France reacted to its continuous failures since 1966 with the classic remedy: change the coach. George Boulogne was replaced by big name – Stefan Kovacs from Ajax fame. Boulogne, a revered, but conservative coach, selected players carefully and gradually, preferring established stars. Again, classic formula to maintain a winning team, but France was not winning. Now, it was hoped that the Romanian, professing total football, will suddenly elevate France from its miserable station. Kovacs lasted from the summer of 1973 to 1975, and was much more radical than his predecessor – he experimented with many players, invited young and overlooked players, tried this and that, but the only results he got were critical reviews.
Kovacs failed and the stain remains. Unfortunately, football hardly ever prefers the future to the present: results are needed right now. Short of results, vision matters not. Nobody waits for years. However, distance brings more sober view (alas, without been able to change failures…) – French football was outdated in every respect and to change it, more than world-famous coach was needed. Gilbert Gress, who played for VfB Stuttgart (West Germany) from 1966 to 1970, was openly critical – French football lacked quality, lacked physicality, lacked spirit. Gress himself is a point in case: regarded as a big star in West Germany, he played only three matches for France. His original crime was rebellion: he refused to cut his long hair in 1966, and was not included for the World Cup French selection as a punishment. A trifle may be, but telling one: French football chose not to use ‘suspect’ players, did not want to change. Hair was not an issue in the early 70s, but mediocrity continued – Boulogne never took a risk. Kovacs did, but fundamental changes do not come by simply taking a risk: they have to come from below, from clubs, from policies, from stable of younger coaches. What Kovacs did was to open the national team a bit, to introduce modern vision, and to fight doubting Toms – to lay foundation, in other words. When Michel Hidalgo replaced Kovacs in 1975 the climate was already different. So, in my view, Kovacs was not useless – rather, he took thankless job.
Kovacs instructing French national players. They look at him… surprised? Doubtful? Not having a clue? Unbelieving?
One of Kovacs’s experimental squads – the team beating Hungary 2-0 in 1975:
Top, left to right: Lopez, Tresor, Victor Zvunka, Bracci, Guillou, Charrieer
Bottom: Michel, Huck, Triantafilos, Herve Revelli, Bereta.
Not everybody was introduced by Kovacs – Bereta, Tresor, Michel, Herve Revelli played for Boulogne, for instance. But during Boulogne’s days younger players were included one at the time, replacing some old horse, yet, the team was shaped around the old guard. Kovacs dismissed the oldies and placed younger players in key positions. Not everybody stayed for long – for example, this is only game Yves Triantafilos played for France. But how bad Kovacs was? Here are bunch of players Michel Hidalgo used for years: Lopez, Tresor, Guillou, Michel, Herve Revelli. To my mind, Kovacs swept old habits and provided Hidalgo with group of players open for new football. Hidalgo benefited from the fruitless efforts of Kovacs.

Different in Belgium: after all the ‘Red Devils’ missed the World Cup by a split hair. Never lost a match; not receiving a single goal in their net. Unlike other countries, Belgium was not really in crisis, but in transition. A small country, Belgium never had the luxury of large pool of players, but always had enough at hand to play spirited football. Similarly to many other countries, Belgian football was dominated by two clubs – RSC Anderlecht (Brussels) and Standard (Liege) – where the best players always ended. Anderlecht were among the best European clubs for years, although so far did not win any European trophy. Belgian football traditionally depended on foreign talent to supplement small domestic pool, allowing more foreigners than most importers, predominantly Dutch and Scandinavians. The system worked well enough, but change of generations was a natural problem. And the early 1970s were exactly that: one generation was stepping down, but new one was not yet ripe. Hence, transitional period, when failure to reach World Cup finals was disappointing, but not the end of the world. Anderlecht won the title once again – status quo recovered after the surprise champions FC Brugge the year before. Or so it looked like for the moment.

Anderlecht, smiling champions under the clouds:
Top, left to right: Braems – coach, Heylens, van Binst, Barth, Coeck, Broos, van Himst, de Bolle, Ruiter.
Bottom: Ladynszki, Dockx, Verheyen, van der Elst, Deraeve, Volders, de Nul, Rensenbrink, Edjerstedt. The squad had plenty of Belgian national players, however, most were yet to really establish their names. The real star – Paul van Himst – one of the greatest players of the 1960s, was getting old and thus the prime example of the transitional state of Belgian football – he was of the departing generation and the younger one was not settled yet. They would eventually, and van Binst, Coeck, Broos, Dockx, van der Elst will soon be familiar names around Europe. Not in 1974, though. This team had plenty of foreign players too – both goalkeepers were Dutch, Jan Ruiter and Leendert Barth. The left winger was also Dutch – one Rob Rensenbrink, already well established player in Belgium, but during the World Cup 1974 he was to become world famous star. Another World Cup guy tended to Anderlecht’s attack – Inge Edjerstadt, national player of Sweden , who participated in both 1970 and 1974 World Cups. A new right winger was acquired in 1973 from Feyenoord (Holland) – Attila Ladynszky, a Hungarian defector and technically a stateless person because of that. Unlike Zoltan Varga and Antal Nagy, he never played for the national team of Hungary, and was practically unknown. Thus, he was saved from venomous articles in the Eastern European press, but was not forgotten – he was not able to travel to Eastern European countries, a handicap for Anderlecht, if they had to meet Communist clubs in the European tournaments. Ladynszky defected in 1971 and for unknown player he made very good career in the West – starting in Rot-Weiss (Essen, West Germany), moving to Feyenoord (Rotterdam), than to Anderlecht, and ending in Spain, where he played for Real Betis (Seville) from 1975 to 1978 and is remembered fondly by the fans. Anderlecht had already a strong squad in 1973-74, with a core of players who only got better in the next years. Eventually, they improved the national team and restored its better position at the end of the 1970s. But transitional years are shaky time at best: the Belgian Cup was won by Waregem, smaller and never great club, which is not existing anymore, suffering the fate of small Belgian clubs – mergers. Unknown yet was the other part of transitional years – FC Brugge was improving, but still not a strong force; Standard was declining, which was to last.

Portugal faired no better: Sporting (Lisbon) made a double. It was more an example of the sharp decline of Benfica than anything. The most memorable feature of Sporting was the Argentine striker Hector Yazalde – he scored 46 goals and got the Golden Boot. And because of that was included in the Argentine squad for the World Cup. Well, Portugal failed to qualify, but at least had a representative at the finals. Only one.

Double winners, thanks to Argentine feet.Hector Yazalde, the great scorer, descending the stairs… may be prophetically: neither Sporting, nor Argentina impressed in 1974. Portuguese football was in a crisis, which was to last until the 1980s. Doomed to failure after failure, of which Sporting is perhaps the best example – the ‘people’s’ club lost its second-best position in Portugal during the 70s. And never recovered it.

Austria nobody counted among potential World Cup finalists, the best years of Austrian football already in the dusty historic books. As if to prove their own sinking, the Austrians had a new and highly unusual champion: VOEST Linz. Today the club is not around – there is a club called Blau-Weiss Linz, which is somewhat claiming its origins in the defunct VOEST.
The champions were not any good and just for the record, here they are:
Nothing can be said about them, really. Austria (Vienna) got the Cup.
This season was the end of big league in Austria: constantly shrinking attendance and constantly increasing costs were the sorry reality. Many a club were on the verge of bankruptcy and traditional structure was no longer supportable. The premise for reform was sound finances – the new league was to be reduced to 10 clubs. Thus, 7 had to go down – nothing pleasant about that, but the Austrian scheme made it even more unpleasant. Vienna was allowed to keep 2 clubs in the new league, and the provinces – one each province. However, two provinces were difficult – old clubs like Sturm and GAK (both from Graz) came from Styria. The decision who to keep place in the upper level was based on the total number of point over the last 5 years – Sturm survived with 149 point, 2 more than their city rival. Upper Austria also was a problem: since relatively smaller VOEST were champions, their city rival and much bigger club LASK (Linz) had to be relegated – at the end they were allowed to contest a playoff against the winners of three region divisions: Mitte (Kapfenberger SV), Ost (ASV Stockerau), and West (FC Dornbirn). LASK won and at the end practically no club was promoted – the new league had only old members. The geographic ‘fairness’ had a weird twist: Donawitzer SV Alpine, 6th at the end of 1973-74, was relegated as a second club from its province. But the lowly SC Eisenstadt (13th) and Austria Klagenfurt (14th) preserved places in the new league – no other clubs from their provinces played at top level. The ‘wisdom’ of this structure amply showed itself the next year – Austria (Klagenfurt) finished 9th and escaped relegation by one point. SC Eisenstadt were 10th and relegated.
Austria was the first country to display the doom coming to smaller championships: frantic efforts for reform and survival, never successful… reduced league was a desperate attempt and did not work – to this very day Austrian football suffer constant financial troubles. 1970s changed profoundly the structure of the smaller leagues in Europe – from that time their only goal is bare survival.

After the Eastern European losers – to the Western European ones. Humble Denmark. KB won its 14th title.

Kjobenhavns Boldklub (Copenhagen) was one of the oldest clubs in Europe, founded in 1876. This was generally lost in Europe, due to the lowly status of Danish football, but the boys in white and blue were formidable power at home. Which was not to help much later – in 1991 KB merged with B 1903 to form FC Copenhagen. As usual, money was at the bottom of reasons. Not to worry in 1974, though – it was a happy year.

Bottom, left to right: Leif Skjolden, Benny Myssing, Anders Soerensen, Ole Quist, Michael Roessel, Soeren Andreassen.
Top: Noels Krogdahl, Ole Hoejgaard, Peter Lindby, Niels Soerensen, Bjarne Petersen.Well, strong enough to concur home championship, but, as the names, suggest, hardly to take Europe by storm. Ole Quist played for the national team, if that counted for something in the 1970s.

The mother of them all in Eastern Europe, USSR, did not have to worry about the World Cup too, after refusing to play Chile for political reasons. The Soviets had the opportunity to concentrate on their own domestic problems – and introduced fresh change, or rather abandoned the ill-fated experiment of breaking ties with post-match penalty kicks. The clubs triumphed: they did not play for winning when the rules forced to win, and they were free to collect points from their beloved 0-0 ties. Therefore, the crisis continued – the old philosophy of ‘try to win at home and try to end in tie when visiting’ ruled supreme and with vengeance reached new lows. Only three clubs ended with less than 10 ties (out of 30 championship games). The champions sported modest 12 ties this season. Scoring was a fiction: the champions were the most enterprising with their 49 goals, scoring great 1.63 goals per match average. But the most telling was the team with least goals – Dynamo (Tbillisi) with 29, less than a goal per match! The Georgians traditionally were the most open and attacking club in USSR – in 1974 they played the same cautious single-point oriented football as everybody else. The Soviet league was especially boring no matter what urges came from the Football Federation or from critical journalists.
Dynamo (Kiev) won a double – their 6th championship and their 4th Cup. It was return to the normal and familiar, no wild clubs muddling the waters. There was nothing to hint at future international triumphs: Dynamo were not fun and barely caught the title by one point difference from the second placed Spartak (Moscow). Vasily Lobanovsky came to coach them from lowly Dnepr (Dnepropetrovsk), where he was more criticized than praised for lackluster and mean kind of football. In view of the low scoring, it is interesting to point out that Dynamo already got Onsishchenko and Semenov from Zarya (Voroshilovgrad) and now recruited Shepel from Chernomoretz (Odessa), who scored 38 goals in the Second Division the year before. The attackers clearly suggested some kind of desire to increase goalscoring, yet Semenov and Shepel were wasted in Dynamo, played rarely, and soon dismissed. Blokhin, already the best Soviet player, was the top scorer of the championship with 20 goals – almost half of the total Dynamo’s production. Somewhat curiously Zarya (Voroshilovgrad) reached the Cup final – as if to prove that they were not cheating in 1972, when they won their dubious title. However, they barely escaped relegation in the championship, finishing 14th in the 16-team league. Final is final, so they put on a fight and lost 1-2. The whole picture was grim: Dynamo did not look great, but rather shrewd team painfully extracting victories more by will than skill.

Hard to believe that Dynamo will take Europe by storm in 1975… here are the winners in 1974:
Bottom, left to right: A. Puzach – assistant coach, I. Zhutnik – masseur, V. Semenov, V. Kondratov, A. Damin, V. Muntyan, V. Onishchenko, A. Petrashevky – assistant coach.
Middle: V. Lobanovsky – coach, L. Kozhanov – team doctor, A. Shepel, V. Maslov, L. Buryak, O. Blokhin, V. Matvienko, O. Bazilevich – team’s director.
Top: E. Rudakov, M. Fomenko, S. Reshko, V. Kolotov, V. Veremeev, V. Zuev, V. Troshkin, V. Samokhin, V. Berkovsky – doctor. Already some typical features of Lobanovsky’s Dynamo were present – dependence on small core of players, just 11 strong plus 4-5 eternal reserves coming regularly in the second half; lack of right full back (Damin and Zuev alternated in 1974, none of them ever a solid starter); and lack of centre forward (Semenov and Shepel placed quickly on the bench). This situation changed practically after 1986: the team relied on tough and populous midfield, temporary right backs, fast wingers, and the scoring ability of Blokhin. When the opposition managed to block him, scoring seized… and winning was not in the books. Hence, Lobanovsky’s vision of ‘scientific’ football developed – if you cannot improvise, then learn schemes and follow them like a robot. And run, run, run…Perhaps the only bright thing in 1974 was another Ukrainian club – Chernomoretz (Odessa) finished third. The highest place they ever had and it was even better, for they just came back from the Second Division swamps.

Top, left to right: Aleskerov – coach, Dzyuba, Davidov, Prokopenko, Zubkov, Tomashevsky, Pavlenko, Radionov, Nechaev, Logvinenko, Grigoriev, Feydman, Zabolotny – assistant coach.
Bottom: Degtyarev, Makarov, Butenko, Ustimchik, Sapozhnikov, Kulichenkov, Ivanenko, Doroshchenko, Nefedov, Galitzky – administrator. Of course, it was great success, if one was from Odessa. And keeping in mind that the club lost its best player – Shepel – to Dynamo (Kiev). But it was not a great team… none of the players was more than journeyman. It was more enthusiasm than anything, the typical case of small clubs. It was also weak championship: Dynamo ended a point better than Spartak, which was mediocre squad at best, approaching their own disaster. Chernomoretz, with no great players at all, finished third. One may wonder what was the meaning of ‘worse’ in Soviet football. But good for the small guys! They never repeated such success, making it even sweeter.

Universitatea (Craiova) won the 1973-74 championship – their very first title.
The club is of Communist-state origin, founded in 1948, supposedly a ‘students’ club. The city of Craiova has more clubs, and some played occasionally in the First Division, but Universitatea is the true club of the city. The 1970s were their most successful decade, beginning with this championship.
Top, left to right: Cernaianu – coach, Ivan, Badin, Oprea, Oblemenko, Boc, Manta, Deselnicu, Balan, Otet – assistant coach.
Bottom: Stefanescu, Velea, Taralunga, Niculescu, Balaci, Strambeanu, Berneanu, Marcu.
Although some eventually played for the national team, only two players are of real notice: Balaci and Oblemenko. Balaci was more or less constant national player and well respected, but Oblemenco was something else: he scored 167 goals in 264 matches for Universitatea and was 4 times top goalscorer of Romania – in 1967, 70, 72, and 73. He was and is revered player, yet, he was never included in the national team.
Ion Oblemenko. A legend in Craiova and recognized as the best ever player of Universitatea. Today the club’s stadium is named after him.
If Universitatea were provincial unknowns, without big team, the Cup winners were even lesser breed: Jiul (Petrosani).

Bottom,from left: Cornel Carare (secretar), Tr. Ivanescu, Bologan , Mircea Pascu (vicepresident of the football section), Aurel Marila (medic), Stocker, Dodu, Nitu, Stoichita, Ioan Karpinetz (club's president), S. Gram (masseur) Top: Gabi Stan, Kotormani, Rozsnyai, Tonca, Szics, Ion Gabriel, Otto Abraham (football section president), Libardi, Mandrut, Multescu, Al. Nagy, Emeric Farkas
Unlike Universitatea, much older club – founded in 1919 – but ‘Minerii’ (The Miners) were always small. Their singular trophy is the Cup won in 1974. No big names, no nothing.
As much as it is fun to see small clubs winning, there is another side: in strictly football terms Romania was in a crisis. The country did not produce really strong players for a long time – as shown by those, who went to play abroad. It was not that much strong provincial clubs as a case of weak leading clubs. The 1970s were low decade for Romanian football. Good for local heroes only.