THE COUNTRY WITHOUT THE COACH
It happened unexpectedly a midst the daily routine of soccer. Dynamo Kyiv last played, coached by Valery Lobanovsky, an away match against Metallurg in Zaporizhzhia. The last thing the great coach saw was the display board flashing a 3:1 score in favor of his team. Then he was taken to a clinic where doctors did their best to revive the patient. Then came the announcement on the night of May 13 that Valery Lobanovsky had passed away.
He never wrote memoirs, although he possessed more than enough material. People like Lobanovsky prefer working to writing memoirs. They work until the last day and the last minute, leaving work only when they really feel bad. We heard so many times about Lobanovsky’s illnesses that kept him from staying with his team. But all suspicions and fears would be immediately dispelled when the Coach would make a public appearance and smile shrewdly, as if saying, “I’m still up and around.” Only now are we understanding what risks awaited this man devoted to his trade, who plunged each time in the whirlpool of tough soccer competitions. He risked his life, but soccer in fact was his life.
Lobanovsky seemed eternal. While the decades rushed by, governments and political regimes changed, states disappeared and appeared, he remained his own self-confident, purposeful, and polite self. While staying out of fierce disputes, he simultaneously never kowtowed to anyone. Instead of making excuses, he continued to believe in the road he chose and charged everybody around him with this faith. When the joy of victory his team won raged all around, Lobanovsky looked calm, for things were going as planned. When everybody would fall into despair over a defeat, Lobanovsky continued to do his job calmly, perhaps even too calmly.
It is hardly worth counting all the prizes and medals Lobanovsky’s teams have won. No other Ukrainian coach could have done so. And only Ukrainian? Making a team a champion at thirty-five and then remaining on top to the end of a lifetime is something unique. It is better to call Lobanovsky soccer’s man of the twentieth century, a century that has gone, claiming the lives of many a prominent person. Valery Lobanovsky was more than a famous soccer player and coach. He was one of the few of our compatriots whom everybody knew, respected and highly appreciated, both in Ukraine and abroad. As soon as the name of Lobanovsky was mentioned, each resident of our formerly unknown country would feel himself a soccer fan. In fact, why the past tense? Now as well his name raises soccer to a fitting height, the height that the great Game deserves.
In recent years, Valery Lobanovsky shunned interviews. In answer to his critics, he formed a new Dynamo Kyiv team. He devoted all his abilities to work, instead of getting into arguments. Who could possibly foresee that the common phrase of totally devoting oneself to the cause would acquire literal sense in the case of Valery Lobanovsky and that the Dynamo coach would almost literally end his life on the soccer pitch? This is perhaps at this cost to remain on top throughout your life. For over thirty years of coaching, Lobanovsky was a leader who never provided grounds for doubting his effictiveness and right to be the leader. Like many colleagues of mine, I failed to interview Valery Lobanovsky — not because the coach was absolutely unreachable but because my questions would have had to match the caliber of his personality and because Lobanovsky’s team would outrun any questions prepared in advance, raising neweraud newer ones. It was always like that.
As is known, Lobanovsky attentively read press criticism of him, looking for a grain of truth unnoticed in the whirlwind of daily routine. And if at least one journalistic comment helped the great coach in his work, this means the newsprint was used to good avail and our efforts furthered his Cause. Lobanovsky will never read this as well as thousands of other articles about himself in thousands of newspapers coming out today all over the world. Yet, these articles will be read by the millions of people for whom Lobanovsky discovered soccer and for whom Lobanovsky’s soccer became part of life and the source of joy and inspiration.
Valery Lobanovsky’s earthly life has been cut short, unexpectedly and tragically. But this has not stopped his soccer. The teams led by his disciples will still play and make the fans proud. Soccer will preserve the trend painstakingly created by Lobanovsky for so many years. Lobanovsky’s soccer will live hand in hand with his legend, a legend based on his team’s victories, which will one day look like fabulous exploits. ClichО- loving journalists repeatedly called Valery Lobanovsky “a living legend” of soccer. The Lobanovsky legend will be as eternal as soccer itself.
The Day grieves together with all those who loved Valery Lobanovsky and offers heartfelt condolences to his wife and relatives. Let the memory of Great Ukrainian Valery Lobanovsky be always with us.
