Any Spartak fans out there?

Don't mention the dreaded S word. Use it in secrecy and only when in extreme circumstances. Unless you want to start a 5 page thread on who is the best Soviet team of all time.

Plus, you need to get a premiuim membership to get an avatar.

 

Hey, don't discourage fans of Russian football.
Besides, Spartak seems to be the only team that doesn't have a single fan on this forum and we even have Shinnik's supporters for god's sake!

Spartak may only be the second best team in Soviet football (even I will admit that the hated Kyyyyvans take the first prize) but they are undoubtedly the most important team in Soviet football and thus deserve representation on this forum.
Thus, welcome SM!

 

I hate the Xoxlee, thus I must say that Spartak is the top team in Soviet History :-/. Welcome, you must be excited for next season then, when Titov returns, and Spartak competes for medals.

 

I knew full well that Shurik would bring a D.Kyiv v Spartak answer into it. Please don't get started on the word IMPORTANT again. (Also, I believe DK are the best - full stop.)

Its good to have a Spartak fan, so I can let rip with some good jestured rivalry.

Shame we got no CSKA fans though, they must be jubliant right now.

 

You may like it, you may like it not, but the Meat ARE the most important. Who else? Metalyyst' Khhar'kyyyyv?

K'hkyyyyyyyv'yv won 2 CWCs and 1 more Soviet title, so they take the first prize. I am man enough to admit that, even though I despise them with every fiber of my soul.
But Spartak's creators pioneered the club system and gave birth to the Soviet League, so you must admit the Meat are the thing.

 

Shurik, you can stop making fun of Ukrainian pronounciation. Its our country and our language, thats how we pronounce it. Now to get back to Dynamo's awards, you forgot the Uefa Super Cup!

 

Why you hate DK? What did they ever do to you?

IMO - They are responsable for two of the greatest fromer Soviet Union players to walk on this earth - Blokhin and Shevchenko.

As for Spartak, they are no way a important section of Soviet football, DK are.

They put Russian football on the map, Spartak just made Russian football seem good by plying themselves with foreigners before everyone did it, and then dominate the RPL by "ahem" shall we say "dubious" results......

Since when the hell did Spartak "invent" the club system and league? Was football created in Russia in those hetcic Tsarist times? They just got fat by the economic mess left over in the country at the end of the communism. Now that is over and foreign money is pumping into the country, the club is getting weak. We're not taking their bullying tactics and games anymore. They aren't the best - everyone else has caught up.

Myasa can kiss my ass.

 

Mostovoi was a great soviet player as well. As was/is Alenitchev.

 

Both have accomplished squat if you compare them with Blokhin and Sheva.

 

You mean, besides being the personification of pure, unadalterated Evil?
Well, my entire hometown was stupid for them and I had to endure many a schoolyard fight in defense of my ideals.

Um... Yashin?
Um... Streltsov?
Um... Cherenkov?
Erm... Bobrov?

And that's just picking 1 from each of the Moscow teams.
Blokh'yiyn was in no way as good as Streltsov and the Shev'chen'ko-Bobrov comparison would probably be about even, discounting the eras and the global exposure which the Moscow Flyer obviously lacked.

Spartak INVENTED Russian football! Starostin is to the Soviet League what George Halas is to NFL times 100. He is to the Soviet League what Thomas Jefferson is to representative democracy.
Dyyyynamo used Spartak's post-Soviet tactics well before Romantsev's machine. It was basically the national team of the Ukrainian SSR, while Spartak, denied the "drafting" avenues open to Dinamo and Dyyynamo and CSKA, had to mostly rely on homegorwn talent.
There is no question whatsoever that Spartak are the signature club of Russian and Soviet football.

Club football and the national league weren't. The Czarist system was only for city-wide tournaments and the "national championship" was played between city selections and was very rare.
Even the post-Revolution USSR Championships were between city teams, while Moscow, Piter, Kharkov and Odessa (the traditional football hotbeds) played their own internal seasons.
It was Starostin who pioneered the Western-style national league format and introduced the idea of professional clubs.

And what, Ky'y'iyiv didn't?

 

How can you say that about Alenitchev? He scored 2 goals for Porto in UEFA finals AND CL finals.

 

I'll agree about Alenitchev, but he wasn't a star on that Porto side. But when you think about it, there weren't really any stars! It was just a damn good team.

Who is Bobrov? I don't know what he did for Soviet football, and he might be well known within Russia, but ask a South American and a European to name three "Soviet/Ex-Soviet" players, and they'll acknowledge Yashin, Blokhin and Sheva. Although surprisingly many also name Belanov.

 

Well, may I suggest you don't get involved in the argument that's obviouslty WAY over your head, if you don't know Bobrov.
But I will educate you nevertheless.
He played in the era when Soviet footballers didn't get any international exposure, right after WWII, mostly for CDKA, some for VVS and 1 season with Spartak. Scored 124 career goals, including 5 for the national team, despite the fact that the USSR national team only began playing in 1952, 1 year before his retirement, when he was going on on two dead knees.
That's 124 goals, my friend! Way before the European cups, well before the National team, and despite losing 3 years of his career to the War. That's also while being the best Soviet hockey player.
Bobrov will be included in any Top 5 list of all-time Soviet forwards and the fact that he is not known in Latin America doesn't disqualify him from being "the best Soviet player to walk the earth".

 

Only Cherenkov played for Spartak? I can't remember Bobrov as a Spartak player. My point is, that they all didn't play for Spartak. Any lay person can name you a DK player, not one a former Meat-pusher. Sheva and Blokhin are arguably better than any of Spartak's protege's.

A) Don't get me started on the ideas of Jefferson and his belief of "democracy."

B) Care to mention Lobanovskiy, that guy never plundered Spartak's tactics. He merely created the priniciples of "total" football for the post-Soviet game. He revolutionised teams and got them playing neat, concise and attractive football and more importantly - "that got respect and admiration from the WEST."

C) Spartak are not the hallmark of Soviet soccer and I feel sick at the very notion of this.

D) if it wasn't for other nations, such as Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia etc. The Soviet league would have been dull and very one dimesional IMO. They added spice and differing styles of play. That is what made the league so great. So what if Spartak was made up of other players from different SSR's. It doesn't mean they gave them the lectures on how to play and told them the way to play.

Big Wow, like this revolutionsed soccer in the ol' CCCP. Lets change the league format? This isn't actually changing anything only using the system that other nations have used for decades. Teams like DK have been original in the way they have played across Europe. They made people take note at the accomplishments of Soviet soccer. No-one in the west cares or even remembers Spartak's early efforts in this.

BTW: Everyone got fat at the end of the Soviet era. All I'm saying is that you have to agree that Spartak are now pat it and DK are still a dominant force.

 

Shurik, you have your opinion and I have mine.

Let's just agree to disagree.

Without conflict, these boards would be crap and the world would be very dull indeed. And once again we have managed to ruin a perfectly good thread that has arbitarly gone off the point.....

 

Who cares about Europe? USSR and Russia were never world-beaters and never will be. The same goes for Ukrayyyne.

I have already told you that without Spartak there wouldn't BE A SOVIET LEAGUE! If this isn't important enough, I don't know what is. The Triple Y's would've been beating trade union sides for the Kyyyv Citywide Physical Culture Communist Youth Achievement Award and would've never gotten the chance to trot out their inventive spelling on the European stage.
I am not denying the fact that the old Soviet league was tremendously interesting thanks to the regional spice of the Kyiyiyikh, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Vilnius, Donets'''y'k, Minsk and even an occasional Chishinyau. All I am saying is that you have to recognize Spartak for what they are: the hallmark club of Soviet football! I don't care how disgusted you are at the notion of that.
But consider this. Before Romantsev, before Che, before Lukoil, it was Dinamo Moscow, CDKA and the Triple Y's who were the fat cats. The latter were practically scourging the entire Ukrainian SSR, building a super-club.
Spartak was the civilian man's club. They had to get by with what they had.
The Meat did not have the same advantages as the service clubs, yet they still managed to grab 12 Soviet League titles, only 1 less than the Y's!

As for the players, I've told you that I picked 1 from each Moscow side.
Yashin is from Dinamo, Cherenkov - from the Meat, Streltsov - from the Torps and Bobrov - a Horse.
If you are looking for more Spartak greats, may I suggest Nikita Simonyan, USSR's third best all-time scorer, Igor Netto, the long-time captain of the USSR national team, Andrei Starostin (Nikolai's kid brother), USSR's first ever captain and the first legitimate superstar, Rinat Dasayev, second only to Yashin, Yuri Gavrilov, Dinamo convert and one of the most brilliant Soviet midfielders ever, Sergei Salnikov, the post-War scoring wizard, and Vagiz Khidiyatullin, who would probably make the USSR All-Time Team as a starting defender.

I will grant you the fact that The Y's had their share of superstars: Kolotov, Kanevskiy, Muntyan, Byshovets, Rudakov, Protasov, Litovchenko (these 2 are best known for their time with Dnepr), Salenko (poached from Zenit), Belanov, Blokhin, Chanov and Mikhailichenko. But Spartak never had the same opportunities to draft players into their ranks. And while the Y's did not have any competition in the Ukies, Moscow had two to three other strong teams eager to share the talent with.

Yes, the Meat are in disarray now and the Y's are still pillaging the countryside. What does that tell me except for the fact that they got better management and deeper pockets? (Once again, the Yndypendents have a much better situation. There is only one domestic club able to compete with them financially, thanks to the tireless efforts of Ukraine's biggest mafia boss, and they have half of the available market. In Russia, you've got CSKA, Zenit and Loko - all equally rich or richer than the Meat. Besides, the Red-Whites current plight is mostly due to the greed and incompetence of the individuals who ran it for the last several years)
How does that knock the Swine off their perch as Soviet football's signature team?

 

Huh? You are talking post-Soviet times!
In the Soviet times it was the "Spartak style" that was unique. Often copied, never surpassed. Starostin's short-passing combinational game was revolutionary in the USSR. Spartak never played defensively, never played boring, often sacraficing result for looks. The Kyyyvans apprach became a proverb: a draw on the road, a win at home. The infamous "road scheme" is their invention.
No, Spartak never captured Europe the way the Triple Y's pragmaticism did, so what? We are talking about Soviet football here. And it was always self-centered and self-consumed.

 

Okay, I will admit that Spartak had a large infleunce in the creation of the Soviet league. However it is highly unfair to say that it was them alone. Why not call the division.

The RPL - The Spartak league.

And seeing how they dominated the league in the early days I wouldn't be supurised if it this would have had a bit of truth in it.

Imho, you have to include the accomlipshments of teams such as DK and Tbilisi, who won european trophies. Everyone in England knows that Liverpool dominated the first division for so long, but everybody in Europe only sees them claiming the european trophies. Same here imo. Spartak did partly dominate Soviet and completly own post-Soviet soccer. However you can't say openly that they are the best Soviet team for creating the basis and laying the foundations of the league. Okay this is an achievement. But this fact is sadly lost amongst 90% of Russian football fans.

Okay, we aren't talking about Europe but if you think that the game is viewed and percieved by the West. They are the ones who decide a great team. "Spartak" were never a big team in the west. Okay, the majority of fans and historians don't care - but having some type of outside appreciation is always a good thing.

I'll agree that Starostin did pioneer the game, but he is sadly forgotten under the achivement of guys like Lobanovskyi (who IMO, his approach to the game was something else.)

Even though Soviet Soccer is what is centrally being discussed, you can't mention its achievements without caring to utter DK in that same breath. You make it sound like Spartak are the be all and end all of the Soviet game. If they didn't employ their tactics then someone else would have. If was just their waiting to be exploited and utilised to its full potential. And Spartak got there and made it what it is.

I will agree that Spartak did have alot of good players. But usually the monopoly of Soviet soccer was that Spartak gained the better Russian players. Just like DK, Tbilsi, Minsk, Ararat etc....did with their own.

IMO - You just can't say that Spartak pioneered the game, or that they influenced the way teams in the RPL play today. I don't think that any other team would like to think like this, everyone strives for self-presevation and origniality in their methods. I do feel saddened if someone was to say to me that Loko, or any other team are just the product of Spartak's loins.

I would like to think the game in Russia and eastern europe is flourishing and changing all the time, like the world around us. I don't want to be left in the dark-ages of Spartak's way of doing things. Football comes naturally to some people, you don't read the "Big Book of Spartak Moskva football" when you kick a ball about. The method is the same throughout the world. Every nation, team and player has his own unique identity and hallmark of how he plays the game.

Wihtout this freedom of self-expression, something which the Soviet Union failed to stop, a person can never be tied down by the commitents and history of just one club.

I truely believe that DK and Spartak are the best examples of prosperity in post-Soviet times. But without the other 100's of teams? There wouldn't be a league in the first place without them and Spartak's proposed plans would have been laughed off.

 

Nothing, its just the fact that people like Shurik can say they are wholely responsable for creating the ideologies of Soviet soccer.....

I respect Spartak and their achievements but on current form, they aren't the best you have to admit that of course.

EDIT: I don't see myself as a bandwagoner, I mean my first Loko match was as a 15 year old in 1999. I'm not claiming to be a supporter of them from a earlier age because I had never vivisted Russia before. And I don't live I Russia now. The sad thing is, I've probably been to more Dinamo games than Loko....

As for Spartak, its part of the natural footballing condition to see a popular team struggle. Its all part of being a fan.

 

I am not saying that the Meat are "the best Soviet team". I have already conceded that to the Kakly, because you can't argue with 13 titles (all post-1950s) and 2 CWCs.
My contention is that, in the contest of history, Spartak are the most important Soviet team.
And European exposure doesn't mean all that much to Russians. It's like this: ask anyone around the world who is the best American athlete of all time. Most will name Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, Michael Jordan or Mohummad Ali. Nobody would ever mention Babe Ruth, Joe Montana or Jim Brown, but they will make any American fan's Top 10. Do Americans care? Forgetaboutit!

Of course not. But remember, it was 1936! Any kind of innovation, any kind of rikstaking in those times was like tugging a lion by the moustache. The amount of red tape the Starostins had to cross is unreal. And they indeed did pay dearly for it (and for Spartak's success at the expense of Dinamo) doing time in the Gulag.

Hey, they got rich off the transitional period. So did Lobanovsky's gang. That was the times: the most ruthless survived. And if you mean dirty dealings, don't make me bring certain furcoats into proceedings.

And I did. I called them the most accomplished Soviet team of all time. Which they are. It's as simple as statistics.

No, I am just saying that when it comes to defining Soviet football, they would have to be mentioned first in the line of several other clubs.

That's simply not true. In the early days, it was CDKA and Dinamo (and, for a short period of time Vasili Stalin's VVS) who got fat off the others. Salnikov was even ordered to come to Dinamo, or else his Gulag-dwelling stepfather would never see freedom again. VVS (Air Force's acronym) was even translated as "Vzyali Ves' Spartak" ("They took all of Spartak").
Spartak's fortunes in that respect only turned in the 70s, when Army officials decided to concentrate on hockey and Dinamo found itself unable to compete with their Ukrainian counterpart.

And DK, of course, were infamous for their pirating ways!

No, Loko are a product of the Transportation Ministry's coffers. Nowadays nobody has a "club style": it's all about the money and the coach's personality. Krylya for the longest time were considered the most boring team in history (they pioneered the infamous "Volga snag"), yet now they play exciting and fast-paced football. The great 1991 CSKA was an elegant team, were a ballerina like Korneyev was the biggest star. Nowadays a lucky bastard will escape an encounter with the Horses without some easily distinguishable bodymarks.

All true, and you need not worry.
Nevertheless, knowing and respecting history is also important. I will admit, though, that current Russian fans are dreadful in that regard.