The 1974 Soviet Top League was the 36th season of the Soviet top tier football competitions. It also was the 4th season since the establishing of Vysshaya Liga (Soviet Top League) in place of the Soviet Class A competition.
The league's title was contested by 16 teams, and Dynamo Kyiv won the championship which was their sixth title. The last season's champions Ararat placed fifth trailing 8 points. The newly promoted Chernomorets placed third qualifying for the continental competitions for the first time.
Teams Pre-season promotion Teams promoted from the 1973 Soviet First League: Chornomorets Odesa – the champions (returning after three seasons absence) Nistru Kishinev – the runners-up (returning after 10 seasons absence)
Pre-season relegation Teams relegated to the 1974 Soviet First League: Dinamo Minsk – the 15th place (ending their 14 seasons stay in the top-flight) SKA Rostov-na-Donu – the 16th place (ending their 15 seasons stay in the top-flight)
Managers
Club Head coachArarat Yerevan Nikita SimonyanDynamo Kyiv Valeriy LobanovskyiDynamo Moscow Gavriil KachalinSpartak Moscow Nikolay GulyayevDinamo Tbilisi Givi Chokheli (until August)Mikhail Yakushin (from August)Shakhter Donetsk Yuriy Zakharov (until August)Vladimir Salkov (from August)Zaria Voroshilovgrad Vsevolod Blinkov (until July)Yevhen Pestov (from July)Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk Viktor KanevskyKairat Alma-Ata Artem FalyanCSKA Moscow Vladimir AgapovZenit Leningrad German ZoninPakhtakor Tashkent Vyacheslav SolovyovTorpedo Moscow Valentin IvanovKarpaty Lvov Valentin Babukin (until September)Ernest Yust (from September)Chornomorets Odesa Akhmed AleskerovNistru Kishenev Viktor Korolkov
League standings
Results
Top scorers 20 goals Oleg Blokhin (Dynamo Kyiv)
16 goals Anatoli Ionkin (Kairat) Vadim Pavlenko (Dynamo Moscow)
13 goals Vladimir Makarov (Chornomorets Odesa)
12 goals Vadim Nikonov (Torpedo Moscow)
11 goals Mikhail An (Pakhtakor) Anatoly Baidachny (Dynamo Moscow) Vladimir Onischenko (Dynamo Kyiv) Vitali Starukhin (Shakhtar)
10 goals Vladimir Danilyuk (Karpaty) Aleksandr Piskaryov (Spartak Moscow)
Attendances
Source:
No. Club Average 1 Dynamo Kyiv 42,267 2 Ararat 37,513 3 Zenit 36,533 4 Chornomorets 29,600 5 Paxtakor 28,933 6 Shakhtar Donetsk 25,733 7 Dynamo Moscow 24,333 8 Spartak Moscow 24,033 9 Karpaty 21,533 10 Kairat 21,433 11 Dinamo Tbilisi 20,600 12 Nistru 20,000 13 Torpedo Moscow 18,467 14 PFC CSKA 18,467 15 Dnipro 16,467 16 Zorya 15,533
References
Soviet Union - List of final tables (RSSSF)