History of the club

early history | 20th century


  • The club was established in 1908 as a ZsTK Žilina

    History of MŠK Žilina began to be written in 1908, when the organization: "The club of the Žilina Sportsmen" was formed. 


  • First two titles of champions of Slovakia for "yellow-green" in 1928 and 1929

    In September 1928 ŠK Žilina won the proud title of Slovakian champion for the first time and fought among the four best teams of Czechoslovakia. They repeated their success in 1929, when they again won the title of football champion of Slovakia. 


  • Czechoslovak first league era

The first start in the highest Czechoslovak football competition started on the home ground on September 16, 1945 against SK Slezská Ostrava and won 3:1. Starting that year they were participants of the 31 first league years and in the history of the top football competition of ČSSR they rank at the 11-th place with the number of 828 matches played with receiving 760 league points. 

Our football players achieved the greatest success in the 1946/47 season, when they ranked third in the 1st league behind Slavia and AC Sparta Praha. The 5th place in 1948 (after Slavia Praha, Viktoria Plzeň, Sparte and Bohemians Praha) as well as in three consecutive years 1971/72, 1972/73, 1973/74 should also be marked as successful in the league competition.


  • Quarterfinals of "Cup of National Cup Winners"

Also worth mentioning is the victory of the Žilina team in the nationwide competition for the Slovak National Uprising Cup in 1961 and the advancement to the Czechoslovak Cup final. In the finals, they succumbed to the champion of the Republic - Dukla Prague, but as finalists of the Czechoslovak Cup they secured participation in the international football competition "Cup of National Cup Winners", where we firstly eliminated greek team Olympiacos Pireus, then we moved up to the quarterfinals against Fiorentina (home 3:2, away 0:2). 


  • International football competition

Presented in an international football competition in 1967, in the 8th Interpohár group. More successful were the other years when we won the 4th group (1969), the second place in the 4th group (1970) and the second place in 1972.

  • Intertoto Cup 1997

In group with Olympic Lyon, Austra Wien, Odra Wodzislav and Rapid Bucharest


CLUB EMBLEMS


CLUB’S ACHIEVEMENTS in NEW ERA | 21st century

  • Since the 1993/1994 in the Slovak league
  • Since the 1996/1997 continuous, permanent member of the First Slovak league


  • 7th times Slovak Champions - 2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2003/2004, 2006/2007, 2009/2010, 2011/2012, 2016/2017

MŠK Žilina won the greatest achievements in the modern era, with seven Slovak champion titles. Between 2001 and 2004, we managed to do it three times in succession, then in the 2006/07, 2009/10, 2011/12 and last one in season 2016/17. Five times in addition to winning the title, we also won a cup winner and won a valuable double in 2012 (4th winner of the Super Cup and 1x Slovak cup winner). 


  • UEFA CUP (group F) 2008/2009 

In the international area, MŠK Žilina reached in the 2008/2009 season, when we celebrated 100th anniversary of the club, the UEFA Cup group stage (Ajax Amsterdam, Aston Villa, Slavia Praha, Hamburger SV). 


  • UEFA Champions League (group F) 2010/2011

Two years later, we fought in the group stage of the Champions League against these clubs: FC Chelsea, FC Spartak Moscow, Olympique de Marseille. 


  • Memorable qualifying rounds of Europa League 2015/2016

One of the latest history includes a 2015/16 European League memorable play-off, the play-off match where we played at the MŠK Stadium at half-time with the Spanish Athletic Club (Bilbao) 0:2, but in a wonderful match we were enjoying the win 3:2 in front of the full tribunes. There are also great memories in 3rd qualifying round at Poltava, where we lost against Vorskla 1:3, but goal in the last one seconds from William we were qualifying for the next round against spanish Bilbao.


  • 2017/2018

Last time, We were playing in second qualifying round UEFA Champions League 2017/2018 against FC København, when we were eliminated by danish champion (1:3 at home stadium, 2:1 at Copenhagen).


  • 110th anniversary in 2018

In 2018 we celebrated the 110th anniversary of the club in ALL STARS GAME at Stadium MŠK Žilina in exhibition game with the famous former players like Marek Mintál, Martin Dúbravka, Milan Škriniar, Tomáš Hubočan, Stanislav Šesták, Lászlo Bénes, Miroslav Barčík etc. and former coaches too.