisions in scoring – nobody before scored 113 goals in single season. In the same time, it was not just reckless attacking football, based on outscoring any opposition – CSKA also had the best defensive record this season, allowing only 28 goals in their own net. The second-best in both categories were distant seconds – Guria scored 78 goals, and Fakel received 36. There was a sense that the long and painful decline of CSKA finally came to end and their new coach – Pavel Sadyrin – had full credit for that, plus some change of philosophy in the club, now more adjusted, or at least trying to adjust to the rapidly changing reality. Sadyrin won the Soviet title a few years back with Zenit (Leningrad), so he had strong reputation already. However, he left Zenit before the 1989 under scandalous circumstances – the players he made champions did not want him as a coach, there were mutual accusations and finally he was voted out of Zenit by the players. That was CSKA’s great luck… Sadyrin was not going right away to CSKA, but rather to work abroad, yet, CSKA’a administration managed to convince him to coach their team. It was challenging and taxing prospect, perhaps not even possible if the CSKA did not articulate changes in their outdated philosophy and, more importantly, implemented them. The decline of CSKA, started in the 1970s, was mostly due to changing realities in football – the center of the game moved from Moscow to Kiev and some other provincial clubs dared to challenge the big clubs from the capital as well – it was a matter of money. It was a well known secret that players are paid and very often even run-of-the-mill Second Division clubs were paying better than CSKA – even when football became somewhat professional in the 1980s and salaries became known, the difference was that smaller clubs were able to give 6 to 10 times larger premiums than CSKA (salaries were more or less equal and relatively small, the real money players got were the premiums). CSKA fell behind the times, for they used their traditional approach: as an Army team, they could take any player under the pretext of his fulfilling the obligatory military service, but could him longer than the fixed service time only by making him an officer – and paying him according to rank. With time, this approach became ineffective – players and their original clubs hated the heavy-handed grabbing used by the Army and found ways to avoid it. Money was the other big reason for players trying to avoid CSKA – it may have been prestigious and well-paid job to be an Army officer, but no more – now other clubs paid much more, one did not have to play for practically nothing, if a mere soldier, or to wait years for promotion to higher rank, which cannot be very high anyway. And new generations of players preferred freer life than Army life, however relaxed. Thus, CSKA gradually became unable to recruit strong players and even less of building and maintaining strong team. Instead, they had rag-tag squads, formed from whoever they were able to enlist for military service – made of players mostly killing time until their service was finished and departing immediately for better life elsewhere. No wonder CSKA suffered greatly during the 1980s and sunk to Second Division. Sadyrin found such a team when he arrived – players mostly thinking where is best for them to play, ready to leave CSKA as soon as possible. True, the CSKA brass announced a change of philosophy – the club would no longer take players just because they had to serve in the Army, but only players who wished to play for CSKA – that is, a change from recruitment without consent to recruitment with player’s consent. This was a big change, but it involved future players, not the current ones. Different way of paying them perhaps was also invented, but it was never made public – no matter what it was, CSKA was going through transition to professionalism. And that were the arguments convincing Sadyrin to take charge of CSKA. His early days were mostly talking to players, trying to convince them there was something to put an effort for. He succeeded – no player left the club and the new recruits, although not numerous, were of players eager to play for CSKA – Sergey Dmitriev arrived mostly to be with his coach, for he was champion with Zenit under Sadyrin and against the kicking out of the coach. The Zenit’s scandal made him leave the club – and join the new club of Sadyrin. V. Yanushevsky was also USSR champion – with Dinamo (Minsk). Both were solid and experienced recruits, with significant authority too. O. Sergeev arived from up and coming Rotor (Volgograd) and finally V. Minko from Dinamo (Barnaul). Not top rate players, but solid, reliable and ambitious – that was strong addition to the already existing team, which did not lose a single regular. The team believed in Sadyrin and was more than willing to follow his methods, which were rather tough in training, but were also modern – CSKA, for instance, used 3-men defense this season,which was the current modern tactic – the players were willing to be under Sadyrin, because he was modern coach, not someone using outdated methods and tactics. So, rather quickly CSKA was transformed into solid and even exciting team. Sadyrin’s work was so good that even various misfortunes did not affect the triumphal road to victory – newcomers Dmitirev and Sergeev missed half-a-season each due to injuries, which depleted the striking line almost to nothing. True, Massalitin proved his scoring abilities and with 32 goals was the top scorer of the championship, but he never trained properly when younger, and his play has various shortcomings and defects. Yet, his scoring talent was well used, almost the solitary striker of the team, because of the injuries Dmitriev and Sergeev suffered. Perhaps the best part of Sadyrin’s work was finding common language with the captain of CSKA Tatarchuk, an old timer and perhaps the only player in the team with Army roots. Of course, he was more than just a good player – Tatarchuk won Olympic Gold with team USSR in 1988, but he was pretty much alone in the club for a long time and also somewhat represented the old Army spirit, which could have triggered a clash between leading player and coach – but Sadyrin found a way to deal with Tatarchuk, who craved some success with the club, obviously getting tired with indifferent teammates and meandering between First and Second Division. There was still some misunderstanding between Tatarchuk and the rest of the team, but that was playing misunderstanding now, not personal – a lot of Tatarchuk’s passes did not reach the intended teammate, largely because his adeas were not perceived by the receiver, but Sadyrin kept him on the field even when it was obvious that nothing comes out of Tatarchuk passing. Confidence was built and maintained that way and as a whole CSKA played attractive winning football, so the fans returned – good for moral as well. No wonder CSKA was seen as a bright prospect for the future, although it was clear that team needed more classy players to make impact in the top league – but Spartak (Moscow) of 10 years ago was recalled as an example: back then they started rebuilding under new, but respected coach, in the Second Division, won it with a team which looked like wanting reinforcement, and with the same team won the Soviet title the next year. May be CSKA will do the same?