The famous footballer of Kyiv’s «Dynamo», Sergiy Baltacha, expressed his opinion about the legendary coach of the “white and blue” Valeriy Lobanovsky.
“Lobanovsky was a unique psychologist. We all learned from him, he was a great man, and we were always and will be grateful to him, no matter what our relationship was at the time. He never spoke to the players rudely or with curses, he never raised his voice. He was a Man with a capital letter.
For example, regarding me: I was playing in the double, but we had already won the World Cup then, and we came to receive bonuses for the victory. That was when I had my first meeting with Lobanovsky. We greeted each other, and he told me: “Sergiy, you are the best. Never be afraid of anyone, you won the World Cup!”. For me, those words were something incredible.
We didn’t call him father for nothing. He was like a father to me, someone I could always ask something,” — Baltacha said on the YouTube channel of journalist Dmytro Gordon.