Football Journey

Ecuador played its usual complicated championship – ‘primera’ and ‘segunda etapa’ – the top 2 teams of each going to the final tournament. Two teams were relegated after the first stage, replaced by the corresponding winners of the Second Division of the first stage. But there was a difference this season: the league was going to be increased to 14 teams, so there were no relegated teams this year at all – the winners of first stage of the Second Division moved to First Division for the second stage, thus increasing it to 12 teams, and the winners of the second stage moved to top league for the next season, making the league 14-team strong.

El Nacional (Quito) won the ‘Primera etapa’ with 23 points. LDU (Portoviejo) clinched second place on better goal-difference. Both teams had to worry only for the final tournament from this moment. Second Division had its own winners, joining the ‘Segunda etapa’ of First Division:

Deportivo Quevedo won the first stage of Second Division and

Aucas (Quito) was second. Going a bit ahead, neither club was particularly strong for a surprise, but they also did not have to fret over relegation.

The ‘Segunda etapa’ of Second Division was won by

Manta, with America (Quito) finishing second – well done for both clubs, moving to the top league at least for the first stage of 1983. Just for the record, two teams unable to emerge from Second Division:

Macara, and

Deportivo Cuenca.

Deportivo Quevedo did quite well for a newcomer in the second stage of First Division – they finished 6th with 23 points. This may be not a photo from 1982, but at least is from this successful period of the club. Note the numbers: the great Ajax (Amsterdam) of the early 1970s is usually credited as a pioneer of permanent individual numbers higher than 11, but South Americans used individual numbers may be earlier – their inspiration was North American sports, hence, the numbers were often unusually high for a soccer team (24 and 35, for instance).

At the bottom, just like in the first stage, was Everest (Guayaquil). Terrible season for them – 12 points in the first stage and 10 in the second: their combined record was worse than the record of Deportivo Quevedo in their one stage!

The other big losers this year were Emelec – 4th in the first stage and 8th in the second stage – and Deportivo Quito.

Deportivo was 5th in the first stage, but sunk to 11th place in the second.

On the opposite way was 9 de Octubre (Milagro) – 8th in first stage, but climbing to 2nd place in the second stage – and qualifying, may be surprisingly, to the final. Barcelona ( Guayaquil) won the second stage.

The final round-robin tournament was between Barcelona, 9 de Octubre, El Nacional, and LDU (Portoviejo). After every team played 6 matches, there was no champion:

1. El Nacional 6 3 1 2 13-8 11

2. Barcelona 6 3 1 2 8-11 11

3. LDU 6 3 0 3 10-9 8

4. 9 de Octubre 6 2 0 4 7-10 4

Only in South America a team with negative goal-difference may win a title… normally, Barcelona should have been 2nd and done for, but here only points count and since they were even, a final play-off followed. Barcelona won at home 4-2. El Nacional bested them in the second leg – 3-0. Barcelona was still second and still had a chance to be a champion: again goal-difference did not count and third match was scheduled. And only now justice prevailed – and with a vengeance! El Nacional destroyed Barcelona 3-0.

Barcelona was second, it was not their year and also their final place was fair. On the other hand, football was robbed by a great curiosity: a team consistently second and even shaky looking by its results could have been a champion.

Deserving champions, second and first rows from right to left:

It was not an easy victory, but El Nacional did their job – they reached the final stage after winning the opening stage of the championship. Having nothing to play for in the second stage, they still performed well, finishing 3rd. Won the final tournament, but still had to go through difficult play-offs and won 2 of the three matches. Good year and 6th title!

Venezuela. The Second Division was won by Mineros de Guayana.

Mineros was promoted, which was great for them.

First Division played their usual championship of two phases. Was it known in advance, or decided later is unknown, but the league was reduced to ten teams in 1983 – hence, 3 teams were relegated after the end of the 1982 championship. Valencia FC, 12th and Deportivo Portugues, 11th, were last in the league and their relegation is understandable. The third club out is a mystery: Deportivo Galicia was 7th after the initial first phase with 24 points. Even if there was second phase for the lower half of the league their relegation makes no sense: they were far superior to the others and if any points were carried over to the final stage, they would have escaped. So it was either second stage starting from scratch and Deportivo Galicia suddenly lost from, or other reasons – financial irregularities, or something else. No matter – they were out.

The newcomers this year played well: Petroleros del Zulia (Maracaibo) was 8th after the first stage and, if there was second stage, they at least escaped relegation. Atletico San Cristobal did much better – after the first stage they were 3rd, only 2 points behind the winners.

ULA (Merida) won the first stage with 29 points – 12 wins, 5 ties, and 5 losses.

Estudiantes (Merida) was 2nd with 28 points.

The to 6 proceeded to the final stage, but not carrying any points from the opening. Equal terms for everybody, all starting with 0. Now the picture was different – only 2 teams maintained their from from the first stage – Deportivo Italia finished last – 6th. They were 5th after the opening stage. Estudiantes lost steam and instead of competing for the title, they finished 5th. ULA was in the race, but also lacked the strength of the first stage – they ended with 10 points, but dreadful goal-difference, which placed them 3rd. Portuguesa FC, 6th at the first stage, pushed forward at the final, but ended 4th. The other team going ahead was Deportivo Tachira, 4th in the first stage. Now they tried hard to win, but finished second – having the best goal-difference, though. 11 points they got from 3 wins 5 ties, and 2 losses. A point better were the newcomers – Atletico San Cristobal won 3 matches, tied 6, and lost only one. 12 points made them champions.

What a story! The club was founded in 1980 and in 1982 was already champion of Venezuela.

Rarely debutantes won titles and hardly ever 2-years clubs, but if we look from the distance of time, the success may be assessed differently: 1981 and 1982 stay alone in the history of the club – their only two victories: one time 2nd Division champions and one time 1st Division champions in succession. Most likely, it was a case of money poured down recklessly to satisfy local pride. After that money dried out perhaps, the expensive players drifted away, and that was that – one short flashy period, never to be repeated again. But it was great anyway – in 2 years climbing from nonexistance to the national title.

NASL story was rapidly coming to an end. It was scraping at the bottom – indoor tournaments were used as a way to stay afloat, but the league was crumbling. Seven clubs folded at the end of 1981 – Atlanta Chiefs, Calgary Boomers, California Surf, Dallas Tornado, Washington Diplomats, Minnesota Kicks, and Los Angeles Aztecs. Players were still coming from all around the world, but the transfers were no longer big exciting news. Rules were modified a bit, but even that was seemingly a last effort to accommodate FIFA demands rather than luring American public to the stadiums. 14 teams played in the championship, divided into three divisions and collecting the weird massive points under the elaborated league system, which practically rewarded every move with a point – it was always weird to the eyes of Europeans and South Americans, but now was grotesque: the rapidly declining league had teams finishing the first stage of the championship wit points ranging from 93 to 203. Anyhow, the championship was played until it reached the final in September 1982, played at Dallas. The ‘Soccer Bowl’82’ attracted less than 23 000. New York Cosmos and Seattle Sounders contested it – the most successful NASL club and one stable club, which seemingly managed to put strong roots. Jumping ahead in time, it was a West Coast phenomena – three clubs managed to establish some following and stability,which helped them through the lean 1980s and 1990s: Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, and Vancouver Whitecaps. All of them had no major competition in their cities – no baseball, American football, basketball, and hockey teams taking public attention away (Seattle had basketball and Vanvouver – hockey, but soccer survived as second most popular sport). The approach of the competitors was also different: Cosmos, true to its name and New York, always had truly international squad with huge names; Sounders depended entirely on British players. To a point, Sounders were better organized, but Cosmos always had plenty of talented players, who even in their old age were capable of prevailing over compact, but less imaginative squads. And Cosmos won – 1-0, Chinaglia scoring the winning goal in the 30th minute.

Sounders did well, but not well enough and the squad perhaps shows why: British based, as ever, but rather impoverished by now: Alan Hudson was just about the biggest name in the squad and he had a double role: playing assistant manager.

Cosmos was much heavier – but it always was: Chinaglia, Carlos Alberto, Neeskens, Rijsbergen, Bogicevic, Buljan, Romero, Cabanas. Compared to any other club in the league, very strong – yet, a few years back the list of great names was much longer: the end was coming, it was clear.

The First Division played the usual format: the league was divided into 4 groups of 5 teams at first and the top two of each group moved to the next direct-elimination stage. The two teams with least points in the first stage were to play the relegation play-off. Atlas and Tampico were the unlucky ones and their fight for survival was tight: each team won its home leg 1-0, so a third match had to be played in San Luis. Only now Atlas managed to survive, winning 3-1.

Tampico lost and was relegated. May be. There is always a big may be in Mexico.

The losers of the first stage were:

UNAM – 4th in Group 1 with 38 points.

Cruz Azul – 3rd in Group Group 2 with 43 points, unfortunately missing the play-offs on worse goal average.

The winners, going ahead were: America and UANL from Group 1, Univerisdad de Guadalajara and Deportivo Neza – Group 2, Zacatepec and Atletico Espanol – Group 3, and Atlante and Monterrey – Group 4. Was it a normal league, Atletico Espanol and Monterrey would not have been going ahead – Atletico Espanol earned only 33 points and Monterrey – 40. Cruz Azul had 43, Puebla – 41, and Atletico Potosino – also 41, which placed them 4th in the strong Group 2. But the division of the league into 4 groups often favoured otherwise weaker clubs.

In the quarter-finals earlier results did not matter, of course. Atlante eliminated Atletico Espanol.

Monterrey was eliminated by America.

Zacatepec was eliminated by Deportivo Neza, and

Universidad de Guadalajara lost to UANL. UANL was the only team not losing a leg – they went ahead with a tie and a win, all the others depended on aggregate goal difference after losing one leg and winning the other (the home one).

In the semi-finals a single goal decided the winner in the first pair:

Deportivo Neza lost the home leg 0-1 to Atlante and managed a 0-0 away, but that was the end of them.

One goal decided the other finalist too:

America lost the first leg 0-2 and won their home leg 1-0, which was not enough.

Thus, the final was between UANL and Atlante. UANL won 2-1 at home, then Atlante prevailed 1-0 and the match went into overtime. Nobody scored and the title had to be decided by penalty shoot-out. Only now UANL prevailed 3-1.

Atlante came close, but was unlucky to lose on penalties in front of home crowd. Such is life… the club had three stars,who helped, but also were disappointed at the end: the Argentinians Ruben Ayala and Ricrado La Volpe, and the Brazilian striker Cabinho, who already was a legend in Mexico.

Joy in the other camp – Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, known as Tigres.

One can say the boys were lucky, but their record during the season argues differently: if it was a normal league, Tigres would have been 4th after the first stage and only Atlante won more matches and scored more3 goals than them. They lost 10 games out of 38, but proved how shrewd and dedicated they were in the play-offs: 3 wins, 1 tie, and 2 losses. Atlante still had better record – 3-2-1, but their single loss was against UANL at the final and when it came to penalties, Lady Luck was not on their side. As a whole, UANL Tigres prevailed with the second-best record – not exactly just lucky.

Tigres delivered when mattered and won their second title. Their Uruguayan coach Carlos Miloc knew his job more than well – his career was a string of successes and he made Tigres a winning team.

Tigres may not have had players with the fame of Ayala and Cabinho, but they had major stars as well – the Peruvian striker Geronimo Barbadillo and the Mexican midfielder Tomas Boy were the leaders, the other key foreigners were experienced and helpful, although not such big names: the Urguyan defender Osvaldo Batocletti had already long strong career in Mexico and lesser known Brazilians Roberto da Silva and Geraldo Gonsalves helped as much as they could.

Mexico Second Division. Technically, playing for one promotional spot and the complicated mixed formula of the championship brought Oaxtepec and Tepic to the final. Oaxtepec hosted the first leg and won 1-0. Small lead, but they were also better in the second leg, winning 2-1.

Little known Coras Tepic had very strong season indeed, but lost. Coming so close to promotion and losing however minimally is always a disappointment, but otherwise it was good season – 2nd in the Second Division.

Oaxtepec were the champions of Second Division, a rare achievement, which also meant promotion to top flight.

Possibly, a picture of the team – at least, a photo of that period. Some names sound familiar – Vucetich, Negrete – but were they the well players or just namesakes is hard to tell. Transfer politics in Mexico were a bit strange, depending mostly on current money and ambitions, yet, it was unlikely leading players to appear in Second Division. Great for the moment, but the real test for Oaxtepec would be the next season.

 

Honduras created some interest, thanks to the good World Cup performance – and it was ‘discovered’ that the country resembled somewhat a black African country in football matters: it was divided somewhat, having a region of English-speaking and predominantly black population, a bit in conflict with whites, blacks, and natives, speaking Spanish. Whatever social tensions existed, in football terms they translated into favoritism of one or the other group, perhaps not as bad as it was in Africa. The World Cup performance was interpreted in this way: English speaking Hondurans were perhaps the key , for they had discipline and rational approach the Spanish-speaking Latinos lacked. The blend of the two cultures worked well. Was that true or not is hard to say. What can be said is that Honduras run a national championship for a long time and had old clubs.

Olimpia (Tegucigalpa), founded in 1912, won the 1982 championship. They were traditionally leading club, as usually clubs from capitals are, and this was there 13th title.

Standing from left: Oscar Garcia, “Indio” Ruiz, Roberto “Pirata” Fernandez, “Nilo” Martinez,

Mauricio “Guicho” Funez, Oscar Banegas.

First row: Alberto Merelles, Victor Romero, Hector Ucles, Alberto Centurion, Mario Hernan Juvini Carreño.

English-speakers were not presented here, judging by names, and the club was represented by only 2 players at the World Cup, none of which is pictured above. Whatever it was, locally Olimpia was strong even if other clubs – Real Espana, certainly – had more ‘stars’.

 

The World Cup brings attention to otherwise obscure countries – El Salvador was the typical outsider, familiar from the past, but Honduras left very good impression. The obvious development of the ‘Third world’ leads to paying more attention: both El Salvador and Honduras had long football traditions, but the scale was small and local. No famous clubs, no famous players – nothing to compare with Mexico. But both countries were more football-oriented than most Central American and Caribbean nations. Still, almost nothing could be said of their national championships, save for raw statistics.

Atletico Marte (San Salvador) won the Salvadorian championship this year. The club was quite young – founded in 1950 – but already was popular and leading one.

Practically nothing can be said about the champions – certainly they had national team players and some local stars, but the real information can be summed up in this: Atletico Marte won their 7th title.

CONCACAF organized international club tournament since 1959. But it was difficult to organize, maintain, and even more to make it popular. North and Central America is strange region – three huge countries and many tiny ones, especially those on the Caribbean islands. Economically, even without counting USA and Canada, the differences were and are enormous – almost entirely speaking of degrees of poverty. Politically, the small countries were ruled by various dictatorships for years, often ‘complimented’ by US military presence. Cultural traditions differed as a result, including sports: former British colonies tended to develop cricket. US influence made baseball and basketball popular. Back north, football was also in disadvantage, eclipsed by baseball, American football, basketball, and ice hockey. As a whole, only Mexico and French-influenced Haiti (which has the oldest football federation in this part of the globe) were football-oriented. But Haiti was desperately poor all the time and thus unable to develop the game. Lastly, to CONCACAF belonged countries otherwise belonging to South America – the three Gayana states and some islands, which should have been South American countries if geographic location was followed. The situation made staging international tournaments difficult and records are scarce – even in 1982 the CONCACAF Cup of Champions and Sub-champions leaves empty pages: how many teams from how many countries is unknown. It is still unknown did Deportivo FAS (El Salvador) played any match at all. Only two matches from the Caribbean section are known, but apparently there were more, because Don Bosco (Dominican Republic) was eliminated, along with another club, whose name remains uncertain – Palo Seco or Trintopec of Trinidad and Tobago. The Northern and Central Section, in which Deportivo FAS was supposed to play was also a big mess: 8 teams entered on paper – 2 from Mexico, 2 from USA, 2 from Guatemala, and one from Honduras and El Salvador each. Deportivo FAS was not among these initial clubs – Independiente was the Salvadoran representative. NASL had nothing to do with CONCACAF tournaments, so the US representatives were never heard of clubs – New York Pancyprian Freedoms (as the name suggests, a club belonging to the Cypriot immigrant community) and Brooklyn Dodgers. On what basis New York local clubs came to represent USA is unknown, but they did not play at all. They withdrew along with the Mexcian Cruz Azul. UNAM (Mexico) appeared in the second round and eliminated Vida (Honduras) – 2-2 and 5-0. No problem in the third round either – UNAM eliminated Comunicaciones (Guatemala) 2-2 and 3-0, and reached the final.

The Caribbean Section produced a final between teams from far South, if Northern-American at all – Defense Force (Trinidad and Tobago) vs Robin Hood, or SV Robinhood (Suriname). Robin Hood won 1-1 and 5-2.

The tournament final was quite unequal – Robin Hood vs UNAM.

Brave name, but there were limits… whatever football Suriname ever produced is associated with Holland: families moved often to the former colonial center and the kids were Dutch – Frank Rijkard and Ruud Gullit, for instance. Suriname had no noticeable players and no chance to have any, plus money were short. So short, the club decided to play both final legs in Mexico. They ‘hosted’ the first leg in Queretaro and managed a scoreless tie. UNAM won the second leg in Mexico City with great difficulty – 3-2. It should have been an easy win – the Pumas were leading 2-0 in the 25th minute. Ricardo Ferreti scored in the very first minute and in the 25th Luis Flores made it 2-0. But Klinker scored for Robin Hood two minutes later. In the 41st minute Ferreti scored his second goal, opening again 2-goal lead – which did not lasted: Rustemberg scored a penalty in the 44th minute. Exciting first half – and nothing later. No goals in the second half, the result stayed. Robin Hood was brave finalist indeed.

UNAM won the CONCACAF Champions Cup for the second time. It was not really noticeable tournament and the victory was not easy, but was important one for the club – the team coached by Bora Milutinovic was still rising from obscurity and beginning to collect trophies. International success, however small, was important for the image – in sharp contrast to traditional Mexican power like Cruz Azul, which seemingly decided there was no good reason to spend money on CONCACAF tournament. UNAM was building prestige and trophy room, they needed it.

The African Player of the Year award was voted in the end of 1982 and, as usually is, favoured those appearing at the last big international competition – the World Cup, in this case. And the results were fairer than usual, for Algeria and Cameroon played more than well at the world finals. Lakhdar Belloumi (Algeria) was voted third and he was the only top player still stationed in Africa – GC Mascara. Second was his compatriot Sallad Assad, playing for Mulhouse (France).

Thomas N’Kono was voted best, getting 83 points – 29 more than Assad, Hardly anybody could argue the fairness of the vote: N’Kono was voted 3rd in 1979, number one in 1979, and 2nd in 1980. The world ‘discovered’ him at the World Cup, but the Cameroonian goalkeeper was already a star in Africa. His excellent performance at the world finals got him immediately European contract and at the time of the vote he was playing for Espanol (Barcelona).

Already charming the Spaniards with his skills and trade-mark training paints he ever used instead of shorts, N’Kono replaced the Belgian national team goalkeeper Theo Custers in Espanol and at 25, he had many years to play ahead of him. N’Kono won his second continental award, a rare achievement, which, given his age and the move to solid European club, suggested more awards in the future.

The African Cup Winners Cup was almost played in full too – only Printing Agency (Somalia) withdrew without playing at ll and Gor Mahia (Kenya) decided to withdrew after losing the first leg at home against Dinamo Fima (Madagascar). Al-Mokaoulun (Egypt), Hearts of Oak (Ghana), Power Dynamos (Zambia), and Djoliba AC (Mali) reached the semifinals and here results were interesting: Power Dynamos prevailed at home 2-1 over Djoliba AC and then managed to tie the second leg 0-0. Al-Mokaoulun was seemingly on the losing end after home 1-1 tie, but surprisingly they won 2-1 visiting – not only home matches in Africa almost always were the decisive factor, but Hearts of Oak were traditionally strong team on continental scale. Anyhow, the final opposed the Egyptians to the Zambians, first leg played in Zambia. Neither club ever won a the trophy and neither club was familiar to anybody outside Africa – and perhaps not to many in Africa too.

Power Dynamos was also a very young club, established in 1971.

Al-Mokaoulun was older, but if there were familiar Egyptian names, this club was not among them. It looked like sudden rise. The boys won 2-0 visiting and repeated the same result at home – Al-Mokaoulun won the Cup Winners Cup for the first time and made Egyptian football dominant this year on club level. Well done.