Valeriy Vasylyovych Lobanovskyi (, ; 6 January 1939 – 13 May 2002) was а Soviet and Ukrainian football player and manager. He was Master of Sports of the USSR, Distinguished Coach of the USSR, and a laureate of the UEFA Order of Merit in Ruby (2002) and FIFA Order of Merit, the highest honour awarded by FIFA.FIFA Order of Merit holdersLobanovskyi Tournament news: Russian Super Cup in Kyiv? (rus.) In 2002 he was awarded the Hero of Ukraine award (posthumously), his nation's highest honour, for his contribution to Ukrainian football.
In 2008, Lobanovskyi was ranked 6th in Inter's list of the 100 Greatest Ukrainians following a nationwide poll that saw around 2.5 million people casting their votes.
Lobanovskyi is most famous for his spells managing FC Dynamo Kyiv and the USSR national football team. Lobanovskyi established Dynamo as the most dominant club in Soviet football in the 1970s and 1980s, winning the Soviet Top League eight times and the Soviet Cup six times in 16 years. In 1975 his Dynamo Kyiv team became the first side from the Soviet Union to win a major European trophy when they beat Hungarian side Ferencváros in the final of the Cup Winners' Cup. During the tournament, Dynamo Kyiv won eight games out of nine, resulting in a winning percentage of 88.88% – a record that stood for 45 years encompassing all of the major European club football competitions.UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Europa League Lobanovskyi and his team repeated their Cup Winners' Cup success in 1986, beating Atletico Madrid in the final. In both 1975 and 1986, two of Dynamo's players (Oleg Blokhin and Igor Belanov respectively) were also awarded the Ballon d'Or under his tutelage. During Lobanovskyi's first two stints, the team also reached the European Cup semi-finals in 1977 and 1987 and quarter-finals in 1976, 1982 and 1983. With the Soviet Union national team, Lobanovskyi reached the finals of Euro 1988, losing to eventual winners the Netherlands, and won the bronze medal at the 1976 Summer Olympic Games.
After returning to Dynamo Kyiv in 1997 for the third time, Lobanovskyi led the team to another successful run in European competition. In the first full season of his third spell, Dynamo reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League in 1998, topping a group that included FC Barcelona, Newcastle United and PSV Eindhoven, famously winning both games against Barcelona, 3–0 in Kyiv and 4–0 at Camp Nou. The following season, Lobanovskyi and his team reached the semi-finals, where they were knocked out by Bayern Munich, with star striker Andriy Shevchenko finishing third in the 1999 Ballon d'Or poll.
Lobanovskyi is highly regarded due to his achievements as a coach and is widely considered one of the greatest managers of all time. According to FourFourTwo, Lobanovskyi is the most successful football manager of the 20th century, having won 30 trophies by 2000. He also holds several managerial records in Soviet football, including most Soviet Top League titles, most Soviet Cup wins (shared with Viktor Maslov) and most USSR Super Cup wins. Lobanovskyi is the only manager to win a major European competition with an Eastern European club twice. He is one of four managers to win the Cup Winners' Cup twice, and one of two (along with Nereo Rocco) to accomplish the feat with the same team. Lobanovskyi has also won the Ukrainian championship five times out of five – an accomplishment not matched by any other manager. Lobanovskyi has coached three Ballon d'Or winners — Oleh Blokhin, Igor Belanov and Andriy Shevchenko.
Early life Valeriy Lobanovskyi was born on 6 January 1939 in Kyiv. His father was a factory worker, while his mother was a housewife. He studied at the Kyiv school No.319 (now Valeriy Lobanovskyi Prospect, 146), where a plaque commemorating Lobanovskyi is installed and the school itself has been renamed in his honor.Именем Лобановского назвали школу (sport.com.ua, 7 вересня 2007) In 1956 he joined the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute but later transferred to the Odesa Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated.69 years ago Valery Lobanovsky was born (Details, January 6, 2008)
Playing career
Lobanovskyi was a graduate of the Kyiv Football School No. 1 and the Football School of Youth in Kyiv (first coach – Mykola Chayka).
At the age of 18, Lobanovskyi was invited to the B-squad of Dynamo Kyiv, the most prominent Ukrainian football club at the time. His debut in the Soviet Top League came on 29 May 1959 against CSK MO Moscow.Лобановский жил футболом и футбол жил в нем! («Футбол в лицах», грудень 2005) Lobanovskyi became famous for his ability to accurately deliver curled balls from corner and free kicks (so-called curl) — often Lobanovskyi was able to score the goal directly from the corner. He had regularly been working on these shots during training sessions, using Magnus effect and his own calculations. The Soviet press compared him to Brazilian forward Didi who regularly curved the ball in a similar way at the 1958 World Cup. Teammates often praised Lobanovskyi for his unorthodox mindset and ability to use dribbling, which was unusual for such tall (187 cm) players.
Since 1960, Lobanovskyi was a full-fledged member of the starting line-up. He was mostly used as a left winger, where he formed a duo with Valentyn Troyanovskyi. That same year he became the club's top goalscorer with 13 goals. In 1961, Dynamo Kyiv became the first football team not from Moscow to win USSR title, with Lobanovskyi scoring 10 goals. He was regularly invited to the national team, but due to strong opposition (at the time there were many top-level left-wingers in Soviet Union like Mikheil Meskhi, Anatoli Ilyin and Galimzyan Khusainov) was able to play only two international games, against Austria and Poland.
Overall he spent seven years with the club before leaving in 1964 due to conflict with the coach Viktor Maslov. Lobanovskyi finished his career after brief spells at Chornomorets Odesa and Shakhtar Donetsk. Lobanovskyi ended his playing career at the age of 29 having scored 71 goals in 253 games in the Soviet Top League (42 goals in 144 matches with Dynamo Kyiv, 15 goals in 59 matches with Chornomorets and 14 goals in 50 matches with Shakhtar).
Coaching career
Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (1968–1973) A year after retiring as a player Lobanovskyi was named the manager of FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk on 16 October 1968. That year Dnipro ended up third in the Group 3 (Ukrainian SSR group) of the Class A, group 2. The team won its group next year and entered the league finals, finishing second. In 1970, the league system was reformed and Dnipro entered the newly created Class A, group 1 (later renamed to Soviet First League), which the team won the following year, moving to the Top League. In its first season at the highest level, the club ended up sixth, one point away from silver medals.
Dynamo Kyiv (1973–1982), Soviet Union national team (1975–1976, 1982–1983) Lobanovskyi moved to his former club, Dynamo Kyiv, who were impressed by his accomplishments with Dnipro, in October 1973. In January 1974 he was joined by his former teammate, Oleh Bazylevych. These two would work as a coaching duo until October 1976. Both managers had equal rights: Bazylevych was a theorist, and Lobanovskyi was in charge of the training process.Volodymyr Muntyan interview (FC Dynamo Kyiv official site, October 2005) During their first season, the Soviet press often criticized them for rationalism and unwillingness to play attacking football (the so-called away model — the team would play away games defensively to score a draw). In that season, the team won both the league and Soviet Cup.
Both Lobanovskyi and Bazylevych understood the importance of accurate calculation of the physical load on players. With cooperation from Anatoly Zelentsov, a scientist from the department of physical education theory of Kyiv State Institute of Physical Education, Lobanovskyi brought a system of calculation of the training process and mathematical modeling of physical load for the team. Zelentsov later headed Dynamo Kyiv's scientific laboratory, which was popularly called the Zelentsov Center. Lobanovskyi was credited for inventing a style of play in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team, similarly to what was practiced by Rinus Michels at the same time in Netherlands. Unlike Michels, however, Lobanovskyi was developing his style of play scientifically, with a strong emphasis on pressing.
In 1975, Dynamo Kyiv won the European Cup Winners' Cup and then-highly regarded European Super Cup. Dynamo Kyiv became the first Soviet club to win a major European trophy. In the first three rounds of Cup Winners' Cup, the team defeated CSKA Sofia, Eintracht Frankfurt and Bursaspor, winning all home and away games. In semi-finals, Dynamo faced the 1974–75 Eredivisie winner, PSV Eindhoven. The Dutch club was considered one of the most powerful in Europe, being sponsored by Philips. The first leg played in Kyiv ended up 3–0 in favor of Lobanovskyi's team. After losing 1–2 in the second leg, Dynamo Kyiv moved to the final. On 14 May 1975, Dynamo Kyiv won Cup Winners' Cup for the first time, defeating Ferencváros 3–0 in the final. During the tournament, the team won 88.88% of its matches (8 games out of 9), which remained the best winning record among all European main tournaments' winning club sides until 2019–20 season when Bayern Munich won all its matches on its way to the Champions League trophy.
In the autumn of that year, Dynamo Kyiv faced the 1974–75 European Cup winner Bayern Munich for the second ever European Super Cup. Besides winning a consecutive European Cup, Bayern was also the base club for the 1974 World Cup winners. The build-up to the match had a political background, mainly in USSR. The Soviet Ukrainian club won both games, 1–0 in Munich and 2–0 in Kyiv in front of 100,000 fans. All goals were scored by Oleg Blokhin who would become Ballon d'Or winner that year. The Lobanovskyi—Bazylevych duo received the World Sports Coach of the Year award.Newspaper Ukrainian football, 27 December 2016, № 91–92
The Lobanovskyi–Bazylevych duo was appointed managers of the Soviet national team in 1975, after the team lost its first game in the Euro qualifying group to Ireland 3–0. Dynamo Kyiv became the base club of the national team. Despite Lobanovskyi's demands to reorganize national league to autumn-spring format, the USSR Football Federation split 1976 into two seasons (spring and autumn).
Before 1976 season, Lobanovskyi and Bazylevych were pressured by the Moscow officials to accept the Moscow-based Mark Godik as the professional fitness coach to prepare the team for European Cup, Euro qualification and 1976 Summer Olympics. The duo was forced to move the training camp to the mountains where the atmospheric pressure was much higher and the oxygen levels were lower, all while maintaining the same indicators of the intensity of training. The training process was unbalanced, while basic correlation of aerobic and anaerobic exercises was also butchered. Many players struggled during the training process, some players' measured pulses were above 200 beats per minute.
The club competed in the "spring" season mostly with B-squad, as the first team was able to concentrate on their preparation for the three international tournaments. Dynamo Kyiv left the European Cup after quarterfinals, losing to Saint-Étienne (2–0 in Kyiv and 0–3 in France). The national team won its qualifying group but lost to Czechoslovakia in play-offs, thus failing to qualify at the European championship. After winning bronze medal at the Summer Olympic Games, the coaching duo left the national team.