Bulgaria was one of the worst teams at the 1974 World Cup and it was not just a momentary flop, but a much deeper problem. The crisis was recognized only in part: Bulgarian football was falling behind the best in the world; it needed to adopt – and quickly – the new tendencies of playing and training. As a practical measure, the national coach was sacked and there was urgent call for replacement of old players with new ones. So, far nothing new – these are traditional football practices – and in the Bulgarian case, they were not radically done either for one simple reason: there was not much talent to choose from. In general, the 1970s were perhaps the most mediocre decade in Bulgarian football, and the post-World Cup season was particularly bleak. The general crisis was best represented by the top clubs – CSKA ‘Septemvriisko zname’ and Levski-Spartak. Both teams were obviously aging and over the hill – now, in football aging team does not automatically mean old players, but a team already playing together for 4-5 years, reaching the top of its performance and slumbering downhill with predictable, inefficient, and boring game. The aging of CSKA was already detected by 1973 and now Levski joined them – in fact, the ‘Blues’ played mediocre football from the beginning on 1974, when they won the title thanks to the beautiful half-season in the Autumn of 1973. It was dangerous indication that they clinched the title only 1 point ahead of the arch-enemy and with more losses than CSKA too (6 vs 5, all matches lost in the spring!) Both clubs took ‘urgent’ measures… which means both changed coaches, but in different times. CSKA sacked their coach for many years – and club legendary player from the 1950s – Manol Manolov by the end of 1973. The fans were not entirely convinced of his change, for it came soon after CSKA eliminated mighty Ajax from the European Champions Cup. He was replaced with his assistant – and former teammate – Nikola Kovachev, whose whole coaching experience was exactly as assistant coach of Manolov. Quite predicatably, Kovachev did not improve the team and after the end of the season he was sacked and replaced with… Manol Manolov. Levski kept Dimitar Doychinov longer, for he made them champions… but when Ujpesti Dosza literally destroyed Levski in the 1/16 finals of the 1974-75 European Champions Cup and the fall half of the new season showed increasing weaknesses and lack of form and inspiration, his days were numbered. New coaches appeared in the winter break – Ivan Vutzov and Dobromir Zhechev as assistant. It was more than surprise change – to the best of my knowledge, this was the first time ever one of the leading Bulgarian clubs hired young coaches with no experience whatsoever. Now, both graduated from the Highest Institute of Sport – which was equal to regular University – and at the time a degree from this educational institution made them certified coaches, so they were formally competent. But Vutzov so far was employed as administrator and never coached any team. Zhechev started the season still as a regular player. How good or bad Vutzov and Zhechev were is hard to tell: they lacked experience certainly, but the team was just too bad anyway. CSKA, on the other hand, returned conservatively to their old coach, which only shows the poverty of Bulgarian football at the time: neither club was able to find anybody better, thus it was either return to the already known, or jump into the entirely unknown. Coaches, however, were not the full solution anyway: summer transfers showed how impoverish Bulgarian football was. CSKA got three new players – Stefan Velichkov from Etar (Veliko Tirnovo), Nikola Hristov from Dunav (Rousse), and Kevork Tahmissian from Cherno more (Varna): a full back, centre-forward, and attacking midfielder. All were already well established players, not very young, and hardly improving their game anymore. Velichkov played at the World Cup; Hristov was occasionally included in the national team, but never really played, and Tahmissian was solid provincial player. Solid, but hardly better than the players CSKA already had. Solid, but not exciting and not at all capable of leadership. In short, not players for the future and not players to build a new team around them. In the past CSKA got young and promising players, who developed into stars and leaders in the club – now there was nobody promising, and new players were got not to build new team, but to patch an old one. Levski did even worse: Krassimir Borissov from Lokomotiv (Sofia), Emil Spassov from the junior team, and Ognyan Bochev from Botev (Ihtiman), a Second Division club. Attacking midfielder and two strikers. Borissov played at the World Cup less than a full match and generally was considered problematic player. Bochev scored a lot for his old club, but it was in the lower divisions – he was never seen as a potential starter anyway. Spassov was not taught a regular player at first either. Significantly, no new defender appeared in the summer, when it was obvious that at least two regulars were over the hill and near retirement. It will suffice to say that none of the new boys shined – Velichkov was more or less stable, but, at best, roughly equal to his competitors. Hristov was uneven, Tahmissian hardly played at all – Georgy Denev, still young, was much better even with his annoying tendency to play alone. Borissov had rough time adapting to his new club and in his first season he was generally considered a big mistake. Bochev predictably was on much lower level than his new teammates even when they were out of form. Spassov started brightly, then faded… At the end, from the whole bunch only Borissov managed to establish himself, however slowly, and was with Levski few years later (Spassov too, but after a spell with ZhSK Spartak (Varna), where he was send at one point as hopeless). Everybody else was dismissed, leaving no big memories. Clearly, the country produced nothing good enough for radical change and the big clubs were so desperate that during the winter break they acted in unison – usually, the enemies pillaged other clubs individually, but not this time: they sacked Minyor (Pernik) together. Levski grabbed the right winger Filip Slavchev; CSKA – the left winger Angel Slavov. Both clubs were clearly driven by desperation, for it was highly unusual transfers to be made in mid-season (in the 1970s, it was still unusual everywhere in Europe, except England). After destroying Minyor’s attacking line, the ‘grand’ clubs got some more talent – CSKA included Ivan Metodiev and Yordan Hristov; Levski – Georgy Ganev. Metodiev was from CSKA’s junior team – and the club hardly ever used own juniors. Hristov was an enigma – he practically appeared from nowhere. Ganev was former junior of Levski, who played for obscure Second Division club before the ‘Blues’ remembered his existence. Once again, nothing much happened in terms of improvement… but some old horses retired curiously during the season: Zhechev, Vassil Mitkov, and Tzvetan Vesselinov at mid-season and officially. The great goalscorer of CSKA Petar Zhekov not that much retired than expired – he injured himself at the start of the season (it was hilarious self-injury: Zhekov clumsily missed a ball, driving his foot into the ground, falling down in pain and practically never recovering from this. There was a defender nearby, who instead of starting laughing run to the referee arguing innocence – afraid, that he will be yellow-carded, although he was metres away from Zhekov when the fat old star kicked the grass instead of the ball.) Well, tough time and dark horizons – CSKA and Levski had nobody to steal from the whole country: if this was not a deep crisis, what is? CSKA won the title a point ahead of Levski, but scored fewer goals than ‘the Blues’ and received more goals than them too. Levski was not with best attack and defense, though: third placed Slavia scored most goals – 56, and 4th placed Dunav (Rousse) had the best defense, allowing only 28 goals. Numbers are often misleading in football: Dunav hardly had strong defense – it was rather a case of weak strikers in almost every other club. Down the scale went Lokomotiv (Plovdiv), which was constantly among the top three since 1969. Their city rivals, Trakia, were even lower. Lokomotiv (Sofia) settled in mid-table, and Etar (Veliko Tirnov), which was 4th the previous season and started this one with international games in the UEFA Cup ended relegated to the Second Division. Mediocrity ruled and there was no way out…

Champions by hook and by crook – CSKA ‘Septemvriisko zname’. Bottom, left to right: Stoyan Yordanov, Bozhil Kolev, Ivan Metodiev, Dimitar Penev - captain, Georgy Denev, Kiril Stankov, Yordan Filipov. Middle: Stefan Velichkov, Todor Simov, Stefan Mikhailov, Borislav Sredkov, Angel Slavov. Top: Yordan Hristov, Plamen Yankov, Ivan Zafirov, Tzonyo Vassilev, Dimitar Marashliev.

Second, not because they were that good, but because there was not any better club – Levski-Spartak. Top, left to right: Dobromir Zhechev – assistant coach, Stefan Aladzhov, Stefan Staykov, Kiril Ivkov – captain, Milko Gaydarsky, Tony Dzhefersky, Botyo Malinov, Nikolay Iliev, Georgy Todorov, Ivan Vutzov – coach. Bottom: Filip Slavchev, Pavel Panov, Georgy Tzvetkov, Stefan Pavlov, Ivan Stoyanov, Voin Voinov, Georgy Dobrev, Emil Spassov, Georgy Ganev.

Speaking of snowy lands… Sweden, like Switzerland, did not have strong clubs, but unlike the Swiss had strong national team. And unlike the Swiss, was still running amateur football. If Swiss players rarely went abroad, the Swedes did that constantly, which did not help the clubs – in Europe, Swedish clubs did not count as a force. But this was to change and the change was coming from one of the most constant clubs – Malmo FF. 1975 was good year for them: they won a double. It was 11th title and 9th cup, evenly spread through different decades. Success was not a news for the club even in the 70s – they won the title in 1974, and 1970, and 1971.
Top, left to right: Eric Persson – President of the club, Harry Jonnson, Staffan Tapper, Bo Larsson, Anders Ljungberg, Sten Stjernquist, Krister Jacobsson, Krister Kristensson, Robert Haughton – coach, Egon Jonsson - administrator.
First row: Thomas Sjoberg, Roland Andersson, Jan Moller, Roy Andersson, Tommy Andersson, Tore Cervin, Tommy Larsson.
What about this squad? Well if you look back to the champions of 1971 and 1972, a difference occurs: Atvidabergs FF came from nowhere; had few exciting young players; won two titles; the young stars went abroad; the club started to fade. But if you look at Malmo FF, it was more or less the same squad from the late 1960s, led by Bo Larsson and Staffan Tapper (the best known players outside Sweden). Handful of national players, who for some reason never went abroad – Moller, Roland Andersson, Roy Andersson. It was slowly simmering and ripening squad, coached by young Englishman – Haughton was barely 35 years old in 1975, but already had a few Swedish titles. Longivity was the secret, which is even strange, for as a rule, a successful squad has a life of about five years: the full stretch of Malmo was 10 (going a bit ahead here: it was pretty much the same team reaching the European Champions Cup in 1979. The boys, who won the Swedish championship in 1970.) Longivity… the captain Krister Kristensson played 626 games for the club. Bo Larsson scored 289 goals in 546 games for Malmo – and he managed to play 3 seasons in West Germany as well. And these two were far from exception – it was a squad playing together year after year, and somehow the older they were getting, the better they were playing – contrary to the usual scenario of the sport. Yet, 1975 was not their finest year internationally and nobody paid attention. Even in Sweden – some of the boys were to be included in the national team later (Moller and Ljungberg, for instance.) Local heroes… one thing Malmo FF failed to do: they aimed to beat IFK Gotteborg’s record of 48 matches without a loss – but managed only 36.

Sometime in the midst of the 70s vast survey was conducted in Europe, looking for the most popular sport and the social position of the sportsman. Football was – predictably – number one, except for 4-5 countries, having a lot of snow. The only surprise was Republic of Ireland, but Switzerland, belonging to the snowy states, was not. As for social position, the football player did not count anywhere – people still preferred their children to become doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Footballers ranked very low, no matter how much money and fame the profession was bringing already. Solid, quiet, traditional useful professions were much more desirable and respectful. And which country would be more solid, quiet, and respectful than Switzerland where trains run on time, streets were clean, people serious, and business sound and fair. No wonder the clock is the ‘symbol’ of Switzerland… and football there – lowly, and – as respectful things go – boring. Flamboyant fun and unpredictable artistry belonged to the unruly South… and not surprisingly in football terms the Swiss – so far – were hardly famous: they organized and hosted the World Cup in 1954 and had Karl Rappan. Not much for otherwise long football history, since the game started earlier in Switzerland than most countries. Well… Rappan was Austrian, but never mind… Swiss football was solid and sound, topped by their tidy 14-team first division. Period. Period? Swiss football was as mysterious as the Greek one – the Greeks run officially ‘non-professional’ league in which professional clubs and players kicked the ball. They did not officially allow foreign players, yet imported since 1959. Their football was ridden with corruption and scandals. But what can you expect from the South? Sound and fair game belongs to the Swiss… usually the Swiss football was called ‘semi-professional’, notoriously unclear term. When Ferenc Puskas, Zoltan Czibor, and Sandor Kocsis defected from Communist Hungary in 1956, the Hungarian Federation complained and FIFA and UEFA banned the defectors from playing anywhere. Kocsis played for Young Fellows (Zurich) until the ban was lifted – in the 1957-58 season he scored 7 goals in 11 games for the Swiss club. So, the Swiss did not really follow ‘sound and fair’… but even more curious is the club enjoying the services of the great star: Young Fellows are obscurity today (actually, they don’t exist anymore – they merged with another club), and were pretty obscure back in the 1950s as well. Lowly, yet able to disregard FIFA and EUFA, and pay for a world class star. In 1972 Otmar Hitzfeld played for Basel specifically to be able to maintain amateur status and play at the Olympic games for West Germany. His Swiss teammates were not considered amateurs, though… at least not the national players. Let’s imagine that stateless Kocsis was living on donations for refugees; Hitzfeld – on German welfare cheques, or student grant, or was born rich; and the countless Yugoslavians were ordinary gastarbeiters, playing football after 8-hour shift in the clock factories… but imagination ends in 1973, when Teofilo Cubillas joined Basel. Can you imagine, that the best ever Peruvian player went to Switzerland just because liked the snow of the Alps better than the snow of the Andes? Cubillas was professional player and nothing else. The ‘semi-professional’ football was no longer mostly ‘amateur’, it seems… but was it elevated to fully professional? Looks similar to Greece… although football is structurally murky: except for North America, even today theoretically an amateur club can climb up to first division and win a title. Less theoretically, it is possible to win the national cup of any country. In reality – never happens, but it is not impossible by the rules. And may be because of that there was no need to announced fully professional football in Switzerland, but by 1975 there was no doubt that it was professional.
Basel, by then without Hitzfeld and Cubillas, were good enough to win the Cup.
No amateurs here… Basel still strong, but beginning to give way to others – Swiss football never had really dominant club. FC Zurich, traditionally strong and one of the ‘usual suspects’, won the championship. They did the same the previous year, so they were not just one-time wonder. However, in 1974 they finished 12 points ahead of the second placed Grasshoppers – in 1975 Zurich was only 6 points above Young Boys. They also lost more matches then 1973-74 – 6 in total, vs only one the previous year. Either Swiss football was becoming more competitive, or the champions weaker… but who would criticize winners?
Front, left to right: Rene Botteron, Daniel Jeandupeux, Max Heer, Karl Grob, Kobi Kuhn.
Back row: Ilija Katic, Pirmin Stierli, Renzo Bionda, Hilmar Zigerlig, Rosario Martinelli, Ernst Rutschmann.

As a whole, typical Swiss team… good, solid, sound… far from greatness. The West German coach Timo Konietzka was the mastermind, but he was, at best, solid professional. The team had one of the best Swiss players at the time – Kobi Kuhn. Had perhaps the second-best goalkeeper in the country. Had foreign attackers – the Yugoslav Ilija Katic and the Italian Rosario Martinelli – who were strong enough for Switzerland, but hardly real stars. But it also had two young players, who were considered the big hope of Swiss football: Botteron and Jeandupeux. With players like that it looks like the Swiss were destined for better days… since in the 70s long hairs indicated greatness, Botteron had hair so long, that there was no doubt he was to pull out the Swiss game from mediocrity. However… Jeandupeux moved to play in France and Botteron got a haircut… and the Swiss had to wait until the 1990s, when to be a football player was preferable than to be a schoolteacher.

With double-winning team, any other success could be only partial, but sometimes partial success is remembered. Sturm (Graz) reached the final for the Austrian Cup and lost it, but earned their first spot in the European Cup Winners Cup.
Sturm was founded in 1909 as working men club – in the usual opposition to the ‘bourgeois’ clubs, in this case to Grazer AK, founded in 1902 by university students. However, the club with militant name kept modest existence for many, many years, satisfied with local success in Styria (hard to believe, but tiny Austria is a federation of 9 autonomous states). On larger scale Sturm managed to win one amateur Austrian championship in the distant 1934 and absolutely nothing else. So, reaching the Cup final in 1975 was feeling good.
Top, left to right: Rumpf – assistant coach, Brandl – masseur, Rauscher (?), Gruber, Heinz Zamut, Taller (?), Heribert Weber, Trenk (?) – administrator, Manfred Ruth, Anton Pichler, Gernot Jurtin, Kurt Stendal, Dr. Hubert – team doctor, Karl Schlechta – coach.
Bottom: Manfred Wirth, Anton Ringert, Wilhelm Huberts, Walter Saria, Benkyo (?), Refic Muftic, Manfred Steiner, Heinz Russ, Hubert Kulmer.
Modest club with modest squad – a few players, like Anton Pichler, were included in the Austrian national team now and then, but without making waves. The foreigners were hardly known either – the Danish striker Kurt Stendal and the Yugoslav goalkeeper Refic Muftic. Contrary to their name, the Styrians were not to take neither Austria, not Europe by storm.

Austrian football, by mid-1970s, was hanging on old reputation, which was getting increasingly thin. It was reduced to pitiful advantage over Greek football and even this was mostly based on remains of memories. As a whole, the crisis was deep, eating the very core of football culture: low attendance, financial disasters, and shabby game. Reform was launched – reforms are always suspect in football: they look more desperate measures than improving, depending on one’s point of view. The Austrian one was supposed to be fundamental: to stabilize both financing and the quality of the game, the Austrian Bundesliga was drastically reduced from 17 to 10 clubs in 1974. The ‘best’ teams were to be ‘best’ in both accounting and playing, so requirements were first of all sound finance – no more clubs with heavy debts on the verge (more likely beyond) bankruptcy. Those clubs were to meet 4 times against each other during the season, thus providing better show and becoming more competitive simultaneously. Well, still runs 10-team Bundesliga today, but hardly a top European league, so one can question the success of the reform. Panacea it was not… financial troubles remained.
The new league produced old champion: Swarovski-Wacker from Innsbruck. The club won a double, winning the national titles 9 points (in the old system of 2 points for a win) ahead of VOEST (Linz), the champions of 1974.
Pretty kit… what else? The 1970s were the most successful years of the club, when they dominated (kind of) Austrian football, winning 5 titles. This was the third. Add the Austrian Cup to make it sweeter. The Yugoslav (Slovenian) Branko Elsner was building his coaching reputation, although he became better known later. The squad was very good by Austrian standards at the time, but nothing on international stage. It depended on core of players like Manfred Gombasch and Peter Koncilia, who were constant backbone during the winning years. The Dane Ove Flindt-Bjerg and the (West) German Hans Rebele were still here. One of the best goalkeepers of all-time Austrian football Friedl Koncilia was still here too, plus young talent – Kurt Welzl and Didi Constantini. Friedl Koncilia and Kurt Welzl eventually became European stars (and just as a link to Greek football – Welzl played for Olympiakos in 1984) and Constantini – well known and respected coach. But all of this was in the unknown future in 1975 – for the time been, Swarovski-Wacker were just strong in Austria and considering the name of the their sponsor, perhaps seen even as model of stability and ‘sound’ financing. Swarovski firm probably was not as pleased… for they dropped the club soon after, titles or no titles. By the way, there is different name on the shirts of the club – and one may wonder at the Austrian system or the fragility of it – Swarovski’s money seemingly were not enough and another sponsor was brought as well.

The Greeks showed a bit of improvement – at least when comparing themselves to their hated neighbours, the Turks. It was in the results of the national team rather than the clubs, but the combination of money and foreign imports was seemingly bringing some results. Greek football remained an enigma: if one looks the statistics of Olympiakos in the Wikipedia, things do not match – it is said there that Greece run ‘Non-Professional League System’ until 1977. How was that possible with professional players, heavy transfer fees, and rapidly increasing number of foreigners, I leave to the Greeks to explain. Another aspect of Greek football is easier to explain: the grand plans of Panathinaikos, dreamed in 1971, did not materialized – by 1975 Olympiakos was the flagman of the Greek football. According to traditional and universal football myth, Olympiakos represents ‘the people’, ‘the province’, the working class’ opposed to ‘the rich’ and ‘the capital city’. Shabby working class Pireus vs elegant bourgeois Athens. Never mind that by 1975 the cities were already amalgamated and the clubs were owned by rich and political influential men. Considering, that by 1975 Socialists were governing, it was even more likely the ‘working class’ club to be allowed to scheme and Panathinaikos – somewhat restricted in the realm of dirty tricks. No matter how, Olympiakos were the better team – Nikos Goulandris was the club’s President from 1972 and he signed expensive talent – Giorgos Delikaris, the French Greek Yves Triantafilos, Dimitris Persidis, the Uruguayans Julio Losada and Milton Viera. The investment paid off, to the delight of the fans: Olympiakos got the upper hand in Greece, if not on international stage. In the 1974-75 season the ‘workers’ won a double – both championship and cup.
Front, left to right: Delikaris, Viera, Kritikopoulos, Aidiniou, Stavropoulos.
Back: Siokos, Kelessidis, Liolios, Angelis, Kyrastas, Gaitadzis.
Well, half of the squad here was playing for the national team, with Delikaris perhaps the biggest star, but more interesting is something else: Olympiakos was almost never coached by a Greek from the down of their history (the first foreigner came in 1927 – the Czech Jan Kopsiva), except for brief interim periods practically never longer than an year. However, Goulandris appointed local man – Potropoulos, who was briefly coaching the team in 1971. Potropoulos was practically the first Greek coach to be appointed a second time by the club and the first to be really successful. After winning the double, Potropoulos was handsomely rewarded by the grateful club: he was replaced with the English coach Vic Buckingham (Ajax, Barcelona, Sevilla; creditied with the discovery of Johan Crujff; and also involved with match fixing in the British betting scandal of 1964) in June 1975. Thanks for the trophies and get lost!
Unlike Potropoulos, players faired much better – foreign implants adjusted better in Olympiakos than Panathinaikos, and played more important roles as well. Julio Losada – or Losanta – won 5 titles and 3 cups during his long spell in the club – 1972-80. He also became a club legend. Milton Viera, acquired from Penarol (Montevideo) stayed shorter – 1972-77 – but was more influential player than Losada. He won three Greeks titles – 1973, 74, and 75 – and two cups – 1973 and 1975 – with Olympiakos before moving to Athens and AEK, where he added two more championships – 1978 and 1979.
Viera in the ‘holly’ red-white stripes. He is probably lesser deity for Olympiakos fans than Losada, because of his AEK spell, when he fathered a son and named the baby Lukas, after AEK President Loukas Bartos.
The foreigners in Olympiakos tended to be of smaller status than those hired by Panathinaikos in the first half of the 1970s, but their contribution to Greek football was much larger. Point in case: ‘The Witch’ Veron was international star when Panathinaikos got him, and he stayed two years with the club, without playing much and winning even less. Losada and Viera played little for Uruguay – Losada has only 2 caps – and although both were in World Cup squads – Losada in 1970 and Viera in 1966 – neither played a minute in the final tournaments. But they played a lot in Greece and won plenty. When the Turks depended solely on foreign coaches for developing their game, the Greeks depended on coaches and foreign players – it worked if not significantly better, then at least faster than the Turkish approach. Faster, yet not that fast… by 1975 Greek football was still lowly in Europe.

A step up – Turkey. By 1975, in the micro-pyramid of European football – the Balkan states – Turkey was above Albania and below everybody else. Larger picture shows the same… Turkey was not 100% outsider, just 95%. Not long ago the Turks were roughly equal to the Greeks, so it looked like slipping down than going up. Turks are passionate about football, but they are also very patient people – their big clubs were probably as rich as the Greek big clubs, but instead of importing foreign stars (or players perceived wrongly as stars) and coaches, the Turks imported only foreign coaches, betting on eventual development of local talent. So far – nothing really happened, except of tiny stir: along with the big three from Istanbul – Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, and Besiktas – a provincial club was rising its head – Trabzonspor. However, their time was coming, but not just yet. Fenerbahce won the championship, like the previous year.
The happy winners were: Adil Eriç, Yavuz Şimşek, Ilie Datcu, Yılmaz Şen, Niyazi Gülseven, Alpaslan Eratlı, Serkan Acar, Ersoy Sandalcı, Erdinç Sandalcı, Önder Mustafaoğlu, Zafer Atamer, Emin, Ziya Şengül, Selahattin Karasu, Ender Konca, Cemil Turan, Osman Arpacıoğlu, Mustafa Kaplakaslan, Aydın Çelik, Eyüp Odabaşı, Recep
Well… some Turkish national players, but hardly any internationally recognized name. They still featured the last player from the Romanian imports in the long gone 1960s – Ilie Datcu – but he hardly mattered even as an import: by now, he was a reserve nearing retirement and more importantly – he was going Turk. Soon he got Turkish citizenship and by the law of the country changed his name with Turkish one. Hard to count him as a foreign player anymore. The real foreigner – and the only really famous name in the team was Didi, their coach.
Didi in his playing days for Botafogo (Rio de Janeiro). Now, Didi is a legend: one of megastars in the 1950s; two times world champion with Brazil. Huge aura, therefore, but it was not only Didi-the player. Didi-the coach had also strong reputation: he led Peru at the 1970 World Cup. He coached River Plate (Buenos Aires) in 1971 and Fenerbahce employed him after the Argentine stint. With such reputation and biography, Didi was to inspire and vastly improve if not the whole Turkish football, then at least Fenerbahce. He stayed from 1972 until 1975 and delivered: in 1974 his team broke the three-years long yoke of British coached arch-enemy Galatasaray. And he established Fener’s yoke by repeating the success in the 1974-75 season. Happiness in the yellow-blue camp; tears elsewhere. Didi left after the second title, but the real point here is the Turkish approach: they tried to get coaches from the best schools of football – British, Brazilian, German – in order of developing their football. It was long, long process – the results came in the 1990s and later, but would you believe today that Turkish football used to be in the bottom ranks of European football for many decades?