100,000 pay last respects to Valerii Lobanovsky, legendary soccer coach (05/19/02)

100,000 pay last respects to Valerii Lobanovsky, legendary soccer coach

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Fans of Ukrainian soccer, young and old alike - and almost 100,000 in all - descended on Dynamo Stadium in Kyiv on May 16 to pay homage to soccer coaching legend Valerii Lobanovsky, 63, who died three days earlier after suffering a stroke.

Mr. Lobanovsky was coaching a game between his Dynamo Kyiv and Zaporizhia Metallurg on May 9, when he became ill, but stayed on the field until his team had attained victory before being transferred to a local hospital by emergency vehicle. He was reported to have suffered a stroke, and his condition worsened in the next three days. He died in Zaporizhia after a second stroke and a brain operation that failed to improve his situation.

Outside Dynamo Stadium, the streets of downtown Kyiv were impassable and lines extended for a quarter mile as fans came to pay their respects to the man who made the worldwide reputation of Kyiv Dynamo and was the pillar of modern Ukrainian soccer. While teenagers scooted up fences and through shrubbery at the edge of the stadium facility to cut short the line and the wait, the more elderly patiently queued to view the body, many with flowers in hand.

With law enforcement officials keeping tight rein over the crowd, the line inched forward through the entry gates and into the stadium where Mr. Lobanovsky spent six years as a player in a 10-year career that ended in 1968, followed by a total of 22 years as head coach in a second career that spanned 33 years.

"He was an honest man, a decent man born of peasants whose life was soccer," explained Viktor Cheremshyna, 56, a fan who was near the very front of the waiting mass of humanity when the gates opened at 10 a.m.

Mr. Cheremshyna, who said he had followed Mr. Lobanovsky's career from the time he began with the Dynamo squad in 1959, explained that the player was as great as the coach.

"People have forgotten that he led the resurgence of Dynamo Kyiv soccer. Do they remember his famous corner kicks?" queried the soccer fan.

Mr. Cheremshyna was referring to a technique, dubbed the "dry leaf," which Lobanovsky-the-player is believed to have perfected. The deft-footed forward would fool opponents by lifting a curling but seemingly innocuous corner kick, which would then increasingly turn toward the goal and begin a rather dramatic and unexpected descent before languidly dropping through the goalmouth after falling behind the shoulders of the goalie and defenders. Many fans compared it to a dry autumn leaf wispily fluttering to the ground, hence the name.

At 9:45 a.m. with thousands already outside, a Cadillac hearse drove the eactly remains of the late soccer legend into the stadium, which was encircled with a wide strip of black bunting. As Mozart played over the loudspeakers, the body was placed under a tent-like canopy at the far end of the playing field. An official government delegation led by Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Semynozhenko and National Deputy Hryhorii Surkis, who is president of Dynamo Kyiv and also the Ukrainian Soccer Federation, began the public viewing. After the VIPs paid their respects to the coach's widow, daughter and relatives, members of both the Dynamo soccer team and the Ukrainian National team followed. Then came the thousands of fans who for years had thrilled to the achievements of Coach Lobanovsky's great teams.

Forty minutes into the viewing, the lines were halted as a large group of national deputies numbering more than a hundred entered the stadium, led by National Deputies Valerii Pustovoitenko, a former head of the Ukrainian Soccer Federation, Leonid Kravchuk, the country's first president, and Viktor Medvedchuk, Mr. Surkis' business partner.

Shortly after that, President Leonid Kuchma, Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh and a bevy of ministers and government officials paid their respects. President Kuchma told reporters that Mr. Lobanovsky meant much more to Ukraine than simply soccer.

"He was one of those that built an independent Ukraine," explained the president. "He made us proud to be Ukrainian."

With thousands of people lining the streets of Kyiv, the hearse bearing the casket of the late legend was moved from the stadium to Baikove Cemetery on the afternoon of May 16, where Mr. Lobanovsky was given a state burial.

Among the many people who lingered in the stadium were politicians, athletes, friends and acquaintances. They included Mykola Chaika, Mr. Lobanovsky's high school teacher who carried a 10th grade class photograph of his former pupil.

"Sports was his life," explained Mr. Chaika. "His mother wanted him to be an engineer, so he listened and enrolled in an engineering polytechnic institute, but that career lasted only a few days."

Mr. Lobanovsky, who was born in 1939, finally did get a university degree, but not until 1965 when his playing days were drawing to a close. By then he had been part of a Kyiv Dynamo team that had won the 1961 USSR championship - only three years after it had been threatened with expulsion to the second division - and a 1964 Soviet Cup. In all, Mr. Lobanovsky played 258 games in Soviet championships, was a member of the all-USSR squad and played on two Olympic teams.

In his last two seasons he played with Odesa Chornomorets and then Donetsk Shakhtar clubs before changing hats and becoming coach of Dnipropetrovsk Dnipro in 1969-1973.

In 1974 he returned to Kyiv as head coach of the Dynamo squad and quickly made his mark, winning eight straight Soviet Union league championships and six Soviet Cups, as well as two UEFA Champions League Cups and a European Super Championship. While at the helm of the Soviet national squad he took a bronze medal at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

In 1990, after winning both the USSR championship and the Soviet Cup a final time, Mr. Lobanovsky left Dynamo to coach in the United Arab Emirates, but returned in 1996. Within a year he once again had taken Kyiv Dynamo to the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals. A year later his team was back, this time to reach the semifinals, where it lost to eventual champion Bayern Munich.

On the day of his death, President Kuchma posthumously awarded Mr. Lobanovsky the Hero Of Ukraine medal. The same day the Kyiv Dynamo board of directors voted to change the name of Dynamo Stadium to Dynamo-Lobanovsky Stadium.

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