Artem Chobanian

 

VALERYI LOBANOVSKY

January 6, 1939 — May 13, 2002

Kyiv, Ukraine

Played 253 matches, scored 71 goals (1957-1964 Dynamo Kyiv, 1965-1967 Chernomorets Odesa, 1967-1968 Shakhtar Donetsk)

The USSR Champion — 1961


Among the famous players and coaches of the former USSR countries, there’s ONE who was recognised all over the world as a genius. This man was Valeryi Lobanovsky. It’s very sad to write of him in the past tense, but he is no longer with us…


It was hard to imagine that a thin, but smart boy would grow up to be one of the greatest players and coaches of all time. His life was very hard as those were the years after World War II, when the Soviet Union was recovering slowly from the war and almost all people were working to build their cities and towns anew. There were not so many pleasures in life at that time, but the majority of people liked football.


Young Lobanovsky became interested in the game and spent all his free time in the playground with the peers kicking a round object that only remotely resembled a ball. Very soon he was noticed by his PE teacher at school and was invited to join the junior team of the region. In one of the first training sessions Valeryi kicked the ball so hard that it destroyed the hedge, which was being used instead of the goal! The coach and boys were shocked. Valeryi was only 10 years old!


As often happens, his parents were not entirely for their son pursuing football, but not against it. They just asked their son not to forget about his education and convinced him that football is not a FOOT game, but more of a HEAD game, meaning the intelligence a player displays on the pitch. Valeryi listened to them and finished school with an award of the silver medal for being one of the best students.


After that he entered the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and continued his career as a footballer. That was weird for most of the football players, because half of them were studying in The Institute of Physical Education or had no education at all. Later, his knowledge of mathematics would help Lobanovsky in his career. At first, he was training in Sport school #1, but very soon was invited to the second Dynamo Kyiv team. That was the turning point for the young player. In the late 1950s he became one of the best players in the team and quite soon was invited to play for the senior Dynamo Kyiv team.


His appearance changed everything athe club. The link Lobanovsky – Oleh Bazilevich formed was lethal and other teams didn’t stand a chance. They attacked defences with such fierocity it was as if they were playing the last game of their lives, with just minutes left to score. There were two phenomenal abilities that the young Lobanovsky possessed that attracted thousands of people to watch him: Lobanovsky’s long and accurate passes and his dribbling.


His wonderful performances amazed fans all over the country — in Tbilisi, Moscow, Erevan, and of course in Kyiv. It was a habit then that the fans surrounded players after the games to thank them and have a little chat. There were many people in Kyiv who considered themselves Lobanovsky’s friends just because they had talked to him for a couple of minutes. Life was free of prejudice and unbiased. Football was a game, not a business. The best players were heroes, not idols… that was the time when football started its quick and magnificent marathon to become the most popular game in the world.


Lobanovsky was not a genius like Mozart or Capablanca. Instead Lobanovsky made the most of the talent he had, working hard to perfect the skills he developed. Due to his mathematical state of mind, he used to spend hours at home trying to understand how to make his passes and free-kicks better, utilising physics and arithmetic.


After the calculations, there followed days and weeks of training on the pitch. That’s how his brilliant kick from the corner appeared. Known in the Soviet Union as “suhoi list” (dry leaf), this corner kick became a supernova in the football of that time! When he first carried it off and the net rippled people in the stands were in disbelief, refusing to believe that a goal could be scored from such an angle. And then the stadium exploded in a storm of applause. A miracle had happened!


Lobanovsky proved that was not a mere luck. He practised that kind of corner kick for a long time and with great success, even understanding that the goalkeepers were ready for this. In times when his corners were not very successful, his loyal team-mate Oleh Bazilevich was always there, meeting the ball and heading it into the goal. There were very good players at Dynamo in that period: Lobanovsky, Oleh Bazilevich, Andrey Biba, Joseph Sabo, Viktor Bannikov. All of them led Dynamo to their first USSR championship title in 1961. Everybody agreed that the major role in the success belonged to Lobanovsky, whose absolute brilliance on the pitch was unrivaled.


As a player Lobanovsky was lucky to have great coaches like Vyacheslav Solovjev and Viktor Maslov at Dynamo Kyiv and later Oleh Oshenkov at Shakhtar Donetsk. Lobanovsky was grateful to Solovjev for being a coach that believed in him and brought the youngster into the first team almost at once. Then Maslov appeared whose new ideas and innovations changed Soviet football and were/are recognised all over the world. “That was a brilliant coach”, said Lobanovsky, “and long before the English invented the model with four attack-oriented midfielders…” As the playing scheme was based on Lobanovsky’s role and position on the pitch, Maslov often argued with the player about his functions during the game and, as Lobanovsky said, in that period he understood how important the role of the coach was.


It may seem weird, but that wonderful footballer finished his playing career at the age of 29! The Soviet Union was in sorrow… Nobody believed Lobanovsky quit playing. But he did quit. After seven years at Dynamo Kyiv, two at Chernomorets Odesa, and one season with Shakhtar Donetsk, Lobanovsky found what many believe was his true vocation and one that made him even more famous. A young man just before 30 started a new career as a coach. His genius was in full blossom and his achievements have been without equal since then.


But that’s another story…

 

Click here to read the second part: