In recent years, the city of Luhansk has become notorious around the world for events in Ukraine and the self-proclaimed separatist organisation "LNR". The local Zorya were forced to play their matches in Zaporizhzhya, where they twice hosted CSKA Sofia in matches of European club tournaments. However, the highlights of local football date back to the period when Lugansk was named after Soviet Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, and Zarya managed to gather some big names in its squad.
«Заря» образца сезона-1972In the early 1970s, Soviet football had an extremely serious reputation. In 1972, Dynamo Moscow had played in the Cup Winners' Cup final, scandalously losing to Rangers, and the men's and youth national teams had also reached the European championship match.
Before the start of the new season in the local Premier League, hardly anyone was seriously looking at Zorya, fourth in the previous championship. But what happened next is best illustrated by the quote "from ship to ball". However, since entering the elite in 1967, the USSSR national team slowly moved up in the rankings (1967 - 16, 1968 - 13, 1969 - 11, 1970 - 5, 1971 - 4) and became more and more noticeable for specialists. For this reason, before the start of the season Dynamo Kyiv secured the services of promising defender Mykhailo Fomenko, whose departure promised to weaken Zorya's defence. If we add that two players (Shakun and Obedzinski) went to the army, and one more (Lisakovskiy) was disqualified for violation of the sports regime, the situation for Zorya head coach German Zonin was very delicate.
Although Zonin did not introduce any revolutionary methods in the team's preparation, he added a third training session during the day to the "menu" of his charges. His words that with this approach the players will be able to tolerate three halves, subsequently found their confirmation in the matches. It is no coincidence that even the party's Pravda spoke in enthusiastic tones about Zorya's serious physical preparation and called it a hidden weapon.
The team played in a 4-3-3 scheme, and all its actions were built around playmaker Anatoliy Kuksov, who often frustrated opponents' goalkeepers with his powerful long-range strikes. The greatest mileage shows Yuri Vasenin, and the interaction on the field of brothers Sergey and Viktor Kuznetsov was one of the strongest in the team. According to experts of the time, captain Alexander Zhuravlev was the best centre-back in the whole USSR. But this was refuted by the fact that in the USSR national team he remained in the shadow of the representative of Dinamo Tbilisi Murtaz Khurtsilava.
The beginning of the season was not at all rosy for Zorya, as in the last control match before the start of the championship Zorya conceded five unanswered goals from CSKA Moscow, and also flew out after a series of penalties from Odessa "Chernomorets" in the USSR Cup. However, the start of the championship makes the most daring dreams of the Voroshilovgrad team come true, which first defeated 3:0 the USSR champion, Dynamo Kyiv (the heaviest defeat for the Kyivians since 1963), and then beat the USSR Cup winner, Spartak Moscow (3:1) and the future finalist of the Cup Winners' Cup, Dynamo Moscow (1:0).
Then there were new successes - in the form of victories over Zenit and CSKA, and before that only a goal, not counted by Armenian referee Karapetyan, deprived Zarya of success in the match with Lokomotiv. However, painful defeats in Tbilisi and Baku seem to suggest that, as in previous seasons, the team is running out of steam by the end of the championship.
To make life even more difficult for the modest team, the USSR Football Federation decided to involve it on behalf of the national team to participate in the Independence Cup tournament on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Brazil's independence.
Backed by reinforcements in the form of Evgeny Lovchev from Spartak Moscow, Anatoly Byshovets from Dynamo Kyiv, Kakhi Asatiani from Dynamo Tbilisi and Albert Shesternev from CSKA Moscow, Zorya first beat Uruguay (1-0) and then only narrowly lost to Argentina and Portugal (both 0-1). This performance proved that the team has potential and is really capable of fighting for the championship title with the best. The most serious impression was made by left winger Vladimir Onishchenko, who not by chance then took part in a benefit for the legend Garincha.
However, Soviet football officials didn't care, and just a day after the team landed in Moscow, they scheduled a championship match against Torpedo. But Zarya won with a score of 4:2!
Despite some unforeseen results, such as the defeat to CSKA with Polikarpov's goal in the 90th minute, the Voroshilovgrad team maintained a stable form and managed to keep their pursuers at bay until the end of the tournament. At the end of the championship "Zorya" was so confident in its success that in the final match with Kyiv "Dynamo", which no longer decided anything, the team did not give up, losing 1:3, and managed to end the meeting in a draw, 3:3. Moreover, in this match Alexander Zhuravlevlev did not realise a penalty.
Zorya's championship title immediately became a reason for whispers from Moscow teams (mainly Spartak) that the team had done a good job with the referees, and that the players were treated like professionals. Contrary to common sense, the higher party circles fell for it all, and at the end of the following year, the first secretary of the Lugansk regional party committee, Vladimir Shevchenko, was relieved of his post.
However, numbers are the most impartial arbiter - Zorya finished five points ahead of Dynamo Kyiv and Dinamo Tbilisi (40 vs. 35 in 30 matches - ed. note). ), having five representatives in the "best 33", receives the Federation prize for the highest number of points of the first and second team, the "Football-Hockey" prize for the biggest score, the "Start" award for the best goal difference (52-30 in 30 matches - editor's note) and the "Rabochaya Gazeta" award for successes.
Zarya's head coach German Zonin was immediately poached by Zenit, which made the Zarya management seriously consider stripping him of his gold medal. His successor Vsevolod Blinkov failed to maintain high standards, and in the European Champions Cup Zorya beat APOEL from Cyprus (2-0, 1-0 - editor's note), but then lost to Spartak from Trnava (0-0, 0-1 - editor's note). On the background of all this, Zorya was also weakened by the transfer of the team's main star Volodymyr Onishchenko to Dynamo Kyiv.
Theodore BORISOV, TemaSport
