Valeriy Lobanovskyi
Valeriy Vasylyovych Lobanovskyi (Ukrainian: Вале́рій Васи́льович Лобано́вський, pronounced [wɐˈlɛr⁽ʲ⁾ij lobɐˈnɔu̯sʲkɪj]; 6 January 1939 – 13 May 2002) was а 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. 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.
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Lobanovskyi in 1985 | |||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Valeriy Vasylyovych Lobanovskyi | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | 6 January 1939 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine) | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 13 May 2002 (aged 63) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine | ||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.87 m (6 ft 1+1⁄2 in) | ||||||||||||||||
| Position(s) | Forward | ||||||||||||||||
| Youth career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1952–1955 | Football School No. 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1955–1956 | Football School of Youth (FShM) | ||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
| 1957–1964 | Dynamo Kyiv | 144 | (42) | ||||||||||||||
| 1965–1966 | Chornomorets Odesa | 59 | (15) | ||||||||||||||
| 1967–1968 | Shakhtar Donetsk | 50 | (14) | ||||||||||||||
| Total | 253 | (71) | |||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1960–1961 | Soviet Union | 2 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| Managerial career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1969–1973 | Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk | ||||||||||||||||
| 1973–1982 | Dynamo Kyiv | ||||||||||||||||
| 1975–1976 | Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||||
| 1979 | Ukrainian SSR | ||||||||||||||||
| 1982–1983 | Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||||
| 1984–1990 | Dynamo Kyiv | ||||||||||||||||
| 1986–1990 | Soviet Union | ||||||||||||||||
| 1990–1993 | United Arab Emirates | ||||||||||||||||
| 1994–1996 | Kuwait | ||||||||||||||||
| 1997–2002 | Dynamo Kyiv | ||||||||||||||||
| 2000–2001 | Ukraine | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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| *Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||
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. 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. Throughout his coaching career Lobanovskyi won 33 official trophies, becoming the second most decorated manager of all time (behind Alex Ferguson) and the most successful football manager of the 20th century. 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, Ihor Bielanov and Andriy Shevchenko.