The taste of the victory Dynamo won over Bayern resembles that of no alcohol beer. This kind of beer does not differ from the realthing either by taste or smell. It simply lacks spirit, which results in the consumer remaining sober, with a fresh head and lucid mind, even after he has drunk a barrel of it.
After Kyiv Dynamo had beaten Munich Bayern last Wednesday, the 70,000 spectators at Kyiv’s central stadium resembled those who had drunk precisely such beer. Our side has defeated the champion of Germany. This should require great fanfare, singing, and chanting Dynamo-supporting slogans, in a word, cheers. However, all this was absent: the win in the last match of the Champions League second group tournament failed to overfill the hearts of Dynamo fans or make them feel like singing. To look at it, this soccer match displayed all things real: the teams, the referees, the UEFA inspectors, keepsake photography, ninety minutes of good soccer, the goals our side scored, and, finally, a 2:0 victory. But there were no cheers. An approximately similar sentiments must have been felt by the 30,000 Florentines who rooted for their Fiorentina in the same League’s match versus the Bordeaux.
This surprisingly lackluster and bitter-tasting finish of the group tournament in absolutely all groups was caused by the same factor: all had known the result in advance. In other words, those who were to win had already won and those who were to lose had lost. And let nobody be deceived by Fiorentina-Bordeaux draw: the Italians conceded the last two goals already knowing that Valencia and Manchester United had already ended their match in a grand master style draw. So Heorhy Demetradze was the only one who really rejoiced over the beautiful goal he struck home past Bayern’s No. 3 keeper because his coaches, teammates, and part of the audience already knew that even eighty goals would not get the Kyivans into the quarterfinals.
Frankly, I can hardly move my tongue to seriously analyze the game which lacked the main thing, the desperate fight for the result. Comparisons are just a stone’s throw away: eleven months ago Bayern also played in Kyiv, and that match seemed to be unsurpassable in terms of plot and drama. In that game, our side almost outplayed Germany’s best and one of Europe’s best clubs. But what did we have last week? Nobody blames the Dynamo players: they played in full swing and won a victory over a team that openly showed its unwillingness to offer stiff resistance and in fact brought its third string. While last spring the Olympic stadium pitch saw Bayern’s all-stars fit to play, now even Munich-based fans hardly knew some of the names in the visitors’ team.
Miracles never happen at this level of soccer, never in the sense that nobody will outplay a rival just for the fun of it. Can there be any complaints about Rosenborg which lost a home match to Madrid Real? And how did our side play against this same Real at home? This is the point. I am writing this not to reproach Dynamo which still managed a small miracle in March, raising from the zero mark to one with ten full-fledged tournament points. It seems to me there should be no such tournaments where the spectators are fed a substandard show at their own expense. Just remember the way Valencia audiences whistled when they saw their team was not going to outplay Manchester.
Analyzing the charts and results of the last round of the Champions League group tournament, it is easy to see there was a serious struggle in none of the eight matches. Why should one fight if it is more useful to run around the field with a cellular phone in hand, as if he were a proverbial new Russian, asking about how his competitors are playing. Beyond all doubt, Dynamo players, deep in their hearts, were only partially on the Kyiv pitch. For what was going on during the last game was a certain unfathomable four-sided match. During the game against Bayern, I did not try on purpose to monitor the course of developments in Trondheim. But it was clear even without a standby monitor that our side knew everything. If the Norwegians had scored, the Kyivans’ adrenaline would have risen. They could have driven the ball together with the Munich backs right into their net. But this did not happen: the pitch continued to show high-quality sparring such that the players obediently followed the coach’s instructions, but their eyes never sparkled, they did not try to outdo themselves, and their energy does not infect the spectators. In a word, no- alcohol beer.
There is no doubt that the scandalous finish of this year’s Champions League group tournament will be the object of a serious debate in the UEFA, which will draw the necessary conclusions. Tournament conditions are certain to be replaced by those under which the teams will really fight for victory instead of just going through the motions. But nobody will ever return us the stolen feast of soccer, which Dynamo-Bayern matches have always been. Fans are going to long remember the bitter feeling of a victory that won nothing. What comforts us is only the fact that we have a team capable of fighting for its place in the sun of European soccer. Never mind that this team so far only glitters like a lonely diamond among the gray mass of national rock. A true soccer feast is still in store for us.






