Karpaty Lviv

Early years (1963–68)

The team of Karpaty was founded on 18 January, 1963. In 1961 Silmash Lviv won the championship of Lviv Oblast but lost its promotional play-off against Naftovyk Drohobych to qualify for the Soviet Class B championship. In 1962 Silmash Lviv won the championship and cup of the Lviv Oblast (see Lviv Oblast Football Federation) and won the promotional play-offs against Naftovyk, obtaining the rights to participate in the Soviet Class B championship (Soviet First League). However, in 1963 the Football Federation of USSR conducted another reorganization in football national tournaments creating the Second Group of Class A and Class B became the third tier where a berth was reserved for a team from Lviv. At that time the best city team was SKA Lvov, players of which did not stay there for long, leaving it at the end of their military service, while the best would be drafted to CSKA Moscow. In light of that the city administration decided to create a civilian team, independent from the Soviet military.

In December 1962, in the building of Regional Council of Trade Unions (at prospekt Shevchenka), the head of the council and the regional football federation, Hlib Klymov, invited coaches of Silmash – Yuri Zubach (former player of Ukraina Lwów) and Vasyl Solomonko, as well as the director of the city plant "Lvivsilmash" Ivan Kalynychenko to discuss a new name for the club. The name Silmash was recognized as inadequate for participation on such a level. Among the proposed names were Spartak, Dynamo, Halychyna, while at the end they agreed upon the regional toponym Karpaty (Carpathians).

In the Soviet times all sport teams were "tied" to certain industrial unions or sport societies, therefore Karpaty joined the republican sport society of trade unions "Avanhard", while the Lviv Television Production Plant "Elektron" became its sponsor. Out of "Silmash" only two joined Karpaty: Ihor Kulchytskyi and Josef Fales. Karpaty also adopted the same jersey colors of Silmash. Also the club was reinforced with several players from SKA Lvov and transfers. The club played its first game on 14 April 1964 against Zenit Izhevsk at the Dynamo Stadium (today – the location of the building of the Regional Tax Administration) winning it 1–0. The goal was scored by the club's captain Oleksandr Filiayev. The first official game was against Lokomotiv Gomel on 23 April 1963, which Karpaty won 1–0 (goal scored by Anatoliy Kroshchenko).

Karpaty debuted in Group B in 1963 and remained there for four seasons, until in 1968 they were promoted to Soviet First League.

Winning the USSR Cup

On 17 August 1969, Karpaty became the first (and the only) club in the USSR football history to win the USSR Cup while playing in the Soviet First League. The road to the cup was no less exciting as the final itself. On the way there the Lions were challenged by such Soviet heavy-weights as Ararat Yerevan and Chornomorets Odesa. The quarterfinal round matched them with Trud Voronezh that in the prior round had eliminated Spartak Moscow. After a narrow victory over Voronezh, Karpaty faced Mykolaiv's Shipbuilders. The game was perceived by the Lvivians as the chance to avenge the previous year's loss to the Mykolaivans, which cost them a ticket to the Soviet Premiership. A score of 2–0 was enough to secure a trip to Moscow.

In the final, Karpaty faced the Red Army team from Rostov-on-Don at the Lenin Stadium. The Rostov army-men were one of the best Soviet clubs in the mid-1960s and for that game they were considered as the favorites being the representatives of the Soviet Top League. Before the start of the game Karpaty's captain Ihor Kulchytskyi shook hands in the traditional manner with every match official, except the assistant referee, Eugen Härms. The reason was that Härms, the Estonian referee in charge of their game a year earlier against Uralmash Sverdlovsk, allowed a goal from what was regarded as an obvious offside position that eventually contributed to Karpaty's denial of a promotion. Karpaty were trailing 0–1 already after the first 20 minutes and to the end of the half were not able to equalize, but numerous Karpaty's fans drove their team forward.

When we went out for a warm up, there sat a sector of Lviv fans, some four thousand people. And the "Cheremshyna" was played on the accordion.

...That song [with the lyrics] – "again the cheremshyna will be blooming...", that sounded over the stadium, did something incredible to us – from that excitement my tears came up...

In the second half the Ukrainians broke the course of the game flow and two goals from Lykhachov and Bulhakov put the Lions ahead. Near the end of the game the Rostov team scored another goal, but it was given offside. The match referee, without consulting his assistants, initially allowed the goal and the Russians ran joyfully towards the center of the field. However, a moment later, he noticed the raised flag from Härms who had identified an offside and reversed his decision, awarding the victory to Lviv.

In the following season, Karpaty's first opponent in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was Romanian Steaua București that, led by István Kovács, advanced on a 4–3 aggregate.

Soviet Top League (1970–1977)

In 1970–77 and 1980, Karpaty played in the Soviet Top League. Karpaty's best achievement was 4th place in 1976. Karpaty placed 4th twice that year since the season was split into 2 separate championships (spring and fall). Karpaty were primed to win silver that season, but an unexpected loss in their last home game to Zenit Leningrad pushed Karpaty back into 4th place.

While playing in the Soviet First League in 1979, Karpaty were close to repeating their 1969 achievement, when they met Dynamo Moscow in the USSR Cup semi-final. The match, which was played in Moscow, went into overtime with a 1–1 score with Dynamo prevailing in the end, scoring a penalty kick in extra time.

Merger and period of SKA Karpaty (1981–1989)

In 1981, Karpaty were merged with another city team, SKA Lviv belonging to the Carpathian Military District and part of the Soviet Union Sports Society of the Armed Forces. In 1980 Karpaty were relegated from the Soviet Top League (Vysshaya Liga) and in the 1981 Soviet First League placed only 11th. Already before the season's finish there appeared rumors about possible merger. The logic of authors of that decision was in following, the city is receiving one, but strong and competitive team. In January 1982 the leaders of regional football ultimately decided to unite to clubs. It was motivated by the fact that it is difficult to finance two teams. As a result, Karpaty were liquidated and their place in the Soviet First League was taken by army team SKA Karpaty that was established in place of SKA Lvov. The new team was gathered from players of SKA, Karpaty, and several other who have recently arrived. The head coach became Russian Nikolay Samarin. It is believed that Ukrainian and Soviet coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi commented on liquidation of Karpaty, that it is a disaster of football in all western region of the republic. That it would take not single decade before they realize the whole tragedy of this merger.

The newly created SKA Karpaty were playing in red and white colors, and traditional green and white colors were banned. Militsiya were watching that fans would not bring to stands any green markings. The club's attendance fell immediately. Back in 1980 the Karpaty's home games were visited on average by 20-25 thousands spectators. In the first season after merging of the Lviv teams at stadium were gathering about 5-6 thousands spectators. The newly arrived footballers also did not stay long with the army club and were leaving as soon as their military service was terminated.

SKA Karpaty continued playing in the Soviet First League until 1989, getting close to promotion in 1986, when CSKA Moscow was promoted ahead of Karpaty on goal difference. As their highest achievement, SKA Karpaty placed third place twice while being coached by Volodymyr Bulhakov. After that their performance worsened. If in 1987 the club managed to place the fifth place, after two more years it literally hit the hard bottom placing dead last. It lost 18 of its 21 away games and its losing streak reached 15 games. To one of home games came to watch only 54 spectators, which was the absolute anti-record of the season.

Revival

The Karpaty's revival started with publication in a newspaper. In 1983 journalist and writer Ivan Salo wrote a critical article "Football... outside of play" (Ukrainian: Футбол...поза грою, in Ukrainian "outside of play" phrase is actually used for football term of offside). Now due to censorship in the Soviet Union, it dared to be printed only in four years in newspaper "Leninska molod" (The Lenin's Youth). The author was demanding to separate SKA Karpaty into two teams as it was earlier. The subject was expanded by "Sportyvna Hazeta" (The Sports Gazette). In November–December 1988 the publisher held a rally "Ya, mama, tato – za komandu Karpaty" (Mother, father and I – for the Karpaty team). The newspaper succeeded to gather 70,000 signatures from the whole Ukraine. After that the case actually moved from standstill. The Lviv delegation departed to Kyiv for negotiations with republican football federation (Ukrainian SSR, precursor of UAF). Negotiations also were held with Moscow.

Finally on 5 January 1989 at 15:00 in office No.290 of the State Committee on Sports of the Soviet Union at Luzhniki Embankment in Moscow was signed the certificate about revival of the Karpaty football team. His signature placed the future president of the Football Federation of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Koloskov. And on 10 January in "Sportyvna Hazeta" was printed a text titled "The birthday of the club". It has been seven years from the moment of the Karpaty's liquidation. The Lions began to play from the Second League (Zone 5, not Zone 6 with the rest "Ukrainian" teams), and SKA continued to play in the First.

The revival of the club was taken over by leadership of the Elektron Factory (television manufacturer), at facilities of which in 1963 Karpaty were actually created. In 2019 already the late Yuriy Dyachuk-Stavytskyi was telling, "At that time I worked as a head coach of Prykarpattia Ivano-Frankivsk. To Lviv I was invited along with Rostyslav Zaremba (at that time he headed a club of the Karpaty football fans). We were told: The he club must be moved ahead [with establishment]", said Dyachuk-Stavytskyi. "For office we were given a space at vulytsia Dudaieva. On the third story there were two rooms. We found couple of chairs and a coffee table for magazines. I brought my personal typewriter as many people remember it. My friends laughed at me telling "Why do you need all this?" The same thing they said to Rostyslav as both of us came to an empty lot de facto".

"However", continued Dyachuk-Stavytskyi, "in renewed Karpaty was gathered a battle-ready team since to Lviv returned a good number of local "fosterlings" (former recruits) such as Stepan Yurchyshyn, Serhiy Kvasnykov, Viktor Rafalchuk, Hryhoriy Batych, Vasyl Leskiv, Bohdan Bandura and others. A squad chief (nachalnik komandy) became Ihor Kulchytskyi, as a head coach was appointed Borys Rossykhin, while his assistant became Rostyslav Potochniak. Companies were transferring us their funds, and people were simply bringing in their caps their money that they gathered at the city's streets. So, I ask you not to be confused, the football team was created in 1963, and the club – in 1989", said Dyachuk-Stavytskyi. (Many football teams were forced to adopt the Soviet policy of khozraschyot during that period, some earlier than others.) "Those are two important historical dates".

Ukrainian League (1991–present)

Since Ukraine gained its independence, Karpaty have primarily participated in Ukrainian Premier League competitions. They reached 3rd place in 1997–98, their highest Ukrainian top division finish to date, and were Ukrainian Cup runners-up twice, losing both times to Dynamo Kyiv in the final.

The thirteenth season in Ukrainian Premier League became an unfortunate one for Karpaty and in the 2003–04 season the team was relegated to the Persha Liha. However, Karpaty remained there only for two seasons and in the 2005–06 season, the club was successful in taking second place in the Persha Liha, which promoted them to the Vyscha Liha the following year.

In August 2017 the president of the club Petro Dyminskyi while driving near Lviv ran into another car killing a younger lady. Few days later he left Ukraine on a private jet as the police started investigation. In December 2017 the district court in Kyiv gave an order to detain him and asked Interpol for assistance. In 2018 Dyminskyi appealed to Interpol to ignore the request. Dyminskyi is still at large and hiding.

It was then Oleh Smaliychuk became among main executives of the club as a vice-president. Karpaty avoided relegation in previous 2016–17 season due to administrative sanctions that were imposed against FC Dnipro. In June 2017 Karpaty replaced its head coach with foreign specialist Sergio Navarro, while Argentinian Dario Drudi who recently worked in FC Zirka Kropyvnytskyi became the club's executive director. To the club were also brought several Spanish speaking players.

The club poorly started its 2017–18 season losing at home to the newly promoted NK Veres Rivne that temporarily moved to Lviv (1:6) which led fans requesting players to undress their uniform and stop to disgrace the club's colors. Following the loss Navarro resigned and was replaced with Serhiy Zaytsev, but that did not help a lot. The club still struggled and after the away cup game loss against the Second League FC Prykarpattia Ivano-Frankivsk (1:2), the club's hooligans began mass riots at the stadium, brawl with the local police and stopped the bus with the returning Karpaty near Lviv. Following another home loss to FC Mariupol and remaining at the 11th place (out of 12), Zaitsev left the post and was replaced Oleh Boychyshyn. The new coach managed improve the club's table standing during the second half and the club cleared the relegation zone.

Following somewhat poor start in the 2018–19 with two home losses in four games Boychyshyn was replaced with José Morais. The club's form did not improve much and after view surprising away wins against FC Dynamo Kyiv and FC Chornomorets Odesa, Karpaty still continued to struggle to clear the relegation zone. At the end of November 2018 the Portuguese head coach left for Korea and Boychyshyn took over as interim. However, before the end of the half the club following this coach swap returned to the relegation zone. During the winter break to the club was brought another Spanish specialist Fabri González who was supposed to refresh the club, however his efforts were meager and the club remained at its 10th place. Fabri also failed to win against FC Inhulets Petrove in the domestic quarterfinals that played in a tier lower. Just before the finish Fabri was replaced with Oleksandr Chyzhevskyi who managed to win against the struggling FC Arsenal Kyiv and relegation play-off against FC Volyn Lutsk. An excellent season had a prospect player Marian Shved who just turned 22 and finished the season third on the top scorers list with 14 tallies. He also was traded away to the Scottish Celtic F.C., but remained with Karpaty on loan until the season's end.

The 2020 crisis

As in the previous season, the club again struggled to get out of the relegation zone in 2019-20. Although the league was scheduled to expand the following season, which would reduce the number of relegated teams, this did not help Karpaty. After 6 games the club remained 11th out of 12 and Chyzhevskyi was replaced with Roman Sanzhar. The change of coaches was not successful as the club by the midway point of the season hit bottom of the table and also suffered elimination from the domestic cup in the first round against FC Inhulets Petrove. As the club was leaving for the winter break, COVID-19 pandemic started to develop in Chinese Wuhan. The competitions resumed before introduction of quarantine and the UPL managed to finish the competition's first stage where Karpaty finished dead last. Soon after the UPL started its second stage of competitions all sports events in Ukraine were placed on halt on 18 March following the worldwide crisis. Sometime in May it was announced that Oleh Smaliychuk bought out a control package from Petro Dyminskyi who continued to hide from the law. After two months of quarantine, the UPL competitions renewed on 30 May. However, The UPL administration decided not to conduct the game Karpaty – Mariupol on 31 May 2020 as in the Lviv's team camp were found positive test results on COVID-19. FC Mariupol that was already on the way to the game was forced to turn around. On 2 June 2020 FC Karpaty Lviv released its official statement announcing that the club goes on 2 weeks self-isolation due to mass spread of the illness among players. The upcoming games with SC Dnipro-1 and Vorskla Poltava will not take place as previously scheduled. On 26 June 2020 were announced new rescheduled dates for the Karpaty's games against Mariupol and Dnipro-1. About a month later on 27 June they finally met in derby game against FC Lviv and promised to finish all their games they owed to other clubs before the new end of season on 19 July. But later Karpaty started to complain that the schedule is too tight and they won't be able to comply with the new schedule and refused to travel to any other games at all leaving on early vacations on 10 July. On 30 June 2020 the Ukrainian Premier League filed a document to the UAF Control and Disciplinary Committee informing that FC Karpaty Lviv were not able to show up for the game in Mariupol on 1 July 2020. The Mariupol–Karpaty game scheduled on 4 July will not take place. As it was the second failure to appear to the match for FC Karpaty Lviv, according to regulations the club was expelled from the championship by the UAF Control-Disciplinary Committee on 9 July 2020. The club was counted two technical defeats for two matches against FC Mariupol as 3:0 and 0:3. For all other remaining games that were due to play the club was counted -:+. On 22 July the UAF decision became final as the club did not appeal it.

On 31 July 2020 Smaliychuk announced that Karpaty would play in the Second League. In the beginning of August 2020 there surfaced information that Karpaty might even be able to play in the First League. On 14 August 2020 it was announced that the club never submitted registration for either the First or Second leagues. On 20 August 2020 it became confirmed that Karpaty will be actually playing in the Second League.

The 2021 club reorganization

The club underwent a considerable transformation in the summer of 2021. Owned by Petro Dyminskyi between 2001 and 2020, the Karpaty ownership was claimed either partially or entirely by Oleh Smaliychuk. In 2020 the club announced its bankruptcy and was expelled from the Ukrainian Premier League, yet allowed to enter competitions in lower leagues and maintain professional status. In the autumn of 2020, veteran Karpaty Lviv players Stepan Yurchyshyn, Andriy Tlumak and others created another club by the same name that entered the national amateur competitions.

The next season the Smaliychuk's Karpaty were relegated and finally announced to be dissolved - Yurchyshyn's Karpaty were promoted to take their place in the league. During the 2020–21 Ukrainian Second League Karpaty temporarily played with a different logo.

On 14 July 2021 Smaliychuk announced that the club was dissolved and would not participate in the amateur championship after relegating from the Second League. He promised to continue the work by repaying club's old debts.