Socceroo_06
May 15th, 2008, 06:08 PM
The tragic stories of the Munich air disaster that claimed the lives of eight Manchester United players and the Superga crash in 1949 that killed 18 stars of the brilliant Torino side of the time are well-known episodes in the catalogue of football tragedy.
Even the fatal accidents that struck the Zambian national team in 1993 and Peruvian side Alianza Lima in 1987 are widely reported and rightly remembered, but there’s another airline tragedy that’s almost unknown to the wider football public, yet one in which the seeds of the current resurgence in Uzbekistan football were planted.
On the morning of August 11, 1979 the Pakhtakor club (at the time one of the leading sides in the USSR Championship) were on route to a match in Minsk when their plane collided with another passenger jet at almost 9,000 metres near the city of Donetsk, killing all 17 playing and coaching staff on board.
At the time Pakhtakor were easily the most successful club based in what is now Uzbekistan – indeed they were the only side from the region to play in the topflight of Soviet football and became the only Central Asian outfit to reach the final of the Soviet Cup (a 1-0 loss to Torpedo Moscow in 1968).
All that was cruelled by the events of mid-1979, but in a strange sense it also allowed the club and Uzbek football an emotional base to build upon in the reconstruction of a club that has comprehensively dominated Uzbek football since the nation gained independence in 1991.
Immediately following the crash, the other 17 teams in the Championship gave several players each to Pakhtakor, including those from the side in Minsk they were scheduled to play and the team from Tashkent ended up finishing the season in a respectable ninth.
They were also granted an amnesty from relegation for the following three seasons, and after struggling for the next two, finished sixth in 1982 on the basis of young players, including Andriy Jakubik who became one of the leading strikers in the USSR.
The club then fell on tough times, being relegated in 1984 and not returning until the final season of the USSR Championship 1991. With their role as the only side from the region giving them almost 40 years of top-flight preparation and galvanized by the events of 1979, Pakhtakor then, somewhat predictably, went on to dominate the newly formed Uzbekistan Premier League.
The capital club shared the initial title with fellow high-flyers Neftchi Ferghana before going on a remarkable run that’s seen them win the league and cup double for an astonishing six straight seasons, and they’re currently sitting second a third of the way through the current season in their pursuit of a seventh.
In recent times though, Pakhtakor haven’t had things all their own way with the emergence of new boys Quruvchi. Also hailing from Tashkent, the club was only formed in July 2005 but has already made giant strides – so much so that they’re now well in contention to win this year’s Asian Champions League.
Only promoted to the top flight of Uzbek football last season, the club finished second behind Pakhtakor and in doing so claimed a spot in the ACL where they have stunned Asian football.
Slotted in with last year’s runners-up Sepahan and two-time ACL Champion Al Ittihad, the tiny club from Tashkent was given little chance of progressing from Group A (including by this commentator) only to pull off 2-0 results against both sides at the MHSK Stadium to open up an unassailable lead at the top of the group – and remarkably reach the quarterfinals.
This in a year when Pakhtakor (ACL semi-finalists in both 2003 and 2004) crashed out of a fairly weak Group D perhaps signals a changing of the guard – and if that is the case, there’s little question over who has been the leading light – arguably the greatest Uzbek footballer of all time – Mirdjalol Kasimov.
The now 37 year old is the most capped national player (65) and the nation’s leading all-time goalscorer with 29 and it appears a young coach of real repute. Although the Quruvchi side boasts several fine Uzbek internationals including classy midfielders Server Djeparov, Timur Kapadze and Victor Karpenko; defender Bakhtayor Ashurmatov as well as strikers Anvarjon Soliev and Ulugbek Bakaev, it is the cohesion fostered by Kasimov that, most pundits agree, has allowed Quruvchi to compete with the heavyweights of Asian football.
One oft-repeated criticism of the ACL is that clubs are simply ‘buying success’ by bringing in highly paid foreigners on inflated wages. Quruvchi, with their foreign legion stretching to Turkmenistan’s Gochguly Gochgulyev and Russian Sergey Lushchan certainly put paid to that theory – and in the process have shown other sides that, with good coaching and resourceful recruitment, it is possible to perform at the highest level of continental football.
And it’s not just club football that’s on the rise in the Central Asian nation – the Uzbek national team (for whom Kasimov is also an assistant coach) opened their World Cup qualifying account with impressive victories over Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to be well-placed to reach the final round of Asian qualifying for the second campaign running.
All of which means this nation of 26 million, double-landlocked between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan may not escape the wider public for much longer.
One foot in the door marked South Africa for the national team, one side in the final eight of Asian club competition – the dark horses of Asian football are stepping into the light.
http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/blogs/scottmcintyre/the-crash-that-rocked-uzbek-football-118423/
Even the fatal accidents that struck the Zambian national team in 1993 and Peruvian side Alianza Lima in 1987 are widely reported and rightly remembered, but there’s another airline tragedy that’s almost unknown to the wider football public, yet one in which the seeds of the current resurgence in Uzbekistan football were planted.
On the morning of August 11, 1979 the Pakhtakor club (at the time one of the leading sides in the USSR Championship) were on route to a match in Minsk when their plane collided with another passenger jet at almost 9,000 metres near the city of Donetsk, killing all 17 playing and coaching staff on board.
At the time Pakhtakor were easily the most successful club based in what is now Uzbekistan – indeed they were the only side from the region to play in the topflight of Soviet football and became the only Central Asian outfit to reach the final of the Soviet Cup (a 1-0 loss to Torpedo Moscow in 1968).
All that was cruelled by the events of mid-1979, but in a strange sense it also allowed the club and Uzbek football an emotional base to build upon in the reconstruction of a club that has comprehensively dominated Uzbek football since the nation gained independence in 1991.
Immediately following the crash, the other 17 teams in the Championship gave several players each to Pakhtakor, including those from the side in Minsk they were scheduled to play and the team from Tashkent ended up finishing the season in a respectable ninth.
They were also granted an amnesty from relegation for the following three seasons, and after struggling for the next two, finished sixth in 1982 on the basis of young players, including Andriy Jakubik who became one of the leading strikers in the USSR.
The club then fell on tough times, being relegated in 1984 and not returning until the final season of the USSR Championship 1991. With their role as the only side from the region giving them almost 40 years of top-flight preparation and galvanized by the events of 1979, Pakhtakor then, somewhat predictably, went on to dominate the newly formed Uzbekistan Premier League.
The capital club shared the initial title with fellow high-flyers Neftchi Ferghana before going on a remarkable run that’s seen them win the league and cup double for an astonishing six straight seasons, and they’re currently sitting second a third of the way through the current season in their pursuit of a seventh.
In recent times though, Pakhtakor haven’t had things all their own way with the emergence of new boys Quruvchi. Also hailing from Tashkent, the club was only formed in July 2005 but has already made giant strides – so much so that they’re now well in contention to win this year’s Asian Champions League.
Only promoted to the top flight of Uzbek football last season, the club finished second behind Pakhtakor and in doing so claimed a spot in the ACL where they have stunned Asian football.
Slotted in with last year’s runners-up Sepahan and two-time ACL Champion Al Ittihad, the tiny club from Tashkent was given little chance of progressing from Group A (including by this commentator) only to pull off 2-0 results against both sides at the MHSK Stadium to open up an unassailable lead at the top of the group – and remarkably reach the quarterfinals.
This in a year when Pakhtakor (ACL semi-finalists in both 2003 and 2004) crashed out of a fairly weak Group D perhaps signals a changing of the guard – and if that is the case, there’s little question over who has been the leading light – arguably the greatest Uzbek footballer of all time – Mirdjalol Kasimov.
The now 37 year old is the most capped national player (65) and the nation’s leading all-time goalscorer with 29 and it appears a young coach of real repute. Although the Quruvchi side boasts several fine Uzbek internationals including classy midfielders Server Djeparov, Timur Kapadze and Victor Karpenko; defender Bakhtayor Ashurmatov as well as strikers Anvarjon Soliev and Ulugbek Bakaev, it is the cohesion fostered by Kasimov that, most pundits agree, has allowed Quruvchi to compete with the heavyweights of Asian football.
One oft-repeated criticism of the ACL is that clubs are simply ‘buying success’ by bringing in highly paid foreigners on inflated wages. Quruvchi, with their foreign legion stretching to Turkmenistan’s Gochguly Gochgulyev and Russian Sergey Lushchan certainly put paid to that theory – and in the process have shown other sides that, with good coaching and resourceful recruitment, it is possible to perform at the highest level of continental football.
And it’s not just club football that’s on the rise in the Central Asian nation – the Uzbek national team (for whom Kasimov is also an assistant coach) opened their World Cup qualifying account with impressive victories over Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to be well-placed to reach the final round of Asian qualifying for the second campaign running.
All of which means this nation of 26 million, double-landlocked between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan may not escape the wider public for much longer.
One foot in the door marked South Africa for the national team, one side in the final eight of Asian club competition – the dark horses of Asian football are stepping into the light.
http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/blogs/scottmcintyre/the-crash-that-rocked-uzbek-football-118423/