DYNAMO: NATIONAL SYMBOL

Recently all soccer fans in Ukraine celebrated Dynamo’s seventieth jubilee. Favorite of the entire people, this legendary soccer club was once called by poet Borys Oliynyk a national symbol of Ukraine. Its history is like a good story, with adventure, passions, intrigue, ups and downs. It has remained the pride of Ukraine, always closely followed by people interested in sports, to whom the words Dynamo and Ukraine are close synonyms.

Founded in 1927, Kyiv Dynamo vied in all Soviet soccer championships, winning 13, pocketing 11 silver and 3 bronze trophies, reaching summits no other USSR clubs could gain. Nine times the team’s captain rose above his head the Country Cup, then the second highest Soviet soccer award. Kyiv Dynamo is five times champion of Ukraine and twice Independent Ukraine Cup holder. The team went down in world soccer history, winning the Cupholders’ Cup in 1975 and 1986. Also in 1975, Dynamo beat Bayern Munich to the Supercup (the German team starring Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd MЯller, and other world soccer stars.

Oleh Blokhin, the Club’s absolute record-holder, played 432 games with Dynamo, scoring 211 goals. In 1975, he was named Europe’s top soccer player (in 1986, the title went to Ihor Belanov).

There have been four peaks in the soccer club’s history.

PEAK ONE (1961)

The 22nd USSR soccer championship involving 22 teams turned out to be a historic event, for the first time since 1936 overthrowing the Moscow clubs’ hegemony. On October 17, 1961, Kyiv Dynamo tied a game with Kharkiv Avanhard (0:0), outdistancing its rivals, winning its first USSR champion trophy. The team’s coach at the time was Vyacheslav Soloviov, a spectacular player with the Red Army Sports Club after World War II who took over Dynamo in late 1959. And he had real talent to command: ever goal-minded Oleh Bazylevych whose techniques left spectators speechless, then cheering, nay roaring; dribbling and ducking virtuoso and Dynamo’s long-term sniper Viktor Kanevsky; selfless fullback Vasyl Turianchyk; “bombardier and dispatcher” Andriy Biba who ranked with the club’s most prestigious captains, professing sparkling nonstandard soccer; soccer classic and indirect thrower Valery Lobanovsky (whose indirect throws more often than not became direct hits); Joseph Sabo of the Transcarpathian school, the team’s invariable halfback of the 1960s; Viktor Serebrianikov whose spinning blows seldom missed...

PEAK TWO (1975)

The first international success. On May 14, after routing the Hungary’s Ferenzvaroc (3:0), Dynamo Kyiv captured the European Cupholders’ Cup for the first time in Soviet soccer history. Before this they beat the Bulgarian Club CSKA Septevrijske Zname, West German Eintracht (Frankfurt- am-Main), Turkish Bursaspor, and Dutch Eindhoven. In the final meet Dynamo’s advantage in terms of sharp attack and quick concerted action was convincingly demonstrated by three goals scored by Volodymyr Onyshchenko and Oleh Blokhin (two and one, respectively). The Cup-wining team included Yevhen Rudakov, Volodymyr Troshkin, Mykhailo Fomenko, Stefan Reshko, Viktor Matviyenko, Volodymyr Muntian, Anatoly Konkov, Leonid Buriak, Viktor Kolotov, Volodymyr Onyshchenko, Oleh Blokhin, and a coach tandem made up of Valery Lobanovsky and Oleh Bazylevych. Most of the players were awarded the prestigious title Master of Sports and both coaches became Meritorious Masters of Sports.

There was no time to rest on their laurels. The next fall they would have to challenge Bayern Munich twice to get the European Champion’s Cup. At the time the German team was an almost all-star one, led by the legendary Franz Beckenbauer. Dynamo won the first match (1:0), the only goal scored by Blokhin of whom Munich papers wrote that “four fullbacks prove no obstacle for Blokhin...”

German reporters were right and the next game showed it when Blokhin placed two goals neatly, playing on home terrain in Kyiv. The central stadium’s 100,000 audience went wild and then hoarse cheering as the team was handed the 15 kg Supercup.

PEAK THREE (1986)

No one could guess that Kyiv Dynamo, by capturing the USSR Cup in a pitched battle with Donetsk Shakhtar, would enter a new victorious phase. The team now had innovating coaches and felt stronger with the veteran skill of Serhiy Baltacha, Anatoly Demianenko, Volodymyr Bezsonov, Oleh Blokhin, and youthful talent of Oleh Kuznetsov, Pavlo Yakovenko, Vasyl Rats, Ivan Yaremchuk. And they had experience after fighting it out with the best Western clubs. In a word, there was both potential and determination.

Soccer fans gathered at the stadium in Lyons (France) May 2, 1986, had the impression that only one team was playing, Kyiv Dynamo. Its rival, Atletico, one of the strongest Spanish clubs, was overpowered and seemed to have dwindled almost to nothingness (as had been the case with the Dutch Utrecht, Romanian Universitatja, Austrian Rapid, and Czech Dukla. The game ended in impressive 3:0 and the British World Soccer placed the Kyiv lads second after the Argentinean all-national world champion.

Anatoly Demianenko (1986 team captain, now one of the Dynamo Club coaches): “It is hard to describe how we felt. Tremendous satisfaction was uppermost. We had proved to ourselves and soccer fans all over Europe that we were really strong. Thinking back, I see them as the best years of our life. “

PEAK FOUR (1997)

Why 1997? Because that year gave Dynamo and its fans fresh hope. Hope that Dynamo would rise again to the European and world soccer summits. Staring in the Champion League preliminaries, the team did inspire much hope for appearing in the quarterfinals. They beat Barry Town of Yale and heard that they would still have to beat the stronger Dutch club. After beating Brondby they were told how nice it would look appearing in a group tournament. On reading the list of adversaries, they scratched their heads trying figure how may points they could expect challenged by such soccer giants. After Barcelona, Newcastle, and Eindhoven everybody started talking about Dynamo and that there were people in Ukraine working miracles in sports. By now Dynamo had Valery Lobanovsky who had more than once proved that setting tasks meant carrying them out. Now there were patrons ready to chip in to help revive the club and restore the reputation of Ukrainian sports. Then a powerful stock company was founded, currently Dynamo’s home base. The team was beaten by Juventus. So what? It means that Dynamo was stopped a short way from the top, and that it will rest and recuperate, train, pull itself together, and get back on its feet.

Photos:
1. Dynamo members with the 1975 Supercup in Republican Stadium.
2. The Golden Team of 1961: Front row (left to right): Volodymyr Shcheholkov, Valentyn Troianovsky, Yozhef Sabo, Mykola Koltsov, Viktor SerebrianIkov, and Vitaly Shcherbakov. Second row: Senior trainer Vyacheslav Soloviov, Andriy Biba, Oleh Bazylevych, Vasyl Turianchyk, Viktor Kanevsky, Oleh Makarov, Anatoly Suchkov, Valery Lobanovsky, Yuri Voinov, Volodymyr Anufriyenko, and trainer Mykhailo Koman