1976-1991
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| 1981 squad |
The year 1976 was fairly tough. In search of keys to success, coaches Lobanovskyy and Bazylevych were one of the first in the USSR to pursue a common aim: footballers should attain certain conditions at a certain time point, depending on the tournament objectives and calendar features.
Dynamo’s runaway success in the 1975 season grabbed attention to the coaches’ methodology. Sports and science pundits made things clear: the optimum training cycles program could be drawn up only using comprehensive data about the sportsmen’s functional conditions.
In the 1976 USSR championship Dynamo youngsters ended 8th, with 1st team players performing only in two matches. Poor performance that followed also made Valeriy Lobanovskyy streamline the training scheme turning close attention to recovery procedures.
With every day, footballers attained their fitness and honed their sporting skills. Three consecutive wins in the final matches made the Kyiv team a silver winner. The success was followed by the bronze medals for the USSR national team in the XXI Olympics in Monreal.
Another stunning victory followed in 1977. Viktor Yurkovskyy, Volodymyr Lozynskyy, Oleksandr Berezhnyy, Petro Slobodyan and Volodymyr Bezsonov received their first gold medals. The latter also became an under-21 world champion as well as the best player of the tournament.
The triumph did not come without its trenchant critics. Moscow media accused the champion of a wealth of ties, although other teams including Moscow Spartak, CSKA, Shakhtar, Neftchi and Kayrata earned more draws. The away performance was labeled by a pundit as being “coward”. Yet the squad scored more away points than any other team and was awarded with the Aggressive Visitor prize.
In the year 1978 the club performed without Volodymyr Muntyan, Volodymyr Troshkin and Viktor Matviyenko – three players whose names are related to the club’s triumph of 1975. Yet, it managed to win the USSR Cup by defeating Shakhtar Donetsk in the final and pick up championship silver medals.
The 1979 season brought no awards: unsuccessful UEFA Cup and USSR Cup qualifiers. The squad had to content itself with championship bronze medals.
The three ensuing years proved better: two champion titles (1980, 1981), USSR Cup (1982) as well as silverware in the 1982 championship and Season Cup in 1981. It was the period when Viktor Chanov, Andriy Bal and Vadym Yevtushenko joined the squad.
In 1983 Lobanovskyy became a head coach of the USSR international. This could not but exert an impact on the team’s performance. Yuriy Morozov joined to train the squad, but under his coaching the White-Blues won no awards.
Only with Lobanovskyy’s return, the team was again at the top of the USSR and European football. In 1985 the team won both the USSR championship and the Cup. In the “Ukrainian” final Dynamo beat the Donetsk Shaktar 2:1.
The next season meant the 12th USSR gold medals and brilliant European performance. Having conceded to the Dutch Ultrecht in the away match 2:1, Ukrainians then snatched a convincing 4:1 victory in the return home match. It was more the performance itself rather than the result that brought heady joy to the fans.
Next, having delivered a dazzling performance in the matches against Romanian FC Universitatea (2:2 and 3:0), Vienna Rapid (4:1 ³ 5:1), Prague Dukla (3:0 and 1:1), the team made it to the final to compete with the title-studded Atlético de Madrid. The match was hosted by the French city of Lion. The Kyiv squad took the lead as early as on 6 minutes, with two more goals following later. In that season, Viktor Belanov was named the Golden Ball award winner.
Team-miracle, Kyiv express, phenomenal squad – those are the names given to the Dynamo of that epoch.
The team was hit by the slump in the years 1988 (silverware) and 1989 (bronzeware). The awards, which were distant dreams for other clubs, meant for the Kyiv club only a temporary “retreat”. It was the time when Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko, Oleh Protasov and Hennadiy Lytovchenko joined the team and played in the USSR international as well.
Although a wealth of players was beginning to leave for international clubs, Dynamo was not going to step down.
In the 1990 USSR championship, the battle over the prize was focused between Dynamo and four Moscow squads. With the highest number of wins and lowest number of defeats and goals conceded, the Kyiv squad left the Russian quartet behind.
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