FC Sheriff Tiraspol
Also written as Sheriff, Sheriff Tiraspol.
The club
FC Sheriff Tiraspol were founded in 1997 as Tiras Tiraspol and renamed the following year after Sheriff Ltd, the conglomerate that owns them and that operates most private industry in Transnistria, the breakaway region of Moldova in which Tiraspol sits. They play at the Sheriff Arena, part of the Sheriff Sports Complex, capacity 12,746, in use since 2002 and eligible for full UEFA fixtures. The colours are yellow and black and the club are known as the Yellow-Blacks or the Wasps. The head coach is Victor Mihailov.
Recent seasons
Sheriff have dominated Moldovan football for a quarter of a century but no longer do so without argument. Positions for 2021/22 to 2024/25 were not confirmed individually from the sources read here.
The 2025/26 season is documented and it was not a title-winning one. Sheriff finished second in the Moldovan Super Liga, 20 wins, 4 draws and 7 defeats from 31 matches, 57 scored and 22 conceded, and 34 points from the championship phase. Petrocub Hincesti won the league on 40 points, their second title; Zimbru Chisinau were third on 32. Sheriff did win the Moldovan Cup, five wins and one defeat from six matches with 15 goals scored and two conceded. Across all competitions they went 26 wins, 5 draws and 12 defeats from 43 games. Second place, not the cup, is what determined their European entry point: the Europa League first qualifying round.
The dugout was unsettled. Victor Mihailov began as interim, Vadim Skripchenko was appointed on 3 September 2025 and left on 5 November 2025, and Mihailov returned.
Honours and landmarks
Twenty-one Moldovan league titles, fourteen Moldovan Cups and seven Super Cups, all national records. The landmark, though, is European: in 2021 Sheriff became the first Moldovan club to reach the group stage of the Champions League.
Notable scorelines
The one everyone knows: Sheriff beat Real Madrid 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu in the 2021/22 Champions League group stage, Sebastien Thill scoring the winner in the 89th minute. Record domestic win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here.
European record
Sheriff are the most experienced European club in Moldova by a wide margin and the only one to have reached a Champions League group. That 2021/22 campaign, and the win in Madrid inside it, is the reference point every article about them reaches for, and it should be used carefully: it is five years old and the club that produced it has since gone through repeated managerial change and lost its domestic monopoly.
The recent record is a decline. In 2025/26 they went out of the Europa League at the second qualifying round with one win and three defeats from four matches, then went out of the Conference League at the third qualifying round. The 2026/27 route has been shorter still. They entered at the Europa League first qualifying round and beat NK Aluminij of Slovenia 1-0 on aggregate, then were taken apart by Maccabi Tel Aviv in the second qualifying round, losing 5-0 and 1-0 for a 6-0 aggregate. That dropped them into the Conference League third qualifying round.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here. Searches for post-match remarks by Victor Mihailov after the St Gallen first leg returned previews, line-ups and supporter forums but no attributable published quote.
Right now (2026/27)
Victor Mihailov is the head coach. Sheriff opened the domestic campaign on 28 June 2026 with a 3-0 home win over Real Sireti, goals from Forov, Pergjoni and Asprilla, and after seven matches led Phase I of the Moldovan Super Liga with five wins and two draws, 16 goals scored and 5 conceded. Summer signings included Vladimir Fratea from Zimbru Chisinau, Miguel Mota from Pacos de Ferreira, Jayder Asprilla from Atletico Nacional, Samba Kone from Academico de Viseu and Kabamba Kalabatama from Milsami Orhei. Exact dates and fees for those moves were not confirmed from the sources read here.
The European tie they are in now is the Conference League third qualifying round against FC St Gallen of Switzerland, and the first leg went badly at home. Sheriff lost 1-3 at the Sheriff Arena on 6 August 2026. Andrin Hunziker put St Gallen ahead in the 63rd minute, Leon Frokaj made it two in the 70th, Juanca Pineda pulled one back for Sheriff in the 89th and Christian Witzig restored the two-goal margin in the second minute of stoppage time. Sheriff need to win by three in Switzerland in the second leg on 13 August 2026 to go through, or by two to force extra time. The loser of the tie is out of Europe altogether.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Sheriff_Tiraspol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_FC_Sheriff_Tiraspol_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_FC_Sheriff_Tiraspol_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Moldovan_Liga https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/401903151/st-gallen-sheriff-tiraspol https://www.20min.ch/sport/football/uefa-conference-league/sheriff-tiraspol-vs-st-gallen-2wxp9m4tifzcde1cyn8f68mj8/info https://www.uefa.com/uefaconferenceleague/clubs/69606--sheriff/
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.