Valeriy Lobanovskyi

Lobanovskyi was a graduate of the Kyiv Football School No. 1 and the Football School of Youth in Kyiv (first coach – Mykola Chayka). At the age of 18, Lobanovskyi was invited to the B-squad of Dynamo Kyiv, the most prominent Ukrainian football club at the time. His debut in the Soviet Top League came on 29 May 1959 against CSK MO Moscow. Lobanovskyi became famous for his ability to accurately deliver curled balls from corner and free kicks (so-called curl) — often Lobanovskyi was able to score the goal directly from the corner. He had regularly been working on these shots during training sessions, using Magnus effect and his own calculations. The Soviet press compared him to Brazilian forward Didi who regularly curved the ball in a similar way at the 1958 World Cup. Teammates often praised Lobanovskyi for his unorthodox mindset and ability to use dribbling, which was unusual for such tall (187 cm) players. Since 1960, Lobanovskyi was a full-fledged member of the starting line-up. He was mostly used as a left winger, where he formed a duo with Valentyn Troyanovskyi. That same year he became the club's top goalscorer with 13 goals. In 1961, Dynamo Kyiv became the first football team not from Moscow to win USSR title, with Lobanovskyi scoring 10 goals. He was regularly invited to the national team, but due to strong opposition (at the time there were many top-level left-wingers in Soviet Union like Mikheil Meskhi, Anatoli Ilyin and Galimzyan Khusainov) was able to play only two…

Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (1968–1973)

A year after retiring as a player Lobanovskyi was named the manager of FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk on 16 October 1968. That year Dnipro ended up third in the Group 3 (Ukrainian SSR group) of the Class A, group 2. The team won its group next year and entered the league finals, finishing second. In 1970, the league system was reformed and Dnipro entered the newly created Class A, group 1 (later renamed to Soviet First League), which the team won the following year, moving to the Top League. In its first season at the highest level, the club ended up sixth, one point away from silver medals.

Dynamo Kyiv (1973–1982), Soviet Union national team (1975–1976, 1982–1983)

Lobanovskyi moved to his former club, Dynamo Kyiv, who were impressed by his accomplishments with Dnipro, in October 1973. In January 1974 he was joined by his former teammate, Oleh Bazylevych. These two would work as a coaching duo until October 1976. Both managers had equal rights: Bazylevych was a theorist, and Lobanovskyi was in charge of the training process. During their first season, the Soviet press often criticized them for rationalism and unwillingness to play attacking football (the so-called away model — the team would play away games defensively to score a draw). In that season, the team won both the league and Soviet Cup. Both Lobanovskyi and Bazylevych understood the importance of accurate calculation of the physical load on players. With cooperation…

Along with Rinus Michels, Lobanovskyi is recognized for being the inventor of the major football playing style known as "Total Football" in the 1970s. Lobanovskyi often referred to Total Football as "gold vein" that would be exploited for many years to come. According to Lobanovskyi, the "revolutionary process" in football ended in 1974 with the discovery of Total Football, and in modern football, all players must be able to play in offense and defense equally effectively. Per Lobanovskyi, "Now we are talking about the so-called 'smart' universalization. What do I mean? Well, for example, we would not want Andriy Shevchenko, the striker, to play the right defender. But if he gets into this zone, he must be able to perform there. And in the future, football will gradually move from 'smart' universalization to full universalization". Lobanovskyi viewed football game as a system of 22 elements, divided into two sub-systems consisted of 11 elements – if the two sub-systems are equal, the game ends in a draw. The nuance that Lobanovsky considered the most interesting and important was that the efficiency of the subsystem will always be higher than the sum of the efficiencies of its individual elements. Lobanovskyi insisted that the training process should be modeled, and fragments of future actions on the field should be practiced. According to Lobanovskyi, team coordination was an outdated concept – each player goes out and does what is needed at this time, and how he does this…

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was born on 6 January 1939 in Kyiv. His father was a factory worker, while his mother was a housewife. He studied at the Kyiv school No.319 (now Valeriy Lobanovskyi Prospect, 146), where a plaque commemorating Lobanovskyi is installed and the school itself has been renamed in his honor. In 1956 he joined the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute but later transferred to the Odesa Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated.