Former midfielder of Dnipro, Dynamo and the Ukrainian national team Sergey Konovalov spoke about working with Pavlov and Lobanovsky, the stormy football of the 90s and winning the Asian Champions Cup.
Sergey Konovalov (photo: O.Vasilyeva)“I am glad that the championship of Ukraine is still being played”
— Sergey Borisovich, how are you? What do you do?
- Things, in principle, like everyone else in our country, are not the best. There are no particularly happy moments. Although life is slowly returning to people, as you can see, just like football in our country. At the moment I am working with the amateur team "Partizan" (Kodra). We have applied for participation in the championship of the Kyiv region. Previously, there were several leagues in this tournament: the highest, the first. Considering the current situation in the country, many teams took a break and did not apply. Now there are 12 teams.
— On the first of March you had an anniversary - 50 years...
— I planned to celebrate. I have already agreed on everything, but after February 24, there could be no talk of any anniversary. Years, of course, fly by, but in my heart I feel not 50, but much younger.
— What do you think awaits Ukrainian football in the conditions of the war with Russia and the economic situation in the country?
- I am glad that the championship of Ukraine will still be. The main thing is to ensure the safety of the participants. This will not be easy to do. And football players are waiting for serious tests. The players have tuned in, are fighting on the field, and suddenly there is an air raid signal, they are taken off the field. Then everything: the player cooled down, lost concentration. Those who played football will understand me.
Therefore, we should not have illusions that we will see something interesting. And then, there are no fans at the stadiums, they cannot get to football. Regarding the quality of the game, I think everyone saw the matches of our teams in European tournaments.
As for the regional championship, it promises to be interesting. Fans can attend some games, somewhere in the suburbs, in the villages. In this regard, the regional championship wins. Now many players are left without teams, so they join amateur teams. I have trained 26 players each, the guys represent different regions of our country.
— What can you say about the performance of the Ukrainian national team?
- In my opinion, Petrakov is a good fellow, like all the guys who are part of the national team. What happened in our country brought them all together. Basically, they did everything they could. Yes, they "hit" Wales, but they should not be ashamed of this defeat.
— As a former national team player, have you also been in a situation where the team was just a little short of getting into the Euro 2000 final?
— In 1999, the situation was completely different. We left the group having won a draw in a dramatic match with Russia, and ended up with Slovenia. It was believed that of all possible rivals, we got the weakest (in the play-offs, in addition to Slovenia, the rivals of our team could be: England, Denmark, Turkey, Ireland, Scotland, Israel, - approx. ed.)
Underestimation of the opponent played a role. Plus a number of other factors. Somewhere coaching miscalculation. In Slovenia, we were not supposed to play the way we played. And what were we preparing for at home? It is snowing. So there was a forecast that he could go. Long searched for the red ball. The field was not ideal, but the conditions were equal for the two teams. We scored a long-awaited goal, but immediately conceded. So we are to blame for that failure.
“For me, Dnipro is my native team”
- You are a Poltava resident who took place in Dnipro. How did you get into the core of the team?
— I am grateful to fate for being in Dnipro. For me, this is my own team. Here I have established myself as a player. At the age of 18 he made his debut in the USSR championship. Starting in 1990, he was in the cage, a little later he became a base player. This is despite the fact that there was competition in Dnepr in those years, be healthy. I learned a lot from older partners. This is the attitude to the team, to oneself, and to the game and the result. Now I pass it on to the younger generation.
- Who in Dnipro at first seemed to you the brightest and most colorful person?
- Yes, I looked at almost everyone with my mouth open. Just yesterday, I only dreamed of training and playing next to such masters, but then everything happened somehow quickly. It is clear that the young are not always sweet and comfortable in such a company. A little something is wrong, you are always to blame. It just needs to be taken for granted.
- Who was the main authority in the team for you?
— Vadim Tishchenko (thought), Sergey Krakovsky, Vladimir Bagmut. Yes, I can name many guys from that team. And also their peers - Sergey Mamchur, Zhenya Pokhlebaev. A little older guys - Andrey Yudin, Volodya Gerashchenko and Andrey Sidelnikov.
- You came to Dnepr to Yevgeny Kucherevsky. How did he seem to you?
— Of course, I was lucky to play under the guidance of such a great coach and a wonderful person. I remember that he joked a lot, suggested something. In general, Mefodyich played a huge role in my development as a Dnipro core player.
"I ran faster than Roberto Carlos"
- A quote from one of your interviews: "On the recommendation of Kucherevsky, I got into the USSR youth team, which was preparing for the World Cup in Portugal."
- I knew that Gennady Kostylev, who works with the youth team, called Kucherevsky and asked about me. Mefodyich then said that I was ripe for the national team and I could help her. As a result, I went with the team to the World Youth Championship.
- Did you win bronze medals in the end?
— Could claim more. After all, we have studied the Brazilians with whom we played in the semi-final. Watched all their games. There was confidence that we would pass them. Probably somewhere underestimated this team. After the match for third place, all four teams moved to Lisbon (the match for bronze medals was played in Porto - 1:1, in the penalty shootout - 5:4, - approx. ed.). We watched the finale, then there was an award ceremony, a general banquet. Shcherbakov was awarded the "Golden Boot" (the top scorer of the championship with 5 goals - ed.).
- Roberto Carlos played in that Brazilian national team. Did you cross paths with him on the flank?
— What about Roberto Carlos? Good footballer, played left back. In attack, I acted in tandem with Sergei Shcherbakov. We constantly changed flanks. Of course, we had martial arts with Carlos, but I was not inferior to him in speed. He probably ran faster than him.
- Tell us about the match with Egypt. What happened to your goalkeepers?
— It was our first game. At the warm-up, one of our players from a close distance loaded the ball into Pomazun and broke his finger. The second goalkeeper Novosadov entered the game, who was injured 15-20 minutes before the final whistle. Our captain and my partner in the Dnieper, Sergei Mamchur, had to stand at the gate. The score was slippery 1:0. Shcherbakov scored from my pass. There were moments when Mamchur had to fall somewhere, fix the ball. In general, we survived.
— Is it true that the Australians turned out to be sociable guys, and after the match for the third place, did you drink hard with them?
- For us, the World Cup is over, and we will say this - we had a rest. We got beer and wine. There were no stronger drinks. We sat all night - sincerely. The Australians included their captain, Paul Ocon, and goalkeeper Mark Bosnich.
I already knew Bosnich. Six months before the championship there was a tournament in Switzerland for club teams, he was already in Manchester United. And our team then participated in the tournament under the guise of Moscow Spartak. We played with Manchester in the final and beat them. I remember Bosnich told me: "At the tournament, we only talked about how strong Spartak is in the Union, but it turns out that the team played against us."
Then in the morning the Portuguese were preparing for the final, and we watched from the balcony how Figo, Rui Costa, João Pinto, Xavier practiced. After all, we lost to the Brazilians, so we rooted for Portugal. As a result, they became world champions.
- But one of your partners in that team said that the Australians still brought a bottle of whiskey with them ...
- I don't remember that. I remember a refrigerator with drinks, which was on the first floor of the hotel, one of the guys brought it to our room (two Sergeys - Mamchur and Mandreko - pulled the device out of the socket and dragged it to the room 5:4, - approx. ed.). We opened it.
- How much truth is that on the way to Portugal on the plane you broke a goblet with cognac intended as a gift for Vyacheslav Koloskov's fiftieth birthday?
— (thinking). 30 years have passed. I remember there was something like that. One of our coaches was then Eduard Markarov and two more Ararat players. Of course, they brought cognac, but there just happened an accident. In my opinion, when the plane took off, one of the guys dropped this cup (in the Cup there were approximately 8 liters of elite Armenian cognac, - approx. ed.)
“I learned about money after the game with Pakhtakor”
— Let's return to the Dnepr. You managed to play in the Union Championship. You have already talked about your debut for Dnipro many times. Let's talk about your first goal scored, shall we?
- It was in the Cup game against CSKA. Dnipro lost the first match in Moscow, 1:4 in the arena. CSKA had a very strong team then, so the return game became a formality.
For the first time I entered the field in the starting lineup, and already in the 4th minute I scored against Mikhail Eremin (the army team then won the USSR Cup, and the next day after the final, Mikhail Eremin crashed in a car accident, - approx. ed.).
It so happened that it was my first and last goal for Dnipro during the Union.
- You were put on the job of a Yuzhmash sports instructor. How much were you paid?
- Then everyone who was in the duplicate of "Dnepr" had such an entry in the work book. How much did they pay? At first there was a rate - 90 rubles, then - 180 and finally - 350.
- Until recently, the Dnipro-Metalist derby was considered the coolest in the Ukrainian championship. It is believed that the attitude of the teams deteriorated at the finish of the 1991 Union Championship. It seems like Dnipro lost the match to Pakhtakor. You played with the Uzbeks and you probably remember a lot of details of that match.
- Before the last round, Metalist and Pakhtakor had equal points. We have not applied for anything. We needed to draw so that Metalist, having won his game, could remain in the Major League. We lost at home - 1:3, and Metalist had to fly out. But the next year there was no Union Championship. So Dnipro and Metalist started in the Higher League of the Ukrainian Championship.
— Did you know about the money that Metalist brought on the eve of the game as a bonus for Dnipro?
— Before the game, I didn’t know about money. After all, I was the youngest in the team, and probably only a limited circle of people knew about money.
I entered the field after the break, we were losing - 0:1, and could not understand why I was in a good position, and no one gave me a pass. After the game, when two Pakhtakor players, Pyatnitsky and Shkvyrin, came to the banquet on the occasion of the end of the championship, everything became clear (in that game, both scored a ball against Dnipro, the latter at one time played for the Dnipropetrovsk club, - ed. ed.).
- Did your partners not give you a pass, because Pakhtakor brought more than Metalist?
- I do not know this. I was a very young kid then. I was not initiated into such matters. I worked in the field - and that's it.
“Fix-fixing in our championship is the heritage of the Union”
- This March marks 30 years since the first independent championship of Ukraine. You were a participant in the first games. What can you tell about that time?
“At that time, we didn’t understand what would happen. The team was at the training camp, and there we found out that there would be an independent championship of Ukraine. No one then knew what its format would be. What to prepare for. Then, they made a list of participants. The five teams that represented Ukraine in the Higher League of the Union Championship were joined by the clubs of the first league - Tavria, Zorya and Karpaty. The rest of the participants were selected by rating.
Well, what were we, the players, to do? We didn't have much of a choice. Those who are older naturally wanted to leave faster, at least to Israel. It was not clear what would happen to the money. Some coupons have been introduced in the country. Everyone understood then that it was a collapse. There will be no football.
I will not hide it, in 1992 I also wanted to leave. There was such an opportunity. Then the late Ivan Vishnevsky came to Dnipro with people who represented the Turkish club "Sariyer" (Istanbul). They watched Tishchenko, and it turned out that they paid attention to me. In the summer there was a serious conversation, but then somehow everything was hushed up.
- The most unusual episode that occurred during your stay in Dnipro?
— There were a lot of them then. So I can immediately remember the episode when the fans burst into our locker room. They tried to stop them, they said, wait for our meeting. There, even Pavlov could not stand it, he wound up. They, drunk on emotions, wanted to greet us. And we just had a serious conversation.
- Do you think match-fixing came to our championship from the Union?
— Of course, this is the legacy of the Union. Everything went from there. All these miscalculations, who needs what. You to me - I to you. I can say one thing, we were not interested in all this at Dnipro. We were confident. We just wanted to go out on the field and beat the opponent. Earn premium.
Shakhtar scored in every match"
- Your two goals scored against Shakhtar in the match for third place brought Dnipro bronze medals in the first championship. Did you consider yourself a hero?
- Well no. My partners helped me to score those goals. There Vadik Tishchenko gave me the first pass, the second - Andryukha Polunin. And in general, in that game, our captain, Vadim Tishchenko, was the best on the field. His presence on the field meant a lot to us.
- Having scored those two goals against Dmitry Shutkov, you then continued to upset him regularly.
- Yes, I scored against him in almost every game, and Shakhtar forward Serhiy Atelkin constantly scored against us. The late Sergei and I once joked about this. And with Dima Shutkov, we are of the same age, we often crossed paths in the Ukrainian national team, we played together. He asked me: "Well, how so?" And I answered him: Shakhtar is my favorite team."
- In 1993, Dnipro was closer than ever to becoming a champion. In one of the interviews, you said that the defeat against Metalist in Kharkiv was decisive for Dnipro. Are you of the same opinion now?
- I think that there were two fatal games for Dnipro. The first one was in Zaporozhye against Metalurh: we led the score, controlled the game, but still couldn't score the second goal. Towards the end of the game, Metallurg equalized the score from a penalty kick. As a result, they lost a point there. And, of course, the game in Kharkov, where we lost.
— And what about the home game with Kryvbas? You also lost points in that match, didn't you?
- The game with Kryvbas was fundamental because at that time many of our pupils were playing in Krivoy Rog, who for various reasons did not suit Dnipro. So they played fiercely against us, gnawed at the ground, biting to the end. We are two teams of the same region, there was a purely internal struggle.
- It was not so in the Union. When Dnipro was fighting for the championship, did all teams in the region work for the main team?
- Yes, in the Union everyone worked against Dnipro, just like Dynamo!
- Look, be in the place of Dnipro, for example, Shakhtar - it’s hard to imagine how the points of the team representing the Donetsk region are taken away from the miners ...
- Of course, we were offended, there was something wrong. Maybe Kyiv promised them some bonuses. And yet, I think that in that match there was a fair sporting fight on the field.
- Playing for Dnipro, you became the team's top scorer three times. Moreover, the number of goals scored was constantly increasing...
- Was he really the best scorer? Somehow I didn't think about it. But at first I was an attacker in Dnipro, only then Pavlov often began to use me as a flank player. I could also play a defender. But still, I always considered myself a forward, so I had to score.
- Which of the goals you scored stands apart?
- Of course, the goal scored in Chernivtsi - Bukovina. We played in the pouring rain. There was a tough fight on the field. There were no moments as such. Probably, they threw the ball to me from the out, I took it, processed it, and sent it to the top nine in a high arc. We needed a win, and we got it. I was very happy then, as was the whole team.
“Under Pavlov, everything was fair in Dnepr”
- What role did Nikolai Pavlov play in your sports career?
- Only thanks to Pavlov, I stayed in Dnepr, like other young guys. After all, in 1993, the Moscow CSKA persistently called me to him. If not for Pavlov, I most likely would not have moved to Dynamo either. He had such a purely human influence on me. I trusted and listened to him, just like the other guys.
Nikolai Petrovich did everything for us, and we appreciated it. We had a very good team, in which everything was fair. Pavlov was like a senior comrade for us (Pavlova was 38 years old when she came to Dnipro, - approx. ed.). He said: "There is such money, and it is distributed in such a way, if you think differently, tell me who deserves what."
- They say that Leonid Kuchma personally introduced Pavlov to you. He kind of went into the locker room, hugged the then assistant Kucherevsky Pavlov by the shoulders and said: "Here is your new head coach"...
- Not. Pavlov was introduced to us as a head coach by other people. And Kuchma quite often went into the dressing room of Dnipro after the game (At that time, Leonid Kuchma was the director of the Yuzhmash Production Association and the honorary president of Dnipro, - ed. ed.)
When I was already at Dynamo, Kuchma, being the President of Ukraine, together with Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, came to the Dynamo base to get acquainted with the team. It was after a loud scandal with fur coats. Then Leonid Danilovich saw our five (except for Konovalov, then former Dnipro players played in Dynamo - Maximov, Mikhailenko, Pokhlebaev, Bezhenar - ed. ed.), came up and jokingly said: “I look, my guys are here. Don't they offend you here?"
- What can you tell us about the scandal with fur coats. Were they all the same?
— There were talks, but there were no facts. Personally, I learned about it from the news. At first I thought it was a joke. Only when I arrived at the base, I realized that everything was serious. Initially, the club was threatened with a 3-year suspension. Then there was no hype around the Champions League, as it is now. But I had no time to kill myself. I had to go under the knife, undergo an operation, recover and quickly return to duty.
- Under Pavlov, Dnipro had many sponsors. Nikolai Petrovich personally beat out various benefits for you?
- Yes, he practically did not have time to engage in the training process. His assistants worked with the team. And Pavlov traveled all over the city, going around everyone. He sought out, pulled out some money in order to give us bonuses. Housing, domestic issues - that's what he did. Our salaries were low back then. The time was like this. I remember they gave us food rations, this practice has been going on in Dnipro since Soviet times. Good such boxes were brought to our base twice a month, and we already took them home. It included meat, sausage, canned food, cheeses...
- Tell me, how did you fight on the field?
— I think many people had such a moment when they had to stand up for themselves. And I fought in training with Sanya Zakharov. I just needed to let off steam, cool down somewhere. This happened on the field. We sorted things out for two or three minutes, then they pulled us apart. We found out the reason. As something punished, probation.
- Have you ever had to fight outside the football field?
- Anything happened. When they pestered on the street, I had to stand up for myself. We lived in the nineties.
- Do you know the story of how Pavlov, being a football player, got into a fight with the policemen?
- Well, of course.
"Did he tell you himself?"
“I didn’t tell it myself, but we knew from other sources. I will not disclose them.
- How did it happen that you were given an apartment in Dnipro in the Topol residential area? The guys who lived there were usually laughed at. They said that it was closer to go to a training session in Zaporozhye from there than to the Dnipro base?
- This is what I chose. At first, they gave me a two-room apartment on the left bank, along Pravda Avenue. The apartment is small, in an old house, the rooms are adjacent. I was very upset then. Expected more. By that time, I was already married, but we were not expecting a child yet. We didn’t even begin to register in that apartment, then an offer from Moscow just arrived. At that time, it was impossible to buy an apartment for money, so I had to agree to what was offered.
- You won't go into your pocket for a word. Do you remember the story when you asked Pavlov where the promised "Mazda" and "Zhiguli" of the sixth model were?
- Of course I remember. Pavlov was then offended. After all, he thought that after the defeat in Ternopil - 0:3, we called him to discuss how we would get the desired result in the second leg. And then we ask him some of our mercenary questions.
What about cars? The first ones were handing out Toyotas, they were received by Yudin, Diryavka and Bezhenar. And in the spring of 1993, they gave me and Andrei Polunin a Volkswagen. This is the result of Andrei Sidelnikov's transfer to Wattensteid.
— Have you changed many cars in your career?
- Of course. I've played in many teams. Often traveled abroad.
- In one of the last interviews, Pavlov said that he was not very upset because in 1993 Dynamo was ahead of Dnipro at the finish line. According to him, Dnepropetrovsk was simply not ready to accept the new reorganized UEFA Champions League tournament...
- I don't think that Pavlov thought about it then. He just found such peace of mind. We were all very upset then. They fought to the last. I remember that in the last game against Zaporozhye Torpedo we had to score more than ten goals. We scored three. We understood that in the parallel match in Kremenchuk the issue had already been resolved.
After all, the regulations were changed during the championship. At first, the champion was determined by personal meetings, and we were ahead of Kiev in this indicator. But the difference between goals scored and conceded was better for Dynamo. They have in the second round - no matter what the game is, then a big score (in the second round in 15 games Dynamo scored 40 goals, and in the first round only 19 - approx. ed.).
I gave a $5,000 Rolex to a good man.”
- Did you go to Korea for money?
- Including behind them. And I also went to the team that was the leader of the Korean championship, participated in the Asian Champions Cup. This piqued my interest.
- How many times have you been asked if you ate dogs in Korea?
“Probably a million. And they keep asking. I tell them: "Don't you have any other questions?"
- You said that when you first won the Champions Cup in Hong Kong, you bought a Rolex watch worth $5,000 at the airport. What is their fate?
- Gave. (Laughs). To one good person, already in Kyiv. I remember that at that time the coach and partners did not arouse any admiration for this purchase. It was as if I took some change out of my pocket and bought something.
- Did your salary in Korea differ greatly from the one in Ukraine?
- Very much. In 1996, Dynamo players had approximately the same salaries. So, that Dynamo must be increased, probably, 10-15 times. And there were advertising contracts in Korea, well, that's later.
— What memories do you have about the country?
— People in South Korea are very friendly and welcoming. Life is calm, measured. I had a lot of free time compared to the period spent at Dynamo and even at Dnepr, which I devoted to my family.
- And what can you tell about the city in which you lived?
- The town is small, industrial. There is a metallurgical plant, huge even on a global scale. Therefore, the main occupation of the population is work on it. But I was lucky that we lived outside the industrial zone, in the campus where the university is located. There were many different places for recreation: bowling, playgrounds, attractions. Every weekend we chose where to spend time with the whole family.
- They say that Korea is an expensive country?
- The way it is. At that time, the living wage there was 700-800 dollars. High prices for products. I remember that a kilo of pork cost around $80. By the way, Koreans eat meat, but not in such quantities as we do, but once every two days. Their cuisine is very tasty. When we returned to Kyiv, I constantly went to a Korean restaurant with my wife.
— Can you name a few Korean dishes that you liked?
- Well, for example, bulgogi. This is boiled meat with many spices and herbs. I also liked the kimchi salad, which is marinated with pepper and various spices. Very spicy and tasty.
— What place did football have among Koreans?
- Their number 1 sport is baseball. Then football. People went to the stadium, at that time tickets were inexpensive - 1-2 dollars.
- In what conditions did you have to play and train?
- My team had a wonderful stadium: purely football, for 30 thousand spectators, with a field of good quality. And a base with two fields. Training could not even be compared with those that were in Dynamo. They are much heavier. The emphasis was on speed, endurance and strength. The duration of the lesson is 2-2.5 hours with heat 40 and humidity.
For me it was wild. Half of the training has passed - a pause, they take out a box with cold water. After 10-15 minutes, the lesson continues.
- You once said that the years spent in Korea were the best. Can you confirm this now?
- This is how to interpret. In football, my best years were spent in Dnipro. If it were not for those five years, maybe there would not have been a football player - Sergei Konovalov. And in Korea, I felt freedom and financial independence. I thought only about football, my head was not stuffed with anything else.
“Until the last, I didn’t believe that the team in Sevastopol would disappear”
— How did you become a coach?
- When I finished playing, I did nothing for three or four months. Just taking a break from football. Then I realized - I need to return to football and enjoy it. I played for the city championship, for veterans. At one of the games, Vladimir Ivanovich Onishchenko offered me to work with children at the Dynamo school. At first I doubted, I was not sure that I was ready for such work. But Onishchenko gave such arguments that convinced me to take this step.
— You have worked with professional clubs for almost ten years. Third in "Sevastopol". What will you tell?
— The last months of work in Sevastopol were tense. The difficult period began at the end of 2013. The team was left without a coach, in the game with Dynamo I had to perform the functions of "and. about". In winter, we did not understand at all what would happen next. Then came Angel Chervenkov, who had already worked at Sevastopol, but in the three years of his absence the team had completely changed. He behaved tolerantly with me, and I helped him in his work.
— What was the situation in the city in 2014?
- It was calm in Sevastopol itself - we lived there. Problems arose when we had to travel from Crimea to the mainland of Ukraine for championship games. Some of us were not allowed back. They demanded documents for a visa-free regime with Russia.
I remember how, after one of the games, three of our legionnaires did not have contracts with them confirming that they were working for us. I then stayed with the guys in the gray zone between Ukraine and Russia, spent the whole night there until they brought the necessary papers.
I stayed in Sevastopol until June 2014. Until the last, I did not believe that the team would cease to exist.
— During your stay in Sevastopol, have you seen the cruiser Moskva?
- I will say more, I was even on it. Parades on the sea have always been held in Sevastopol on a grand scale. Our fleet, as such, did not exist, therefore, mainly Russian ships of the Black Sea Fleet, landing troops participated.
I met a Russian officer, I won't name him, from the cruiser Kerch. He turned out to be a football fan and once asked me how to get into football. I arranged a season pass for him.
And he, as a thank you, gave me a tour of the cruiser - to walk around, look. So I visited Kerch, and at the same time Moscow. Was there for a short time. Some showed me, some didn't.
- What's next? Do you have a desire to work with a Premier League team?
- Of course, there is a desire, but when it will be - it's hard to say. As long as I have a team - "Partizan" (Kodra), it requires attention. The guys have a desire, and I have the opportunity to teach them something.
Alexander Petrov
