Pakhtakor Tashkent

FC Pakhtakor Tashkent (Uzbek: Paxtakor futbol klubi) is an Uzbek professional football club, based in the capital city Tashkent, that competes in the Uzbekistan Super League. Pakhtakor literally means "cotton-grower" in English.

Pakhtakor was the only Uzbek club to play in the top-level Soviet football league and was the only Central Asian club to appear in a Soviet Cup final. Playing in the Uzbek League since 1992, the club has been the undisputed powerhouse in Uzbekistan since the fall of the Soviet Union, winning ten Uzbek League titles, including six in a row from 2002 to 2007. Pakhtakor also won seven consecutive domestic cups between 2001 and 2007, winning eleven cups in total. Players for the club have won Uzbek footballer of the Year honours eight times, and Pakhtakor teammates swept the top three spots in 2002. Club managers have been named Uzbek coach of the year twice.

The team is also a perennial competitor in the AFC Champions League, having reached the semi-finals of the competition twice in 2003 and 2004. Pakhtakor currently holds the record in number of consecutive participations in the AFC Champions League, participating in 11 tournaments from 2002 to 2013.

History

The early Soviet period

Pakhtakor's first official match was on 8 April 1956, and is considered to be the club's "birthday". Its first match was played against a team from the city of Perm, Russia (then called Molotov city), presumably FC Zvezda Perm. The first goal in Pakhtakor history was scored by Laziz Maksudov on a penalty shot and Maksudov's goal was the only and game-winning strike.

The team was formed in three months, and the government invited the senior trainer Valentin Bekhtenev from Moscow to recruit the best Tashkent players for the new Pakhtakor. At the time, the club was to represent Uzbekistan in Soviet football.

In 1959, the club was promoted to the Soviet Top League for the first time. During the 1960s, Pakhtakor's squad was anchored by the striker Genna

This page also has a version in other languages :  Пахтакор (russian)