62 Facts About Valeriy Lobanovskyi

1.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was Master of Sports of the USSR, Distinguished Coach of the USSR, and a laureate of the UEFA Order of Merit in Ruby and FIFA Order of Merit, the highest honour awarded by FIFA.

2.

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.

3.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi is most famous for his spells managing FC Dynamo Kyiv and the USSR national football team.

4.

Valeriy 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.

5.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi is highly regarded due to his achievements as a coach and is widely considered one of the greatest managers of all time.

6.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi holds several managerial records in Soviet football, including most Soviet Top League titles, most Soviet Cup wins and most USSR Super Cup wins.

7.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi is the only manager to win a major European competition with an Eastern European club twice.

8.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi is one of four managers to win the Cup Winners' Cup twice, and one of two to accomplish the feat with the same team.

9.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was born on 6 January 1939 in Kyiv.

10.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi's father was a factory worker, while his mother was a housewife.

11.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi studied at the Kyiv school No 319, where a plaque commemorating Lobanovskyi is installed and the school itself has been renamed in his honor.

12.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was a graduate of the Kyiv Football School No 1 and the Football School of Youth in Kyiv.

13.

At the age of 18, Valeriy Lobanovskyi was invited to the B-squad of Dynamo Kyiv, the most prominent Ukrainian football club at the time.

14.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi had regularly been working on these shots during training sessions, using Magnus effect and his own calculations.

15.

Since 1960, Valeriy Lobanovskyi was a full-fledged member of the starting line-up.

16.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was mostly used as a left winger, where he formed a duo with Valentyn Troyanovskyi.

17.

In 1961, Dynamo Kyiv became the first football team not from Moscow to win USSR title, with Valeriy Lobanovskyi scoring 10 goals.

18.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was regularly invited to the national team, but due to strong opposition was able to play only two international games, against Austria and Poland.

19.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi finished his career after brief spells at Chornomorets Odesa and Shakhtar Donetsk.

20.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi ended his playing career at the age of 29 having scored 71 goals in 253 games in the Soviet Top League.

21.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi moved to his former club, Dynamo Kyiv, who were impressed by his accomplishments with Dnipro, in October 1973.

22.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was credited for inventing a style of play in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team, similarly to what was practiced by Rinus Michels at the same time in Netherlands.

23.

Unlike Michels Valeriy Lobanovskyi was developing his style of play scientifically, with a strong emphasis on pressing.

24.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi led Dynamo Kyiv to European Cup quarter-finals in 1981 and 1982, before leaving the team at the end of 1982 in order to return to managing Soviet national team, being in charge of it during Euro qualification.

25.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi saw the problems and knew how to solve them.

26.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi's side started the 1985 season very strongly and in the end captured another Soviet double, defeating their biggest rival, Spartak Moscow, twice throughout the season.

27.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi's side was widely praised by the Soviet and European media.

28.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was asked to manage the side on the eve of the 1986 World Cup.

29.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi himself was named both European Coach of the Season and Coach of the Year in 1986.

30.

In semifinals, Valeriy Lobanovskyi's side defeated Italy, after Hennadiy Lytovchenko and Oleh Protasov scored two unanswered goals.

31.

In September 1990, Valeriy Lobanovskyi decided to leave Soviet Union and take up a lucrative offer of managing the United Arab Emirates national football team.

32.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi is recognized as one of the great managers in the history of the national team.

33.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi left Emirates due to a conflict with Emirates football federation and went on to spend the next two years managing the Kuwait national football team, before agreeing to return to Dynamo Kyiv in November 1996.

34.

In January 1997, Valeriy Lobanovskyi returned to manage Dynamo Kyiv for the third time.

35.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi's team were seeded against FC Barcelona, Newcastle United and PSV Eindhoven.

36.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi won his last trophy in January 2002, when the team won its fourth CIS Cup, having entered the A-squad for the tournament for the first time since 1998.

37.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was appointed manager of the Ukraine national side in March 2000.

38.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi left Ukraine national team after the side failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, losing to Germany in the play-offs.

39.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi had to deal with health issues since 1988, when he suffered his first heart attack.

40.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi suffered a second heart attack in the autumn of 2001, which required surgery.

41.

In 2001, Valeriy Lobanovskyi missed all away games of Dynamo Kyiv in Champions League due to hypertension and being banned from travelling by air.

42.

On 7 May 2002 during Dynamo Kyiv's game against FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhya, Valeriy Lobanovskyi fainted and was hospitalized with a stroke.

43.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi went through a brain surgery and his health was rated as critical.

44.

The press, which regularly monitored Lobanovsky's state of health, wrote that there was hope, but Valeriy Lobanovskyi had not regained consciousness.

45.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi often referred to Total Football as "gold vein" that would be exploited for many years to come.

46.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi insisted that the training process should be modeled, and fragments of future actions on the field should be practiced.

47.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi is credited for bringing a scientific and analytical approach and strong emphasis on physical fitness and diet to the game.

48.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi had the ability to get the absolute best out of the players he worked with.

49.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi never yelled at us, nor he ever tried to 'sort things out' with anyone.

50.

Many observers, players and managers credited Valeriy Lobanovskyi for being able to always improve as a manager.

51.

Players were to have individual technical coaching so as to equip them better to fulfil the tasks Valeriy Lobanovskyi set them during a game; specific tactics and tasks for each player were drawn up according to the opponents; and a strategy was devised for a competition as a whole, placing each game in context by acknowledging that it is impossible for a side to maintain maximal levels over a protracted period.

52.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi's forwards were highly versatile, being equally capable of shifting to the flanks, organizing attacks as playmakers, joining midfield in defensive formations and even dropping back to help the full-backs during spells of opponent pressure.

53.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi always stressed the importance of the first seconds of an attack after winning the ball, as it is in these seconds that the opposition is less ready to defend in an organized manner.

54.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi put meticulous attention to set-pieces both in attack and in defense.

55.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi had Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko man-mark Holland's Ruud Gullit in the Euro 1988 final.

56.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was tactically versatile and would make risky changes during matches to alter the course of the game.

57.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi insisted that a player should be able to play in more than one position.

58.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi converted Aleksei Gerasimenko, originally a striker who had scored 46 goals in 71 games with FC Kuban Krasnodar, into a right midfielder, a right full-back, and even into a sweeper.

59.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi had already found their replacements in Alyaksandr Khatskevich and Valentin Belkevich, and the team made an even more spectacular run next season.

60.

In 2003, Valeriy Lobanovskyi was awarded FIFA Order of Merit, the highest honour awarded by FIFA.

61.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was born in Kyiv to Vasyl Mykhailovych Lobko-Lobanovsky and Oleksandra Maksymivna Boichenko.

62.

Valeriy Lobanovskyi was married to Ada Lobanovska, the couple had a daughter named Svitlana.