Column by Alexander Lipenko. The first match — and immediately the first goal

I continue to talk about the leading football players of Kyiv’s Dynamo from different generations. Today, in the spotlight, friends, is Andriy Biba.

Business card. Born in 1937. Honored Master of Sports, Honored Coach of Ukraine. A graduate of Kyiv’s youth team “Iskra” and the Youth Football School. Played for Dynamo Kyiv (1957-1967), Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Desna Chernihiv — in the last two clubs he played for a year each. In the USSR championships, he played 248 matches, scoring 69 goals. Three-time champion of the USSR (1961, 1966, 1967), two-time silver medalist (1960, 1965). He was part of the Olympic and first national team. The best football player of the country in 1966. Six times included in the list of the “33 best players”.

Andriy began his football journey in the team “Iskra,” where he played alongside Oleg Bazylevych. Then came the Youth Football School (YFS). Players from this school — Biba, Bazylevych, Lobanovskyi, Troyanovskyi, Anufrienko — were invited to Kyiv’s Dynamo. Biba joined the team easily. In 1957, when he debuted, Andriy only participated in four matches. But he managed to distinguish himself by scoring a goal. For the first time, he came out in the starting lineup in Leningrad against Zenit. At the start of the match, receiving a comfortable pass from veteran Grammatikopulo, he moved towards the goal and struck powerfully — a goal!

With each season, he appeared more often in the starting lineup. He played 17 games in the “silver” season of 1960, and in the “golden” season of 1961. In that memorable year, Kyiv’s Dynamo broke the hegemony of Moscow clubs in the USSR championship and became the champions a round before the finish of the championship. This success was brought to the Kyiv team by Vyacheslav Solovyov. The champion scored 58 goals against opponents, with five of them accounted for by Biba. In the final standings, the Dynamo players exceeded Moscow’s Torpedo by four points.

However, starting from the 1962 season, Andriy only missed a few matches in the starting lineup, and that was exclusively due to injuries. The 1966 season was the pinnacle of Biba's career. Dynamo became champions again, and the midfielder played 35 matches and scored 10 goals. The Kyiv player ranked first among players in his position in the “33 best players” list, and also became the best football player in the USSR. Moreover, in that season, for the first time in its history, Kyiv made a “double” — winning the gold medals and the national Cup.

The unforgettable three-year “golden” period of Dynamo under Viktor Maslov began. On the field, the first assistant coach was naturally the captain — Andriy Biba, who received the captain’s armband from Viktor Kanievskyi. His teammates included: Turianchyk, Shchegolkov, Sabo, Serebrenikov, Medvid, Khmelnytsky, Ostrovskyi, Rudakov, Porkuyan, Puzach, young Muntian and Byshovets. Quite a group.

Andriy was the main organizer of attacks, a playmaker, distinguished by good technique and the ability to deliver precise passes. 69 goals is a worthy statistic for a midfielder. Interestingly, most of them were scored with powerful shots from long distances. Among Biba’s goals were many beauties, too numerous to list all. The most memorable were two goals against Maslachenko when he was still playing for Lokomotiv. One was scored from the very corner of the penalty area, curling the ball, which then flew into the upper corner under the crossbar, and the second — a shot from about 20 meters.

First European Cup goal

Among his goals, there is one that entered the history of Dynamo and Ukrainian football. It was the goal scored on September 2, 1965, against the Northern Irish team Coleraine. This was the very first goal for our clubs in European Cup tournaments. It was the debut match in European cups not only for Dynamo but also for all Soviet football.

He played for Dynamo in 1967 as well. Biba demonstrated excellent play in the European Champions Cup matches against Scottish Celtic, the reigning titleholder — 2:1 in Glasgow and 1:1 in Kyiv. A pass to the next stage, and a bitter loss to Polish Gurnik from the city of Zabrze.

Knew how to persuade

When Andriy Biba stepped over the age of 30, he naturally lost some of the speed qualities needed to play in Maslov’s team. He did not want to sit on the bench. In May 1968, he moved to Dnipro for one year, during which he continued to score. A year later, in 1969, the Dniprians were taken over by Valeriy Lobanovskyi.

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Biba proved to be very productive as a scout for Dynamo. After his negotiations and persuasion, Kyiv club players became Viktor Kolotov, Leonid Buryak, Anatoliy Demianenko. Biba is also a long-serving president of the all-Ukrainian club “Leather Ball.” And Andriy Andriyevich has been working in the structure of his native Dynamo club for several years now.

Alexander LIPENKO for Dynamo.kiev.ua