Metallist

The Brightest Kharkov Football Team

The history of Metallist, which is one of the strongest football clubs of Ukraine, starts in December 1925, when at Steam locomotive plant was created a football team. In 1935 the team wins the championship of Kharkov and in 1960 it eventually reached the Soviet Top League.
Before 1967 Metallist had different names: HPZ (1925ó1936), Traktor (1946), Dzerzhinets (1947-1949), Avangard (1956-1966).
Kharkovians often served as a basis for the combined team of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was quite successful in winning friendly matches with other republics. Indeed, the combined team of Kharkov was one of the strongest football teams in whole Soviet Union. The club spent 14 seasons in the Soviet Top League, obtaining 6-th place in 1961. Yuri Tarasov played 220 matches in the Soviet Top League for the Metallist scoring 61 goal, what made him the best football player of Kharkov.
In fact 1988 became a crucial year for the Metallist. It has won the Soviet Cup by b eating Torpedo Moscow with a score of 2-0. This long-awaited victory gave to Kharkov Metallist football team the opportunity to test their strength in UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.
Then the Soviet Union collapsed and everything including football had to adjust to the new circumstances. And Metallist did well in this regard. In 1992 it took part in the premier season of the Ukrainian Premier League and took 5-th place. Unfortunately, Metallist was able to repeat the same result only in 2006-2007 season. This gave them chance to play in UEFA Cup 2007-08 where Everton defeated Metallist. The next season in UEFA Cup 2008-09 was also successful for the team. Metalist beat Besiktas, Galatasaray, Olympiacos, and Benfica but played 0-0 with Hertha. In 1/8 finale Metallist played versus Dynamo Kyiv and was defeated.
We are sure that such football teams as Metallist have great future ahead of them. It is one of the best Ukrainian football clubs, which brings and will bring a lot of positive emotions to their faithful fans.

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