Today, Leonid Buryak, a long-time Dynamo player, former coach of our club, a true legend of Soviet and Ukrainian football, celebrates his 70th birthday. Here is an interview with the birthday boy on the occasion of his anniversary.
Leonid Buriak. Photo: fcdynamo.comAbout the first coach:
- I'm very grateful to my coach Serhii Shaposhnikov, who is no longer with us, he gave me the right to live as a footballer with his decision, because when I started playing football in Odesa, I had no athletic data - I was the smallest in the class. I had a football head and fantastic technique, but I lacked everything else that was needed for big football. And the coach believed in me.
I remember when the first team played against the second team, I was put on the pitch in the second half for the substitutes, and he came up to me after the match and invited me to the base the next day. He said: "It's okay that you're small and skinny - you have the most important thing that others don't have. Come back tomorrow with your application". They also gave me a salary of 60 rubles, of which I had to give 30 rubles to another guy. I think this was a landmark decision in my life. Serhii Yosypovych charged me, inspired me and gave me a message to go into big football.
On the unsuccessful transfer to Dynamo Moscow:
- Once there was a year when I was invited by six teams. I'll tell you about one serious incident. Lev Ivanovich Yashin put me on a plane, took me by the hand and told me that I had to play for Dynamo Moscow. I was met in Moscow, taken to a hotel, and at night I thought: "What am I doing here? In this huge city, without my parents, not in my native Odesa". I had a limited amount of money in my pocket - 12 rubles or so. It was enough to buy a plane ticket, take a taxi to Vnukovo at night and return back to Odesa.
It was just such a period when the Soviet army, CSKA, could make a special outfit for any person and draft them into the army. They started harassing me when I flew to Sheremetyevo with the USSR youth team. There was a funny incident: I was told that an administrator had to meet me to take me to the right place. A loader helped me out by offering me to get into a luggage cart, and I was transported from Sheremetyevo-1 to Sheremetyevo-2 in this way, where I got into a taxi and left - it saved me.
The next day, when I was in Odesa, I went to Mykolaiv, and from there I flew to Kyiv, and here I was already negotiating a move to Dynamo Kyiv.
About your first game for Dynamo Kyiv:
- I was released in the second half, Kyiv were losing, but eventually won 2-1, and I scored the second goal. After that, I had a serious conversation with Lobanovskyi, and he started to count on me and put me in the squad. At that time, my late mum came to Kyiv to have surgery on her leg. I was on my way to the national team, and the doctor advised me to bring some medicine from Germany and promised to perform the operation. I brought it, the operation was performed, and of course, after the match I went straight to her hospital. I shouted: "Mum! Mum!" The window opens and she asks, "What have you done? All the people are shouting our name." It took me a while to explain to her that everything was fine (smiles).
About injuries:
- Youth football is one thing, playing in a double is another, and to play in the first team, you need to force yourself. Every game is very, very difficult. You don't understand what's happening when your legs cramp up, because you've never had such feelings before. It's a huge load, a huge amount of work, intensity, so everything was going to lead to injuries. Nowadays, you can foresee everything, and if something "pulls", you can stop or not do your best. But back then, everything was new, you were running and your leg would go off and you would be out for 20 days. And there are a lot of such cases. In general, football is a difficult game: in addition to having a brain and skill, you also need to be genetically healthy and very strong. If you have any problems, you will never play at a high level.
About the "stars" you've played with:
- There were many top-level players in world and European football at that time, and among the partners, there was also a diamond in the rough to choose from. Of course, I won't be original by naming Blokhin, Muntean, Rudakov, Troshkin - in fact, I can list the whole team.
About Oleg Blokhin:
- We are friends, I am very grateful to his parents, who are no longer in this world, it was a second family. After the matches, we would come to his place, they would feed us, solve various problems, they helped me when I was buying a car, and I helped him when he was buying one. And he was easy to play with, he had crazy speed. In every game, he had 5-6 chances when he went one-on-one with the goalkeeper. I can't compare him to any other player, I repeat, he had phenomenal speed, and he used it very wisely: "He cut back, set himself up, and earned a lot of penalties. Again, his family helped me a lot in this city.
About the youth:
- We didn't have any 'passing' games. We played some great teams and then immediately played the next strong team. Perhaps this is the problem with modern footballers that they play few high-level matches: out of 14 matches, only one was with Shakhtar. There should be 10-15 such matches - then the youth will grow. It's clear that martial law is in effect now, but I'm speaking in general. What Lobanovskyi did was to compensate for the lack of games with work and training.
About the number of matches:
- There were 650-670 games, of course, each match is a different story. It was not easy to beat 4-5 teams in Moscow, because then, as now, Dynamo was a big irritant. The Federation and the refereeing committee had special referees... That's why sometimes, even in the training sessions, Lobanovskyi would say: "We're not taking anyone out one-on-one today, because it will be stopped and recorded. We are shooting and hitting from afar, threatening from outside the penalty area", because in this case, no one could cancel the goal. It was hard, so the players grew up. There were seasons when we played up to 50-60 matches, which is a lot, and we started having problems. You had to train, sleep, play - and so on in a circle, there was no time for anything else.
About memorable matches:
- The matches for the UEFA Super Cup with Bayern Munich, with PSV Eindhoven in the Cup of Cups, the championship matches against Spartak stand out. When we returned to Boryspil after the game with Bayern, it was something incredible. The plane made a circle as it came in for landing, and we saw thousands of people on the square welcoming us, a press conference and lots of good wishes. Now I remember this every time I fly to Boryspil. It was especially important knowing Dynamo fans and how people feel about football in Kyiv.
I don't know if it's true, but I heard that there were more than a million applications for such matches. People gave away things, clothes, raincoats to get into the stadium. Of course, when we left the Republican Stadium for Krasnoarmeyskaya Street (now Velyka Vasylkivska) and Lev Tolstoy Square (now the Ukrainian Heroes' Walk), an avalanche of people went in all directions up to the Dynamo Stadium - some went down to the Hem, some went up. You had to see it!
About the match against PSV Eindhoven:
- We won quite easily, but it was a rather difficult team, for which the Kerkhoff brothers and five players of the Dutch national team played. They also played Edström, who is two metres tall, and Reshko worked with him personally. He managed or not, but he managed to cling to him, throw the ball away, and it was very dangerous. When I scored the goal, we managed to put everything to rest, and it became clear that we were in the final.
About your Dynamo teammates:
- Dynamo's attacking line has always been very strong. I think with the midfielders we had, we could play without strikers. We visited cities like Yerevan, Baku, Tashkent, where it was very hot. People whistle, but we keep the ball, and the opponents cannot take it away from us. Plus, we scored on counterattacks, and everyone could score - Veremeev, Muntyan, Kolotov, me, Blokhin, Onishchenko. The centre-backs also played a big part - Troshkin, Matvienko and Konkov, who, in addition to their direct functions, also played a lot of attacking roles.
I am grateful to God that I was in this team, together with these players. On my way, I met brilliant coaches who gave me life in terms of football. All of them contributed to the fact that I have two children, five grandchildren, all of whom speak two or three languages.
About the "unpleasant aftertaste"
- The only unpleasant residue is from those people who wanted to quarrel me with Valery Lobanovsky and brought Oleg Blokhin into it. After the last time I spoke to Valery Vasilyevich, when I left the club, we didn't talk to him for a year and a half or two. Then I told him that I was sorry that he believed some clerk rather than me, who had played 12-13 years under his leadership and done quite a lot. There were times when he called me and Oleg, and he was standing on a chair with a "noose". We could have been knocked down in one game, and Lobanovskyi would not have been in the team. But we were winning, solving problems... So I said then that God was his judge.
But Lobanovsky is Lobanovsky. After the game, I couldn't raise a glass in front of him during the feast. I felt uncomfortable. He was an authoritative person, knowledgeable, and he cannot be compared to any other coach. He was ahead of his time and had a fanatical attitude to the job. As a player of the main squad, I lived at the base for a year and a half, although I had an apartment. Lobanovskyi used to hide the balls from us, because during every break we used to play in squares and argue. Now...
About the youth and Yarmolenko:
- There are good young people, but they need time, which no one gives them. This is football - you didn't play today, and goodbye, you're gone. I agree that Shakhtar are slightly better equipped, but we cannot finish the season eight points behind them. Let's say one or two, or even better - that we become champions with such a difference, but for this we need players like Yarmolenko. Given how successfully he played for Dynamo, I hope he will be useful. He is a player who has played for the national team and abroad, so I have high hopes for him.
About the war with Russia:
- I hope, like all the fans, that the next season will be successful for Dynamo. But the main thing is that the war ends. I used to visit Russia many times, I came to Moscow and St Petersburg. Of course, everything was expensive there, but once you moved somewhere close by, it was a terrible business. Now the man who runs that state had the audacity to raise his hand against Ukraine, although all the time before the war he said that we were brothers, of the same blood. And these "brothers" have crippled the fates of hundreds, thousands of our countrymen, including children.
From now on, for me personally, no generation of this country exists for us. I don't know what needs to happen to level the hatred for them. I also hate people who continue to go to concerts, have fun, and do nothing to stop the war. I understand that it is very difficult to stand up against your country, go to a rally, and then end up in jail or even lose your life. But they rejoice and support the atrocities committed by their army. I keep praying to God that it will all end, that they will leave our country and give up our territories.
