Leonid Buryak, one of the most titled Ukrainian footballers - six-time champion and seven-time winner of the USSR Cup, won the Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Super Cup (1975), bronze medalist of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.
And Leonid Iosifovich is also an honored master of sports, honored coach of Ukraine.
In 1973, the 19-year-old Chernomorets player was invited to Dynamo Kyiv. At that time the young Odessian was wanted by Moscow teams Spartak, Dynamo and Torpedo, Leningrad Zenit.
Leonid BuryakHe scored a Dynamo goal in the first meeting
Buryak made his debut for Kyiv on August 20, 1973 in the match of the Union championship.
This is what that match was memorable for the Dynamo rookie:
- It was a match in Kiev against Yerevan "Ararat". The guests played with an upswing. However, we were considered the favorite in the confrontation, but we were losing 0:1.
I was on the bench. And I felt that if our coach Alexander Oleksandrovych Sevidov entrusted me to play, I would definitely help the team.
I joined the game in the second half. I really wanted to prove that I was invited to the famous club not by chance.
And the sporting fate was favorable to me: at one of the moments I saw that the Yerevan goalkeeper Alesha Abrahamyan moved forward carelessly. At that moment I was in a position where I could make a good spin on the ball. So I did. The ball described an arc, went around Abramyan and ended up in the net. All my teammates rushed to congratulate me.
This goal scored by me as if put everything in its place. We played more confidently and won 3:1.
But in general, the season-1973 for Dynamo Kyiv was, unfortunately, not the most successful....
"Silver" in the championship and failure in the cup final
- In that championship the Kyiv team was rocking like on a sea wave: up, down, luck, defeat. However, there were much more victories - 20, but Dynamo also recorded a lot of defeats. During the tournament the team lost to Dynamo Moscow, Spartak, CSKA, and also to Dnipro, Zenit, SKA (Rostov-on-Don).
But these failures did not prevent us, - Leonid Buryak continued his story, - to take the second place, losing the championship title to Ararat. This team, coached by Nikita Pavlovich Simonyan, was three points ahead of us. And we were the bronze medalists - the Moscow Dynamo team - by the same number of points.
The 1973 season was also remembered for our fiasco in the final of the Cup of the country, where our opponent was "Ararat".
That season Yerevan had an excellent playing ensemble. Alesha Abrahamyan was considered one of the best goalkeepers in the country, Alexander Kovalenko, Norik Mesropyan were reliable in defense, the midfield in general was great - Arkady Andreasyan (a master of passes, an experienced dispatcher and also a sniper), Hovhannes Zanazanyan - a soft and technical player with a powerful shot. As for the offense, Levon Ishtoian, speedy edge forward Nikolay Ghazaryan and wise tactician Eduard Markarov stood out. The team believed in itself and was on the rise.
At first luck smiled on us: I was knocked down in the penalty area, and Viktor Kolotov confidently realized a penalty. But a few minutes before the end of the match Sevidov decided to give me and Blokhin a rest and we were replaced.
And Yerevan equalized - Ishtoian scored. And in the second half of extra time Levon made a double, which brought victory to the Yerevan team...
When we returned home by train, the team was literally feverish. Quarrels broke out in one and another compartment.
Naturally, we were sad. In what did we fail? Why did we give away such a close victory, which our fans were so hopeful and expected? By the way, there were a lot of them at the match in Moscow...
Playing in "Chernomorets", "Dynamo", the national team, in European and other important tournaments, Buryak is a born organizer of attacks with excellent vision of the field, jewel pass, high technique and powerful accurate kick, played 612 official matches.
Not all of them were as memorable as the two in the 1973 season he told us about.
Leonid Buriak faithfully serves Dynamo Kyiv as a player and coach. Today he is the ambassador of his native club, like Michael Owen in Liverpool, Roberto Carlos in Real Madrid, Claudio Pissaro in Bayern....
Leonid and his wife Jeanne (world champion in rhythmic gymnastics) have a beautiful family. Son Andrey (diplomat) and daughter Oksana (former ballerina, works as a choreographer in Germany) gave their parents five grandchildren - two girls and three boys. One of them is eight years old and trains at the soccer school of Bayern Munich. Like his grandfather, he is a midfielder and also plays at No. 7. They say he inherited his grandfather's soccer genes, a very capable boy. God grant him...
Oleksandr LIPENKO for Dynamo.kiev.ua
