футбол (Football)
The Invasion of the Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, put the country into the news headlines throughout the world. This far off place was now the focus of the world and suddenly people searched the internet for information on the country.
For second generation Ukrainians whose parents had relocated in the UK and the Bolton area at the end of the second world war, we knew exactly where the country was and how it is the biggest country solely on the continent of Europe. It is a country of fiercely cold winters and in the south of the country, Mediterranean type summers. We all knew how important it was to the world’s food production, the colours of the flag representing the blue skies over the yellow of its wheat and sunflower filled fields and we all knew about the threat of the Russians to the Ukraine’s independence long before there troops gathered on its borders.
At the time of the Russian invasion, the Ukraine’s national football team had qualified for the play-offs for the 2022 World Cup finals with games against Scotland and Wales away as the final hurdle from playing in Qatar. With Yarmolenko of West Ham, Mykolenko of Everton and the league championship winning Zinchenko of Manchester City all familiar faces in the English Premier League, Ukrainian football (футбол) had not received this much exposure since England beat them in the Stadio Olimpico at the quarter final stage of Euro 2020, that is unless you ever spent time in The Ukrainian Club on Castle Street (Haulgh) where you could find the odd Dynamo Kiev scarf when they played at Old Trafford in the Champions League.
Valeriy Lobanovski
The Ukrainian Football League is as fractured as the country’s history from the leagues formed under the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the leagues formed under the old Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Football League as we know it today has only existed since 1991 and has been dominated by Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk. The word ‘shakhtar’ roughly translates as coal mines and reflects the team’s Donbas base until 2014 in the industrial heartland of the Ukraine. The city of Donetsk was founded by a Welshman by the name John James Hughes, but it is their rivals Dynamo (Club) Kiev who are the true Ukrainian football giants and their legendary manager Valeriy Lobanovski has a record in European Football that ranks along some of Europe’s greatest ever coaches.
“His coaching methods were revolutionary, everything was planned meticulously.”
Domestically Lobanovski and Dynamo won eight Soviet League Championships, six Soviet Cups, three USSR Super Cups. In European competition Dynamo became the first team playing in the Soviet League to win a European trophy when they lifted the Cup Winners Cup in 1975, defeating Hungary’s Ferencváros 3-0 and in the same season, they beat the European Cup holders Bayern Munich in the Super Cup final. Lobanovski had three stints managing Dynamo in which he went onto win five Ukrainian National League titles and another Cup Winners Cup title in 1986, with another emphatic 3-0 triumph over Atlético Madrid.
Dynamo Kiev with possibly the world’s biggest trophy, Lobanovski is top left.
To truly appreciate the achievements of Dynamo Kiev during the Lobanovski years it is important to understand that the all the major clubs in Europe at the time could bring players into their clubs from throughout the world whereas the Soviet Union was firmly on the other side of what Winston Churchill named the ‘Iron Curtain’ where suspicion of anything from the West was at its height in what was called the ‘Cold War’. His coaching methods were revolutionary, everything was planned meticulously, he believed in a collective system in which attacking players also had defensive duties which was reflected in his preferable 4-1-3-2 formation. His high-tempo pressing game was often played without any centre forwards, even though, under his management, the Ukraine produced some of their greatest ever forwards. Familiar names including Ballon d’Or winner Oleg Blokhin, Volodymyr Onyshchenko, Oleh Protasov and Igor Belanov and in 1999 Andriy Shevchenko and Serhiy Rebrov.
“He was the first coach to introduce, along with his analytical approach, the use of a dietician.”
Lobanovski understood that his players would not be able to maintain this system without the help of science and he was the first coach to introduce, along with his analytical approach, the use of a dietician to help the players maintain their physical and mental wellbeing, for which his methods earned his Dynamo team the title, named by many, “Football from the Future”.
Lobanovski’s legacy can be seen in today’s football – he was respected throughout Europe being awarded ‘The European Coach of the Year’ three times (1986, 1988, and 1999) ‘European Coach of the Season’ 1985-86, ‘Central and Eastern European Manager of the Year’ seven times – a record that still stands today. In 1975 he was named the ‘World Sports Manager of the Year’, ‘Hero of Ukraine’ and the ‘FIFA Order of Merit’.
Dynamo Kiev fans pay tribute to Lobanovski in a stadium named after him.
Коли ти йдеш крізь шторм , Підніміть голову додому
Koly ty ydesh kriz’ shtorm Pidnimit’ holovu dodomu
“When You Walk Through a Storm. Hold Your Head Up High”
Slava Ukrayini!