The 1990 soccer season began with the withdrawal of the Georgian and Lithuanian federations from the USSR Football Federation. "Dinamo (Tbilisi) and Guria (Lanchkhuti) did not start in the championship, while Zalgiris, having played one match, also left the all-Union tournament. The team from Vilnius started competing in the newly-formed Baltic League along with clubs from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Changes in the life of the country were also reflected in soccer.
"Dynamo" - champion of the USSR-1990, for the 13th time, a record foreverThere were changes in Dynamo Kiev - in particular, Bezhanar, Kanchelskis, Pogodin, Protasov left the team. The Kyiv players, finishing the 1989 season as bronze medalists, began to recruit the youth. In the opening match of the championship in 1990, which took place on March 5, Dinamo played a draw (1:1) in Dushanbe with "Pamir", the guests scored Bessonov. Then - 1:1 in Moscow with CSKA, 1:0 in Kiev with Ararat, with the same score victory over Metalist in Kharkov, 3:0 in Odessa with Chornomorets.
Then there was a "cold shower" - the failure in the guest match with "Dnipro" (0:1). But Valeriy Lobanovskyi's team quickly recovered their spirit. Shakhtar were beaten in Kyiv (2-0), Spartak Moscow (3-1, Salenko, Yaremchuk and Protasov scoring). And then it just kept on rolling. Winless series of "Dynamo" in the championship of 1990 was 16 (!) matches, 12 of which ended with the victory "white-blue.
By defeating CSKA (4-1) on October 7, Dinamo secured first place early. This title was the thirteenth in the USSR. By the number of wins in the championships, Kiev players forever remained the strongest club in the vast country. In the spring, the Dynamo players won the USSR Cup for the ninth time, and for the fifteenth time (a record) the "white-blue" double won their tournament. In the Cup Winners' Cup Kiev team reached the quarterfinals, on the way to which they were alternately beaten by the Finnish Kuopio (2:2 away and 4:0 home) and Dukla from Prague (1:0 in Kiev and 2:2 in Prague), and then the Bilo-Syni came to the Catalan Barcelona.
In the summer the USSR national team, led by Valery Lobanovsky, performed unsuccessfully in Italy in the final tournament of the World Cup. Our team, as vice-champions of Europe, after losing to Romania (0-2) and Argentina (0-2), as well as a victory over Cameroon (4-0) failed to qualify from their group for the playoffs.
Even before the start of the World Cup Valeriy Lobanovskiy announced that he would leave the national team at the end of the tournament, and then decided to leave the coaching bridge of Dynamo, and eventually headed the UAE national team.
The leading Dynamo players also were scattered among the foreign clubs: Mykhailychenko ended up at Italian Sampdoria, Kuznetsov at Scottish Glasgow Rangers, Protasov at Greek Olympiakos, Chanov and Bessonov left for Israel. Litovchenko, Rats, Yaremchuk, Luzhny, Salenko, Sharan remained in the team led by Anatoliy Puzach...
Season 1991, the 54th national championship was the last for the highest league of Soviet soccer. In December 1991, Football Federation of Ukraine decided to leave the USSR Football Federation. Viktor Bannikov was elected as president of the FFU.
"Having received European recognition, Dynamo entered a new stage of its glorious history - the history of independent Ukraine. Later Dynamo players became the champions of the independent country 16 times, won the National Cup 13 times and the Super Cup of Ukraine 9 times. Also Dynamo players are regular participants of European competitions.
Oleksandr LYPENKO for Dynamo.kiev.ua
