The Red Rising of Ukraine - A Road to Glory with FC Dnipro in the Soviet Union

[Venator77]

Welcome back to the FC Dnipro save. March fixtures have been played and the youth intake is in. Let's take a look.

This year's intake isn't as good as last year's, but the highlight is Vladislav Khrapov, a left back showing lots of promise. Now for the fixtures.

League Matchday 29

We win again against Spaeri as we inch closer to the league title of our group.

League Matchday 30

This excellent 6-0 thrashing of Lokomotiv-Pamir ensured that we would enter at least play-off should we have a catastrophic meltdown, however, that is unlikely.

League Matchday 31

And with 7 matchdays left to go, we secured the league title and promotion with a win away against Chayka PPB. Excellent, we're going up again!

League Matchday 32

Good win against Skuri, nothing really more to comment on.

League Matchday 33

We round off the month with a good 6-1 victory against Iberia-2010.

League table going into April.

It's all over for this season. Now it's between Urartu, Altai, and Samgurali to fight for that 2nd place promotion playoff spot. Poor Fayzkand, they have been relegated after a very poor season in which they only won 2 matches all season.

That's it for March for the 2020/21 season. I will return with the remaining 5 games as well as the end of the 1st and 2nd tiers of Soviet football and the Cup very soon.

 

[Venator77]

Welcome back to the Dnipro save. The end of Season 2 has arrived and all Soviet competitions have ended. Let's take a look.

League Matchday 34

An easy win to start off against already relegated bottom placed Fayzkand. Marin and Yaremchuk were excellent as always.

League Matchday 35

Even though these last five games were nothing to play for, we kept up our high standards with a good win against relegation battlers Betlemi to reach the 100 point mark.

League Matchday 36

Another routine victory against Aktobe-Zhas, who had nothing to play for since they were too far behind the teams above.

League Matchday 37

Good win against top-half Samgurali as we marched to the 110 point mark.

League Matchday 38

The season ended on a high with a home win against Sherdor to reach 110 points with 36 wins and 2 draws, an even better season compared to last.

The final league table.

An excellent season comes to an end with another invincible season and an even better points tally. Urartu Yerevan ended up going up with us as they emerged victorious in the promotion play-off. Fayzkand, Kalush, and Betlemi were relegated to the 6th tier after they had many poor results, especially Fayzkand, who only picked up 13 points all season.

Now, results from the Soviet competitions

The Kubok was won by Lokomotiv Moscow, who beat Krasnodar 4-0 in the final.

The top tier of the Soviet football pyramid was won by CSKA Moscow, who barely squeaked past Spartak Moscow on goal difference. Tobol, Krylja Sovetov, Rubin, and relegation play-off loser Dynamo Kyiv were relegated to the 2nd tier.

The 2nd tier was won by Dinamo Moscow, who went straight back up along with Orenburg, BATE Borisov, and play-off winner Mariupol. Ordabasy, Surxon, Qarabag, and Tambov were relegated to the third tier. Qarabag were notable for being a recently relegated side, so now they suffered the embarrassment of back-to-back relegations.

That's it for the save. I will return very soon with results from around Europe.

 

[Venator77]

Welcome back to the Dnipro save, where we will look at results from around Europe.

The Bundesliga was won by Bayern Munich once again. Paderborn and Mainz were relegated to the 2 Bundesliga. SC Freiburg won the relegation play-off to remain in the Bundesliga.

Hamburger SV won the 2 Bundesliga and were promoted with Fortuna Dusseldorf. Holstein Kiel and Jahn Regensburg were relegated to the 3 Liga. SV Sandhausen won the relegation playoff to stay in the 2 Bundesliga.

Manchester City won the Premier League on a dramatic final day where they took advantage of Chelsea's 1-1 draw with Bournemouth to beat Nottingham Forest. Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday, and Leeds United were relegated to the Championship.

Watford won the Championship and were promoted with Swansea City and play-off winner Fulham. Brentford, Lincoln City, and Millwall were relegated to League One.

The Serie A was won by Juventus after Napoli dropped points at the end of the season. Pescara, Lecce, and Ascoli were relegated to Serie B.

Sampdoria won Serie B and were promoted with Brescia and Crotone. Carrarese, Padova, Juve Stabia, and Venezia were relegated to Serie C.

La Liga was won by Atletico Madrid, who barely edged Barcelona to top spot. Mallorca, Granada, and Zaragoza were relegated to La Liga 2.

Girona won La Liga 2 and were promoted with Numancia and Levante. Ponferrada, Alcorcon, Extremadura, and Lugo were relegated to the Spanish 3rd tier.

Ligue 1 was won by Lyon, who's centurion season broke PSG's dominance of the French top spot. Brest, Rennes, and Auxerre were relegated to Ligue 2.

EA Guingamp won Ligue 2 and were promoted with Le Havre and Troyes. Le Mans FC and Valenciennes were relegated to the French 3rd tier.

Dinamo Zagreb won the Yugoslav First League once again, 12 points clear of 2nd place Partizan Belgrade. Zrinjski Mostar, Domzale, and Olimpija were relegated to the Yugoslav Second League.

Vozdovac won the Yugoslav Second League and were promoted with HNK Gorica and Inter Zapresic. Krupa, Macva, and Siroki Brijeg were relegated to the 3rd tier.

Liverpool claimed their 3rd straight Champions League title by beating Atletico Madrid on penalties after a 1-1 draw after extra time.

PSG won the Europa League by beating FC Porto 1-0 in the final.

That's it for Season 2 of the FC Dnipro save. Stay tuned for the start of Season 3, where we will compete in the 4th tier as we march up the pyramids.

 

[Venator77]

Welcome back to the FC Dnipro save, where we now enter Season 3. Lets take a look at the new league rules.

Nothing much had changed apart from the matchday rules allowing more foriegn players in the matchday squad. Now for the summer transfer window.

It was a pretty busy transfer window as our decent budget of €800k allowed us to bring in many youth prospects as well as a couple new first team players. Most of the outgoing players were youth development loans, though we did get rid of a couple deadwood players for a minor transfer fee. Interesting things of note, there were a few transfers from around Europe that we benefited from by receiving money as solidarity payments. These two players netted us €381.75k to prop up our transfer budget. I'll be keeping an eye on those two as the years go, since they may provide more money from big money transfer moves.

Now we move on to the fixtures.

Kubok 1st Qualifying Round

We went to Estonia to face FCI Levadia Tallinn in our first game of the season. We beat them 3-1, breaking our two year tradition of double digit scorelines in this round.

League Matchday 1

The first game of the season came against Yednist Plysky of Ukraine. We very nearly lost this game, but our home grown product Shestakov managed to score a last minute equalizer to save a point. Absolutely disgusted by this performance, we should have done better.

League Matchday 2

Luckily, we got things back on track with a 5-1 victory against Kazakh side FC Kyzyl-Zhar in our first home game of the season.

League Matchday 3

We picked up another 3 points with a win against Georgian side FC Tskhinvali to keep us on the correct track of going to the top of the table.

League Matchday 4

The final match of the month came at home against Armenian side Ararat Yerevan, who we comfortably beat 5-0.

The league table going into September

That's it for today. I will return with September fixtures very soon.

 

[Venator77]

Welcome back to the Dnipro save, September has passed, so let's look at the fixtures.

League Matchday 5

We start off the month with a big win against Azeri side Zira IK. We put 8 past them with Savitskiy scoring a hattrick.

Kubok 2nd Qualifying Round

We faced Moldovan side Dinamo-Auto Tiraspol in the next cup fixture. It was a comfortable 5-1 win to allow us to move on.

League Matchday 6

We notched up another league victory against the Georgian side SK Rustavi.

League Matchday 7

We continued our unstoppable run with another big victory, this time against the Armenian side Shirak Gyumri.

League Matchday 8

We had a surprisingly close game against the Kazakh side FK Oqzhetpes Kokshetau. where they scored two in the final minutes of the game. Only a goal from Yastrebinskyi prevented us from dropping points for the second time this season.

League table going into October

I am happy to see that we are starting to pull away from the pack as more matches are being played.

That's it for September, I will return soon with October fixtures.

 

[Venator77]

Welcome back to the FC Dnipro save in the Soviet Union. October fixtures have been played so lets take a look at the results.

League Matchday 9

We had a dicey game against Georgian side Merani Tbilisi, as we fell behind early on and trailed at the break. Luckily, we pulled through with the win, but another goal in the 64th minute kept us on our toes.

Kubok 3rd Qualifying Round

We were drawn against Ukrainian side Kremin Kremunchug in the Kubok. We easily dispatched them 3-1.

League Matchday 10

We had a big top of the table clash against Kyrgyz side Alay Osh, but we were poor, losing our first league game of the save 2-1. Very disappointed at this result, especially as they were down a man for all of the 2nd half.

League Matchday 11

Thankfully, we bounced back with a win against Georgian side SK Samtredia with two goals in the 2nd half.

League Matchday 12

We faced Georgian side Chikhura Sachkhere away from home in the next match, which was an easy 4-0 victory in our favor.

League Matchday 13

This Halloween fixture was a huge top of the table clash against Georgian side Torpedo Kutaisi. We didn't learn our lesson from last time as we were behind at half time. Luckily, we rallied back and scored 3 to beat our title challengers 4-2.

League Table going into November

Not happy to see that we lose our chance to go unbeaten the whole season, but we are still ahead of the nearest competition by five points. It looks like as the season continues that continuing our great form to the title, there are three teams challenging for that important 2nd placed playoff spot for the third tier.

That's it for October fixtures, I will return very soon with November fixtures.

 

[Venator77]

Welcome back readers, its time for November fixtures.

Kubok 4th Qualifying Round

We faced off against Tajik side KMVA-Pomir Dushanbe in the cup. It was an easy 5-0 victory to get to the 1st Round proper.

League Matchday 14

We went to Azerbaijan to face off against Sabail Baki, who are stuck in the relegation zone. It was a goal-fest with a total of 11 goals being netted for an unusual final score of 8-3 in our favor.

League Matchday 15

We hosted FK Ahal Ak-Dasayak of Turkmenistan in the next game and won 3-1 despite going down to ten men near the end.

League Matchday 16

Another trip to Georgia to face Shevardeni 1906 Tbilisi, where we had the game wrapped up by half time.

League Matchday 17

We lose another top of the table clash, this time against the Armenian side Ararat-Armenia Yerevan. I was very disappointed with our profligacy in front of goal, but credit where credit is due, Ararat defended very well and deserved to win.

League Table

We still hold a five point lead over our nearest competition. I would've liked that to be more, but the step up in class is certainly rearing its head.

That's it for November 2021. I will return with December fixtures very soon.