Kiev’s Republican Stadium

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Of the five different arenas used in conjunction with the football tournament of the Games of the XXII Olympiad hosted by Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the impressive REPUBLICAN STADIUM in the Ukrainian S.S.R.’s capital city of KIEV was, beyond all comparison, the sporting venue of the 1980 Summer Olympics that had undergone the most numerous changes to its name over the course of its history.
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For the no fewer than the seventh time since the RED STADIUM of TROTSKY first opened fifty-seven years earlier, the football field situated on the slopes of the Cherepanov Hill in the Ukrainian capital city of KIEV was re-christened to celebrate the arrival of the Summer Olympic Games in 1980. The moniker “Central Stadium”, which had been in use since 1962, was jettisoned by the powers that be in favor of a return to traditional roots. The site had first been designated as the REPUBLICAN STADIUM in 1936, the very same year that saw local tenant Dynamo Kiev finish second in the first-ever all-U.S.S.R. league football championship.

Work on increasing the capacity to 50,000 spectators at the ground was begun in the late 1930s and, in 1941, the facility was finished and now re-titled the Republican Stadium of Khrushchev in honor of the contemporary leader of the Ukrainian communist party (Nikita) who would, one day, become the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as Premier of the entire U.S.S.R., itself. But not before the Great Patriotic War and the Nazi occupation both had arrived in the summer of 1941, after which time the home field of Dynamo Kiev was abruptly re-named the All-Ukrainian Stadium. Of course, that would be rescinded in early 1944 after victory was achieved on the battlefield the previous fall.

Almost needless to say, the liberated Republican Stadium of Khrushchev had suffered extensive damage during the Second World War and required major repair work, which would come in the years to follow.

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The main facade of the REPLUBLICAN STADIUM OF KHRUSHCHEV was completed in 1954, as were the iconic columns (not pictured here) in the courtyard outside the football ground of Dynamo Kiev (white shirts, dark shorts running out onto the pitch); a more modernized scoreboard, featuring a contemporary-styled stadium clock and electric lights, would not arrive for another two years.
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A shot of what was then still known as the REPUBLICAN STADIUM of KHRUSHCHEV in Kiev taken in 1961 — the same year that the Ukrainian capital city club, DYNAMO KIEV, won the very first of what would ultimately be a total of 13 league championships in the U.S.S.R.’s top flight.
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The CENTRAL STADIUM of KIEV underwent a major renovation in 1967 with the addition of a second tier and, in doing so, increased the arena’s capacity to an official figure of 100,000 spectators; this development left the home ground of Dynamo Kiev in the Ukrainian capital city amongst the largest football stadiums in all Europe — just behind the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium in Moscow while level with Leipzig’s humongous Zentralstadion in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.
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Kiev became only the third city (after Leningrad and Tbilisi) in the U.S.S.R., up to that point in history, other than Moscow to ever host the national team of the Soviet Union when the Central Stadium staged its first full international match in mid-October of 1969. A noteworthy crowd of 71,115 spectators dutifully turned out to see the home side dispatch visiting Turkey 3-0 in a World Cup qualifying match, then. After Dynamo Kiev boss VALERY LOBANOVSKY was appointed trainer of the national team in the mid-1970s, the U.S.S.R. hosted all four of its qualification matches for the 1976 UEFA European Championships at the Central Stadium in Kiev.

Prior to the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, the record attendance of for a Soviet Union national team match at the Central Stadium in the Ukranian capital city had been the total of 84,480 speactators who saw the U.S.S.R., on the strength of goals from Dynamo Kiev players OLEG BLOKHIN and VIKTOR KOLOTOV, upend the incoming Republic of Ireland 2-1 in a European Championships qualifier in May of 1975.

In 1977, the Central Stadium was actually closed for a spell as the facility underwent yet another major renovation, this time in advance of the Summer Olympic Games to be held in the Soviet Union. The drainage system for the field playing surface was completely overhauled and a new pitch laid while four new lightning poles, each 82 meters high, were installed, as well. In 1980, the Central Stadium name was shelved in Kiev and subsequently replaced with the historical “Republican Stadium” label.

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A shot taken during the 1980 Summer Olympic Games hosted by the U.S.S.R. shows the recently-installed, towering light fixtures as well as the iconic columns that great visitors to the massive REPUBLICAN STADIUM in the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev; the Olympic football program at the Republican Stadium included six round-robin matches (three games each in Groups C and D) as well as one quarterfinal contest (featuring the defending Olympic gold medalists from East Germany).

Moscow’s Dynamo Stadium

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The U.S.S.R.’s capital of MOSCOW was, itself, home to no fewer than five different football clubs who were all competing in the Soviet first division (comprised of eighteen teams) when the Summer Olympic Games arrived in the middle of the 1980 domestic season. Four of these five clubs (CSKA, Dynamo, Lokomotiv, Spartak and Torpedo) all had, by the 1960s, ground to call their very own within the city’s limits, as well. None of these four stadia, though, could even begin to compare in terms of spectator capacity with the massive Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium, which never had an official club team tenant but often hosted important intra-city derbies as well as many European matches involving the Moscow city club sides.

On the other hand, not even the great national stadium on the banks of the Moskva River could stack up with the historical DYNAMO STADIUM in Moscow’s Petrovsky Park for its length of service, though.

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The venerable Dynamo Stadium had been built in 1928 to serve as the home of the team with direct ties to what is respected as the very first football club in Russian history. The descendent of Morozovtsi Orekhovo-Zuevo Moskva, which was originally founded as a factory club in 1887, was quickly taken over by the fledgling Soviet Ministry of the Interior after the Russian Revolution broke out three decades later. DYNAMO MOSCOW, who quickly became despised by other intra-city rivals as a result of their direct association with the notorious Chekha secret police, later went on to win the inaugural all-U.S.S.R. domestic championship in 1936 and reclaimed that honor the next year, as well.

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A photo of the famous bronze statue of legendary Soviet footballer LEV YASIN, the highly-acclaimed Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper who won the 1956 Olympic gold medal and the 1960 UEFA European Championships title with the U.S.S.R. national team, outside the Dynamo Stadium in Petrovsky Park.
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It was Dynamo Stadium that actually was the site of the very first post-Stalin international football match ever hosted by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics when Sweden came to visit the capital city in early September of 1954. NIKITA SIMONYAN of hometown Spartak Moscow, who later would be let go as trainer of the national team roughly a year ahead of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, scored the very first goal for the U.S.S.R. at the Dynamo Stadium, then, as the Soviets romped to an easy 7-0 triumph over their Scandanavian guests. As would be the case for the national side’s first three matches in Petrovsky Park, the Dynamo Stadium was packed to the maximum of 54,000 spectators for the landmark meeting with the Swedes.

Six of the U.S.S.R. national team’s seven home matches at the Dynamo Stadium, the last of these being the Soviets’ 5-0 shutout of Israel in July of 1956, had drawn the capacity crowd before the Lenin Stadium was opened in another part of Moscow at the end of September later that year.

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Like all the different facilities in the Soviet Union that were used in conjunction with the 1980 Summer Games, the Dynamo Stadium underwent a thorough renovation in advance. By now officially known as the Grand Arena of the Dynamo Central Stadium as other sports installations had been added to the site, the 52-year-old venue — which saw its official capacity shrink slightly to 50,000 spectators in order to accomodate additional VIP boxes — hosted six different matches during the Olympic football tournament. The program in Petrovsky Park included four round-robin contests as well as one quarterfinal (which featured the U.S.S.R.) and one semifinal match, each.

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The venerable Dynamo Stadium was closed permanently for the purposes of demolition in 2008 to make way for the currently-planned VTB Arena, which is scheduled to be finished in conjunction with the occasion of Russia hosting the final tournament of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Grand Arena Of The Central Lenin Stadium At The Luzhniki Olympic Sports Complex

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Although five different stadiums in the whole of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would host football matches during the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, there could never be any doubt as to which one would host the tournament final — as a matter of fact, as the very name of the facility, itself, would elaborately suggest, the massive GRAND ARENA of the CENTRAL LENIN STADIUM at the centralized LUZHNIKI OLYMPIC COMPLEX in the capital city of MOSCOW was built with the very purpose of a major global athletic competition specifically in mind.

The Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium had been, by the time of the Moscow Summer Games, expanded to accomodate an official capacity crowd of 103,000 seated spectators — this increase pushed the Lenin Stadium past the German Democratic Republic’s enormous Zentralstadion in Leipzig, which had actually opened in the exact same year as the Lenin Stadium in 1956, for the honor of largest football ground in all of Europe.

The Luzhniki Olympic Complex, itself, was among the largest of its kind in all the world. According to THE GREAT SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA (1979), this de facto athletic city included roughly 140 separate facilities for the pursuit of a multitude of sports. In addition to the the humongous Grand Arena, itself, the facility in the Khamovniki district of Moscow also featured the famed Palace of Sport ice hockey arena with its capacity for 13,700 spectators as well as the Olympic Pool of the Central Lenin Stadium, which seated another 10,500 people.

And then, of course, there was the Minor Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium (8,700 capacity) and the tiny Druzhba Mutlipurpose Arena (3,500 capacity) …

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A panoramic shot of the distinctive Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium during the Opening Ceremony of the Games of the XXII Olympiad, which was held in the crown jewel of the extraordinary Luzhniki complex on the banks of the Moskva River in the Soviet capital city on July 19, 1980.
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The national team of the SOVIET UNION made its international debut at the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium in front of a reported audience of 102,000 spectators on September 23, 1956. The opponent for this historic match in the U.S.S.R. happened to be none other than HUNGARY, the defending gold medalist from the 1952 Summer Olympic Games and runner-up to champion West Germany at the 1954 FIFA World Cup. The Magic Magyars would prevail over the Soviets 1-0 in Moscow thanks to a goal by ZOLTAN CZIBOR but, a month later, the Hungarian Revolution suddenly errupted and that result would eventually see the Hungary footballers withdraw from the approaching 1956 Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia.

Despite the inaugural setback, the Soviet national team would continue to stage virtually all of its home matches in the spacious confines of the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium until the mid-1970s. And this scenic riverside location soon became a nightmare for incoming visitors to Moscow, particularly in FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championships qualification contests. In fact, the U.S.S.R. won 19 consecutive qualifiers at the Lenin Stadium on the trot until Chile finally posted a fateful draw in late September, 1973.

The Soviet Union began holding internationals in other places, most notably the Republican Stadium in the Ukranian city of Kiev, following the ’74 World Cup debacle. Only after experienced Spartak Moscow boss KONSTANTIN BESKOV was re-appointed as the national team trainer did the Soviets return to the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium in earnest. Nevertheless, the unbeaten streak in tournament play for the U.S.S.R. national team at the impressive site along the Moskva River near the so-called Luzhnetskaya Embankment was still intact when the Games of the XXII Olympiad arrived in the summer of 1980.

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An aerial photograph of the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium at the Luzhniki Olympic Complex in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ capital city of Moscow that was obviously taken in the era of the 1950s or not long afterwards, certainly well before the floodlights were first installed in the 1960s.

Moscow Olympic Games : Great Expectations

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Soviet Union defender OLEG ROMANTSEV of Spartak Moscow, who later became the record-setting trainer of his old capital city club and also steered the national team of Russia to the final tournament of a FIFA World Cup, looks to settle the ball in front of France defender MARIUS TRESOR (5) of Olympique Marseille during the international friendly at the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium contested on May 23, 1980.
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It had been a little while (1960) since Stalin’s footballing children had accomplished anything on the international stage. But, then again, U.S.S.R. national team trainer KONSTANTIN BESKOV had already earned the exalted military decoration, the Order of the Patriotic War, for his efforts on behalf of the Red Army during the Second World War. And, certainly, those at the highest levels of power in the Soviet Union were hoping that the 60-year-old Spartak Moscow boss could, once agian, rise to the occasion of a major global event.

Any optimisim would have been easily justifiable considering the five consecutive victories the Soviet Union reeled off to commence the calendar year of 1980. At the core of this new-look national team were five players from Beskov’s successful Spartak side, the Soviet domestic champion for the 1979 spring-to-fall season including the youthful but talented RINAT DASAYEV. The 23-year-old shot-stopper who would come to be known to some as “the Iron Curtain” had originally unseated the veteran ALEXANDER PROKHOROV, a reserve on the bronze medal squad for the U.S.S.R. at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, as the first choce of the capital city club before making his full international debut in a friendly against the German Democratic Republic in September of 1979.

YURI GAVRILOV had already been capped before Beskov had taken charge of the U.S.S.R. national team for the third time in his long managerial career in July of 1979. But it had been the astute Soviet trainer who had already brought the slender winger from intra-city rival Dynamo Moscow to Spartak in 1977. And it was under Beskov that the skilled left-footer truly developed into one of, if not the most creative playmaker in the history of Soviet football.

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National team trainer KONSTANTIN BESKOV, the former war hero who spent his entire playing career with Ministry of the Interior club Dynamo Moscow, was a member of the very first U.S.S.R. athletic team that ever showed up at the Olympics and, as such, appeared in both matches for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against eventual silver medalist Yugoslavia at the 1952 Summer Games hosted by Helsinki, Finland.
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Defender VAGIZ KHIDIYATULLIN of CSKA Moscow and midfielder VLADIMIR BESSONOV of Dynamo Kiev, who later transformed into, perhaps, the best Soviet left back ever, were a pair originally introduced by the previous national team trainer, NIKITA SIMONYAN. As for the rest of the 17-man Olympic team, though, the overwhelming majority of the U.S.S.R. footballers at the 1980 Moscow Games had gotten their international start as a result of Beskov. Altogether, nine of this lot would also be included in the Soviet squad which appeared in Spain at the final tournament of the 1982 FIFA World Cup.

Defender ALEKSANDR CHIVADZE of Dinamo Tbilisi was one Beskov ‘discovery’ who would eventually be honored as the Soviet Footballer of the Year in 1980. Chivadze and his Olympic backline constituent, TENGIZ SULAKVELIDZE, were both now less than a year away from triumphantly lifting the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup with their Georgian club teammates in Duesseldorf, West Germany. Midfielder KHOREN OGANESIAN of Ararat Yerevan, who went on to earn 34 caps for the U.S.S.R. and shoot the only goal to defeat Belgium at the ’82 World Cup in Spain, was easily the best player to ever come from the Soviet state of Armenia.

The defending gold medalists from the Deutsche Demokratische Republik clearly sent a B side to the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. Czechoslovakia left most of its big guns at home after traveling to Italy for the 1980 UEFA European Championships and finishing in third place. And while Yugoslavia brought some bright prospects to the U.S.S.R., their inexperienced Olympic squad was also certainly not equipped with all of the country’s best available players.

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The national team of the UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS stands at attention just prior to the international friendly match with visiting Denmark at the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium in Moscow on July 12, 1980, a little over a week before the start of the football tournament at the Summer Olympic Games hosted by the Soviet Union.

Left to right — Vladimir BESSONOV (Dynamo Kiev), Tengiz SULAKVELIDZE (Dinamo Tbilisi), Sergei ANDREYEV (SKA Rostov-on-Don), Revaz CHELEBADZE (Dinamo Tbilisi), Sergei SHAVLO (Spartak Moscow), Fedor CHERENKOV (Spartak Moscow), Yuri GAVRILOV (Spartak Moscow), Vagiz KHIDIYATULLIN (CSKA Moscow), Aleksandr CHIVADZE (Dinamo Tbilisi), Rinat DASAYEV (Spartak Moscow) and captain Oleg ROMANTSEV (Spartak Moscow)

On this day, the Soviet Union would win its fifth consecutive full international match on the trot with a 2-0 victory over Denmark on the strength of goals from Cherenkov and substitute VALERY GAZZAEV of Dynamo Moscow.

Moscow Summer Games – No Miracle On Grass

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United States midfielder RICKY DAVIS of the New York Cosmos, who notched a goal in each leg of the Olympic qualification tie with Bermuda in December of 1979, pulls away from an opposing defender during the Americans’ lopsided 6-0 loss to France on the plastic lawn in the international friendly match at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on May 2, 1979.
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It was on February 20, 1980, that the weak American President JIMMY CARTER’s ill-advised deadline with respect to a Soviet withdrawl from Afghanistan came and went to no effect. Exactly two days later, though, the UNITED STATES ice hockey team did accomplish what many consider to be THE greatest upset in the history of all sport when HERB BROOKS’ youthful Olympic squad upended the mighty SOVIET UNION at the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York. This extraordinary result will forever remain famously known as the great “MIRACLE ON ICE”.

Cuba would later be selected to replace the United States and were ultimately drawn into the very same group for the football tournament with the host nation of the Summer Olympic Games to be staged in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. For the sake of entertainment, it will be assumed here that the draw would have remained the same even if there had been no boycott. And, in that instance, the first round of the Moscow football tournament would have produced a mouth-watering U.S.A. vs U.S.S.R. match-up.

As in the case of the Olympic ice hockey contest earlier that same year, there is absolutely no question that the United States would have been heavy underdogs heading into a football tie with the Soviet Union at the 1980 Summer Games. At least the U.S. pucksters in Lake Placid had been able to enjoy the benefits of home cooking and a very vocal, pro-American crowd at the little Olympic Field House in scenic upstate New York. A high-profile match on the road at the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium in front of a certain capacity crowd of 103,000 passionate football supporters in the Soviet capital city would have been an entirely different matter for the U.S. Olympic soccer team, just for starters.

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1980 Olympian SERGEI SHAVLO from Spartak Moscow, the Ukrainian-born midfielder who cut his teeth with Latvian side FK Daugava Riga before moving to the Soviet capital city, was later one of the very first players allowed by government officials in the U.S.S.R. to play professional football in the West when transferring from Torpedo Moscow to Austrian club SK Rapid Vienna in the summer of 1987.
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The Soviet Union, bronze medalist at the Montreal Summer Games, made a very poor showing in the unexpectedly tight Group 6 of the 1980 UEFA European Championships. After the U.S.S.R. could only muster a 1-1 tie with neighboring Finland in Helsinki, the 1956 Olympic gold medalist NIKITA SIMONYAN was summarily sacked as trainer of the Soviet national team in July of 1979 with two qualification matches still yet to be contested. KONSTANTIN BESKOV, the former U.S.S.R. national team trainer who would steer Spartak Moscow to the Supreme League title for the spring-to-fall 1979 Soviet season, was re-installed and immediately began re-building with an eye towards the upcoming 1980 Summer Games.

After another surprising draw with stubborn Finland in Moscow that saw the U.S.S.R. finish last in Group 6, the Soviets then succumbed in their very last international of 1979 to West Germany 3-1 at home in Tibilisi, Georgia. But Beskov had been integrating new blood into the program — goalkeeper RINAT DASAYEV and defender ALEKSANDR CHIVADZE of Dinamo Tbilisi being prime examples — which would prove extremely beneficial in the immediate future. Five days after President Carter officially announced that the United States would, indeed, boycott the Summer Olympics, the U.S.S.R. senior national football team claimed the first of what would be five consecutive wins in the months leading up to the Moscow Games.

This purple patch for the Soviet Union included a come-from-behind 2-1 conquest of always-formidable Brazil in front of a reported crowd of 61,256 at the famed Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Still only 20-year-old midfielder FEDOR CHERENKOV, another youngster under Beskov at Spartak Moscow, was emerging as a genuine attacking threat for the U.S.S.R. and scored a goal in four of these five full internationals including an 85th minute-winner as the Soviets stopped France 1-0 in Moscow. In-form striker SERGEI ANDREYEV of army club SKA Rostock-on-Don, who was on his way to the goal-scoring crown for the 1980 Supreme League season, had already netted four times on seven appearances for the U.S.S.R. since having been first-capped by Beskov.

No one seemed to be missing two-time Olympic bronze medalist and prolific striker OLEG BLOKHIN of Dynamo Kiev, the 27-year-old former European Footballer of the Year who had already bagged 26 goals on 66 appearances for the U.S.S.R. national team — or at least for the time being.

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Ironically enough, the United States were exactly only halfway through the final Olympic qualification round when President Carter issued his boycott proclamation. One day earlier, on March 20, 1980, the visting Americans had upended Costa Rica 1-0 on the road in San Jose courtesy a goal from DON EBERT, the 20-year-old striker who would leave Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville early in order to pursue a professional career with the powerful New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League that year. Yet another goal from Ebert allowed the U.S.A. to forge a 1-1 draw with the Costa Ricans in the return match five days later in Edwardsville and formally qualify for the Moscow Games.

Costa Rica would actually rebound to top the three-team group which also included Suriname on goal-differential and chose not to join the United States in the Olympic boycott.

German Football At The Olympics : Major Policy Shift For Defending Gold Medalists

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The Olympic team of the DEUTSCHE DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIK stand at attention for the national anthem prior to the start of the Testspiel (won 2-1 by the D.D.R.) opposite the amateur national team of the Netherlands at the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark (situated right along the border of a split city) in East Berlin on April 26, 1980.

left to right … captain Frank TERLETZKI (Dynamo Berlin), Bodo RUDWALEIT (Dynamo Berlin), Juergen BAEHRINGER (FC Karl Marx Stadt), Frank UHLIG (FC Karl Marx Stadt), Andreas TRAUTMANN (Dynamo Dresden), Norbert TRIELOFF (Dynamo Berlin), Matthias LIEBERS (FC Lokomotive Leipzig), Dieter STROZNIAK (FC Chemie Halle), Martin TROCHA (FC Carl Zeiss Jena), Dieter KUEHN (FC Lokomotive Leipzig) and Gert BRAUER (FC Carl Zeiss Jena)
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The Moscow Summer Games of 1980 marked a major shift in Olympic policy by the Deutscher Fussball Verband, the governing body of football in the GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. Up to this point, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, more or less, always used the senior national team to represent the country in the Olympic football competition. The D.D.R. had, after all, issued the momentous Leistungssportbeschluss demanding Olympic excellence in 1969 and the East German football program had done its part by contributing a bronze in Munich and a gold in Montreal to the all-important medal count.

By the late 1970s, however, the priorities of both the D.F.V. and the G.D.R. government had begun to ‘evolve’ somewhat. There is little question that the Bundesrepublik Deutschland’s continued success at the highest levels of senior international football weighed heavily on the minds of many on the other side of the Antifaschistischer Schutwall (Anti-Fascist Protection Bulwark) in the divided city of Berlin. Furthermore, East Germany’s ability to not only qualify for the final tournament of the 1974 FIFA World Cup but defeat the host nation and eventual champion, West Germany, had done nothing but increase everyone’s desire to see the D.D.R. do better at major international football events outside the Olympics.

The state-controlled television authority in the German Democratic Republic reported a 70.7% share of all available viewers for the historic East Germany v West Germany clash in Munich while the D.D.R. national team’s meaningless World Cup match with Argentina (both teams were already eliminated) in 1974 had claimed 60.9% share of the available audience, as well. These numbers were not lost on those occupying seats in the Politubro of the Sozilalistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany), the supreme governing authority in the G.D.R. to whom the D.F.V. answered. Neither was the failure of the East Germany national team to qualify for the final tournament of the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina.

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East Germany midfielder RUEDIGER SCHNUPHASE (6) of FC Carl Zeiss Jena, who was not a member of the D.D.R. squad that later won the Olympic gold medal at Montreal in 1976, competes for a high ball with Argentina defender RAMON HEREDIA (10) of Spanish La Liga side Atletico Madrid during the 1974 FIFA World Cup second round, Group A match that ended in a 1-1 draw before 54,254 speactators at the Parkstadion in Gelsenkirchen, West Germany. In the background to the right is famous D.D.R. forward JUERGEN SPARWASSER (14) of FC Magdeburg, scorer of the game’s only goal in the historic all-German encounter at Hamburg. To the left is Argentina midfielder ROBERTO TELCH (18) of Buenos Aires-based CA San Lorenzo.
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Meanwhile, the draw for the 1980 UEFA European Championships placed the East Germans in a very difficult group with both the Netherlands (beaten Finalist at both the 1974 and 1978 FIFA World Cups) and Poland. It was decided that the D.D.R.’s elite players would be saved for that demanding task while a separate national squad under the direction of DR. RUDOLF KRAUSE would be created specifically just for the Moscow Summer Games. And, thus, decorated players such as veteran goalkeeper JUERGEN CROY of FC Sachsenring Zwickau would not get the always-rare opportunity to repeat as Olympic champions.

The gold medal won at the expense of a powerful Polish side in Montreal meant that there would be no need to qualify for the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow but the D.D.R. Olympiaauswahl still contested more than 20 training matches to adequately prepare, nevertheless. More than 30 candidates, most of whom had little or no senior international experience in advance, appeared in these matches hoping for a place on the final Olympic squad. Even after the official roster was announced, the only player who had gotten more than ten games for the senior national team ahead of the Olympic tournament in the U.S.S.R. was FC Carl Zeiss Jena midfielder RUEDIGER SCHNUPHASE, the 26-year-old veteran of the World Cup who had already collected 20 of what would be a total of 45 caps for East Germany in his career.

The Deutsche Demokratische Republik was actually knocked out of the running for the European Championships to be hosted by Italy (and eventually won by West Germany) early — by November of 1979. And so the East Germans might have elected to fortify the D.D.R. Olympiaauswahl on its way to Moscow with the late additions of at least a few highly-experienced senior players such as Croy but Krause, perhaps wisely, chose not to mess around with whatever team chemistry that might have been established heretofore.

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May 7, 1980 — Four potential candidates to defend the Olympic gold medal won by Deutsche Demokratische Republik at the ’76 Summer Games in Montreal — (left to right) midfielder JUERGEN BAEHRINGER (FC Karl Marx Stadt), defender DIETER STROZNIAK (FC Chemie Halle), goalkeeper BODO RUDWALEIT (Dynamo Berlin) and defender FRANK UHLIG (FC Karl Marx Stadt) — walk off the field after East Germany and the visiting Soviet Union finished all square at 2-2 in front of a reported crowd of 20,000 Zuschauer at the Ostseestadion in the Baltic Sea port city of Rostock.

Moscow Summer Games : Half Of Qualified Olympic Football Field Does Not Turn Out

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The full Olympic team of the DEUTSCHE DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIK, including the reigning gold medalist football squad of the German Democratic Republic, march triumphantly before a crowd of over 100,000 onlookers at the jampacked Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium — the crown jewel of the famed Luzhniki Olympic Sports Complex in Moscow — during the Opening Ceremony of the Games of the XXII Olympiad on July 19, 1980.
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There was never any question that the East Germans were not going to show up in Moscow and defend the Olympic football gold medal won four years earlier. An estimated 400,000 heavily-armed Soviet occupation troops under the overall command of General Evgeny Ivanovski permanently stationed all across the country at that particular point in time helped to insure that the Deutsche Demokratische Republik would not be joining the boycott proposed by the something less-than-courageous President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Other nations who were not in integral members of the Warsaw Pact, however, would have a high-profile decision to make.

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Altogether, a total of 65 nations that had been officially invited to the Games of the XXII Olympiad hosted by the Soviet Union elected not to turn up in Moscow for the Opening Ceremony or participate in any of the athletic events, for that matter. The number of participating nations (80) marked the lowest total at the Summer Games since 1956, ironically enough, the very same year that had seen the U.S.S.R. compete at the Olympics for the first time ever. A further 15 countries, in something of a much ‘softer’ protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, opted to march in the Opening Ceremony with the Olympic flag instead of the respective national flag and would also choose to raise the I.O.C. banner with the Olympic Hymn whenever an athlete of theirs was awarded a medal throughout the Moscow Games, as well.

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As far as the 1980 Karl Marx Football Tournament was concerned, exactly half of the countries that had successfully qualified for the Moscow Summer Games (7 out of 14) would ultimately join the Olympic boycott movement and have to be replaced :

UNITED STATES …….. CONCACAF replaced by ……… CUBA
ARGENTINA ……………. CONMEBOL replaced by …….. VENEZUELA
NORWAY …………………. UEFA replaced by ………………. FINLAND
EGYPT …………………….. CAF replaced by ………………….. ZAMBIA
GHANA ……………………. CAF replaced by ………………….. NIGERIA
IRAN ……………………….. AFC replaced by ………………….. SYRIA
MALAYSIA ………………. AFC replaced by ………………….. IRAQ

It is interesting to note that all three of the opponents who would be drawn in Group A with the host nation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, had not originally qualified for the final football tournament at the 1980 Moscow Summer Games … but that would be another story.

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Willkommen Zum Karl Marx-Fussballturnier! … Welcome To The Karl Marx Football Tournament!

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Herzliche Willkommen zu dem Karl Marx Fussballturnier!

Unser peinliche amerikanische Praesident JIMMY CARTER hatte gesagt, dass unsere Mannschaft zum Moscow-Olympiaspiele nicht fahren kann. Schade! Unsere Fussballmannschaft hat mit dem Qualifikation-Spiele gut gemacht.

Was fuer ein grosse Fehler von einem sehr grossen Dummkopf! … Es waere besser gewesen nach Moskau zu gehen und die sowjetische Mannschaft besiegen. Unsere folgende Praesident hat dass verstanden.

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Welcome to the Karl Marx Football Tournament!

Our embarrassing American President JIMMY CARTER said that our team cannot go to the Moscow Olympic Games. What a shame! Our football team did well with the qualification matches.

What a big mistake from a very big moron! … It would have been better to go to Moscow and defeat the Soviet team. Our next President understood that.

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Unsere beruehmte Fernsehgesellschaft (“ABC Sports”), der mit der Olympiaspiele immer hatte arbeitete, die Moscow-Sommerspiele an die Nation dieses Jahr nicht ausgestrahlt hat (1980).

Deshalb, fahre ich heute nach Moskau mit der D.F.V. Olympiaauswahl. Ich will das Fussballturnier zu sehen. Und was machst du?

Alles klar — hab kein Angst! Ich habe mit dem sowjetischen Passkontrolleleute frueher gesprochen. Die sowjetische Passamt denken, dass ein Amerikaner mit der Stasi bin ich.

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Our famous television company (ABC Sports) who always worked with the Olympic Games did not broadcast the Moscow Summer Games to the nation this year (1980).

Therefore, I am going to Moscow with the East German Olympic football team. I want to see the football tournament. And what are you doing?

Everything is okay — have no fear! I spoke with the Soviet passport control people earlier. The Soviet passport office thinks that I am an American with the East German secret police.

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Koennte die amerikanische olympische Fussballmannschaft ein Spiel gegen die Sowjetelf in dem Zentral-Lenin-Stadion dieses Jahr gewinnen? …………………… Wahrscheinlichkeit nicht!

Segun Odegbami Speaks Out On Moscow Olympics

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Prolific striker SEGUN ODEGBAMI (7) from FC Shooting Stars of Ibadan, who was a teammate of 1980 American Soccer League champion striker Christian Nwokocha of the Pennsylvania Stoners during NIGERIA’s effort to qualify for the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain, scored 23 goals in 46 full international matches for the Green Eagles in a career that spanned from 1970 until 1984.
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“Montreal was very different from communist Russia (the Soviet Union). The atmosphere was totally different. Where you eat, sleep and feel freedom in Montreal, Moscow was so secretive everything was done in fear. You didn’t know who was watching you.

In Canada you could move freely but in Moscow even to get in the Games village (for athletes) there was all kinds of gadgets and security gates.

Even within your room there were all kinds of restrictions as to what you could do. You couldn’t plug your tape recorder into the light socket. We were told everyone was being seriously watched.

It really was like being in prison …”

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SEGUN ODEGBAMI was a member of the Nigeria Olympic football team that traveled to North America for the Montreal Summer Games in 1976 but ending up boycotting the athletic event at the last minute. The player known as “Mathematical” because of his formal university training as an engineer in addition to a high technical level of skill counted two goals when Nigeria blanked Algeria 3-0 in the Final of the African Cup of Nations in March of 1980, just four months ahead of the Moscow Summer Games. The Green Eagles goal-scorer recalled his time in the Soviet Union in an article, “My Olympic Moment – Segun Odegbami”, appearing at the official website of the Nigeria Olympic Committee :

http://www.nigeriaolympiccommittee.org