The famous journalist Mykola Nesenyuk reflected on the importance of the success factor in football against the background of the recent failures of Dynamo Kyiv.
Mykola NesenyukIn October 1984, in an almost empty Kyiv stadium, the local "Dynamo" played against "Dynamo" Moscow in the eighth USSR Cup. The match ended in a 1:1 draw and the winner was decided by a penalty shootout. Blokhin from Kyiv did not score. The guests scored everything. Gazzaev made the last blow for them. Score - and the Muscovites won! But Gazzaev hit the post!
The Kyivans eventually won that series. Everything was decided by a few centimeters! If it weren't for them, there would be no victory of Dynamo Kyiv in the Cup next spring, and therefore no participation in the Cup of Cups in 1986, which Dynamo won historically. There would be no star "Lobanovskyi team".
Everything would be different. Perhaps, after relegation from the cup and tenth place in the championship in 1984, it would be decided that this team with these football players and this coach is no longer capable of anything and everyone should be changed...
But luck smiled on the people of Kyiv, and they rose to new heights, winged by success! The same thing happened in August 1998, when a Sparta Prague player in the penultimate minute of a game with Dynamo found himself in the path of a ball deflected by his goalkeeper, after which it flew into the goal. If it were not for this curiosity, Dynamo would not have reached the semi-finals of the Champions League in 1999!
And now imagine that the referee with the VAR would not have found a millimeter offside from Harmash last year and Shaparenko's ball into the Benfica goal was counted. Then everything could go wrong! But no luck! And we got a completely different result.
It should be understood that luck inspires, adds strength and drive. And vice versa. This summer, Dynamo Kyiv was lucky at first - without luck, they would not have won against Fenerbahce! And then that luck turned, and several times in a row!
This in no way justifies the weak performance of the team. It only explains why the players suddenly started to lose everything. Because when you're not happy, you're not happy anymore!
On the contrary, Shakhtar was lucky. First, the team immediately got into the group tournament of the Champions League, and then in the very first game, the opponent's goalkeeper "gifted" the ball to a Shakhtar player, which demoralized his team and inspired the opponent. What if the goalkeeper had not made a mistake? Would numerous Ukrainian "analysts" then have declared Shakhtar almost the world champion?
Of course, luck has to be earned, "lucky is stronger" and all that. But what do you do with those millimeters, which, as we already know, can decide the fate of a tournament, a team, a coach, an entire generation? That is why football players and coaches are so superstitious. Sometimes too much. After all, luck should be fought for!
Mykola Nesenyuk
