Smallest town in the first division of your country

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Todor
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Post by Todor »

For the next season in Bulgaria , it will be either Vihren from Sandanski (population 41 180 ) or Vidima from Sevlievo (population 27 654) if they win the play-off against Naftex.
The smallest village to ever have a represantitive in Group 'A' is Galata ( population 2 617), which team Olimpic participated in 1997/98 season and got promoted again for the season 1999/00 but had their license bought by Beroe and the team moved to Stara Zagora.
The smallest village to ever have a professional team is Lesicheri (population 572) , which team participated in the second league in the mid 90's.
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Aliceag
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Post by Aliceag »

Well, and the tiny team from Paços de Ferreira (6000 people) qualified for Europe. Their stadium is far too small and lacks conditions, so they will play in Boavista FC stadium in Porto. I don't expect many crowd to see this european matches...
Play fair and square!
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Executor
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Post by Executor »

I know this topic has been buried for a long time, but we have a new record for Romania. Otopeni has just become the smallest town to ever have a team in the first division. It's a small town (10.000 inhabitants) just north of Bucharest. Its only point of interest is its airport, the biggest in Romania and it's the reason why we call Otopeni the "airport-town".

However, they'll play in Ploieşti, on Astra's stadium.
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kroftek
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Post by kroftek »

In Croatia, It's Zapresic (NK Inter, pop. 23.125)

The smallest ever...i think it's Kostrena (Pomorac, 3.897), but I'm not sure what's Topolovac (TŠK)'s population...
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Verbal
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Post by Verbal »

Veikkausliiga (Finland):
1. Helsinki (HJK) 570 000
2. Espoo (FC Honka) 240 000
3. Tampere (TamU) 208 000
4. Turku (FC Inter, TPS) 175 000
5. Lahti (FC Lahti) 100 000
6. Kuopio (KuPS) 91 000
7. Rovaniemi (RoPS) 59 000
8. Vaasa (VPS) 58 000
9. Kotka (FC KooTeePee) 55 000
10. Valkeakoski (FC Haka) 20 000
11. Pietarsaari (FF Jaro) 20 000
12. Anjalankoski (MyPa) 17 000
13. Maarianhamina (IFK Mariehamn) 11 000
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ekze
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Post by ekze »

Well... Kaiser is not that right about Saturn... Now it represents not just Ramenskoe City, but the whole Moscow Region, while plays in the Saturn Stadium at Ramenskoe...
So I beleive that the smallest town in RFPL is Khimki, which is also the closest town of Moscow and is going to be part of it soon, as Moscow expands very quickly...
Population is 180000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khimki


btw, Kaiser about this photo... I believe, that you have been in Ramenskoe ((8
I agree, that the city is very nice and clean, but this buildings are not this good, just walk around them and they would look just like any old soviet building would look ^___^
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Kaiser
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Post by Kaiser »

Wikipedia says that Khimki is also the town of Moscow suburb... :roll:
spoonman
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Post by spoonman »

spoonman wrote:An update on the situation in Germany:

Smallest towns in the Bundesliga 2007/08
Cottbus (current population 102,000)
Wolfsburg (121,000)

Smallest town in 2nd Bundesliga 2007/08
Aue (18,200)

And there will be two newly-promoted small-town clubs in the 2nd Bundesliga: SV Wehen and TSG Hoffenheim.

Wehen is a district of Taunusstein (pop. 29,000), in the Rhein-Main area, near Frankfurt. Their own stadium only has a capacity of 5,000. For the next two seasons, they will play in a makeshift stadium for 14,000 people in Wiesbaden.

There are discussions about permanently moving to Wiesbaden and building a new stadium there. Briefly, there was even the possibility that Wehen and rival club FSV Mainz 05 might jointly build a new stadium (in Wiesbaden) but Mainz have now opted for their own arena within the city of Mainz. SV Wehen are sponsored by BRITA, a manufacturer of water filters whose headquarters are situated in Taunusstein.

Hoffenheim is a district of Sinsheim (pop. 35,500), in the Rhein-Neckar area, near Heidelberg. Their current stadium also has a capacity of only 5,000. The club is backed financially by Dietmar Hopp, co-founder of software company SAP, who also financed the SAP arena in Mannheim (home of ice-hockey club Adler Mannheim and handball club SG Kronau/Östringen).

Hopp will now build a new 30,000-capacity stadium for TSG Hoffenheim, right next to the autobahn A6. Hoffenheim's team is trained by Ralf Rangnick, former Stuttgart and Schalke manager.
Hoffenheim have done it: After only one year in level 2, they've earned promotion to the Bundesliga. The club is now called "1899 Hoffenheim" (to give them the appearance of having a long tradition), and their new stadium will probably be opened in January 2009. In the first half of the season, they might play their home matches in Mannheim.

There's a lot of controversy about Hoffenheim among German football fans. Or, to be more precise: Nobody likes them because they are financed by a billionaire. Some people compare Dietmar Hopp with the likes of Abramovich or Romanov. There is, however, a difference: Hopp is not an "outsider" who took over some club arbitrarily. He played for Hoffenheim in his youth and he is rooted in the region. Nevertheless, there's always a bitter aftertaste when a club suddenly has success simply because they've got millions and millions to spend.

Another example in Germany is VfL Wolfsburg who will compete in the UEFA Cup next season. The club's football department is now fully owned by Volkswagen, and they've just signed Italian national defender Cristian Zaccardo. Ex-Bayern coach Felix Magath is the team's manager (meaning an English-style manager: not only coach but also executive director).
badgerboy
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Post by badgerboy »

Interesting with Wolfsburg.

I thought they had quite a bit of money some years back - & was waiting for them to do something. When they didn't I figured either they spent badly - couldn't attract good players because they aren't "fashionable" enough or simply didn't have enough money to make an impact.

I'm a bit torn when it comes to clubs "buying success". It's not "ideal" but it's what the "big clubs" do anyway. No club is realistically going to challenge Bayern's dominance on a regular basis without money (not that I expect Wolfsburg or Hoffenheim to do this any time soon anyway) . So as an alternative to the teams that already have lots of money just winning everything over & over again I don't think "nouveau riche" clubs are that bad an option.
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Cirdan
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Post by Cirdan »

There's just a difference between getting rich by spending well and negotiating good contracts and getting rich by billionaire...

Nevertheless, I don't mind that too much myself. I like having a bit of competition... while unfortunately, noone looks like they will be able to challenge Bayern in Germany anytime soon, there are loads of clubs that will be competing for the places behind them in the next years, and with enough pocket money to make a serious effort :)

About Wolfsburg, they've been spending a lot of Volkswagens money for quite some time now, it didn't work out as well as they hoped, so last summer they got Magath to run the club and the team to lead them to the top of the table as fast as possible, with almost unlimited resources (for a German team). Currently, it looks like he could succeed.
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Kjello
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Post by Kjello »

Norway

Tippeligaen atm.
Oslo municipality, 560 484 (Vålerenga and Lyn)
Bergen municipality, 247 746 (Brann)
Trondheim municipality, 165 191 (Rosenborg)
Stavanger municipality, 119 586 (Viking)
Bærum municipality, 108 144 (Stabæk)
Fredrikstad municipality, 71 976 (Fredrikstad)
Tromsø municipality, 65 286 (Tromsø)
Drammen municipality, 60 145 (Strømsgodset)
Skedsmo municipality, 46 146 (Lillestrøm)
Bodø municipality, 46 049 (Bodø/Glimt)
Ålesund municipality, 41 833 (Aalesund)
Hamar municipality, 27 976 (HamKam)
Molde municipality, 24 294 (Molde)

Biggest municipality without a Tippeliga team, Kristiansand municipality 78 919 (Start, 1th division, Last season in Tippeliga, 2007).

Biggest municipality without a Tippeliga team all-time, Sandnes municipality 62 037 (Sandnes Ulf, 1th division).

Smallest municipality with a Tippeliga team all-time, Sogndal municipality 6 899 (Sogndal, 1th division, Last season in Tippeliga, 2004).
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ekze
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Post by ekze »

Kaiser wrote:Wikipedia says that Khimki is also the town of Moscow suburb... :roll:
Did you read my post carefully?
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Kaiser
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Post by Kaiser »

ekze wrote:
Kaiser wrote:Wikipedia says that Khimki is also the town of Moscow suburb... :roll:
Did you read my post carefully?
Yes, I did. I understood everything what you said.
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richboy
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Post by richboy »

in scotland its gretna with population 3000
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Kaiser
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Post by Kaiser »

richboy wrote:in scotland its gretna with population 3000
As far as I know, Gretna is a village where all British people can marry without any documents or smth, am I right?
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