Curious episodes from the football life of players from Kyiv’s “Dynamo” of different generations. Footballers have experienced many unexpected things. About some episodes – in this material.
“Dynamo” with the Cup Winners' Cup of the 1974/75 seasonVladimir Onishchenko, honored master of sports:
- A few days before our start in the Cup Winners' Cup of the 1974/75 season, I was driving after training in the same car as Lobановsky. I told him: “Valeriy Vasilyevich, we are training so hard, sweating so much, and what if there’s no result?” Lobановский replied to me then: “Volodya, that is impossible. To achieve a result, you have to work hard and a lot.”
On May 14, we defeated the Hungarian “Ferencváros” 3:0 in the final of the Cup Winners' Cup in Basel. We flew home with the trophy – and immediately went from Boryspil to our base in Koncha-Zaspa. The table was already set. We sat down, and Lobановский said: “Now I can answer Volodya Onishchenko’s question about why we worked so hard” - and raised the beautiful cup over his head.
Alexey Mikhaylichenko, honored master of sports:
- When I turned 10, I decided it was time to enroll in a football school. Without telling my mom, I went to the base in Nivki by myself. I saw the guys training in shirts with the letter “D”. As it turned out later, they were coached by the legendary Dynamo player Vadim Sosnikhin. I gathered my courage and approached the coach. My request to him was to watch how I play and accept me into his group. I was quite agile and was sure that they would take me. The coach allowed me to play in his team for about 15 minutes, and then said: “Boy, come back tomorrow.” I eagerly awaited that “tomorrow” and arrived at the Dynamo base at the appointed time. But I didn't find the coach there. For almost a month, I came every day, but I didn’t see either the guys or the coach.
Everything happened like in the old movie “Come Tomorrow” with Faina Ranevskaya in the lead role. Then I learned by chance that all groups had gone on summer vacation, and the coaches were on leave. As a result, I returned in September for recruitment and ended up in Evgeny Petrovich Kotelnikov's group. That’s how I became a Dynamo player.
Svyatoslav Sirota, master of sports, president of the PFL from 2005-2010:
- One game stuck in my memory. We lost it. We went into the locker room, waiting for punishment. Our coach Anatoly Fedorovich Byshovets came in. He stood silently, silently… And then in a very quiet voice said: “Guys, you have the letter ‘D’ on your chest. Make sure it doesn’t turn into the letter ‘G’ for you.” And he left the locker room. We sat there as if rooted to the spot, but promised that we would try not to lose, so as not to upset our coach. If I’m not mistaken, when Byshovets was our coach, we didn’t lose again.
Aleksandr LIPENKO for Dynamo.kiev.ua
