Great tradition and a new home

Matchday 2 of the UEFA Europa League season will see TSG play host to a club that has shaped football. Not necessarily in the modern era, but before the turn of the millennium Dynamo Kyiv were regarded as one of Europe’s most successful clubs, tactical pioneers and an outstanding talent factory. Legendary coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi in particular is closely associated with probably the most glorious capital of the club’s history, when the Kyiv outfit won the European Cup Winners’ Cup and the UEFA Super Cup in 1975. A year earlier, Dynamo had narrowly lost out to Borussia Mönchengladbach in the semi-final of the European Cup. But it was not solely thanks to titles and results that Dynamo made headlines in this period. Lobanovskyi is regarded by many experts and football historians as the founder of the back four – a tactical set-up that has changed football forever.

Dynamo are currently a far cry from their former glory days. The Valeriy Lobanovskyi Stadium, in which the club plays their home games in the league, is the sole reminder of the exciting era in which legendary striker Oleg Blochin became the club’s record goalscorer (266 goals) and won the Ukrainian Football of the Year award nine times in succession (from 1972 to 1981). Between 1974 and 1986, the later Dynamo coach and national team boss also won seven league titles with the Kyiv side. Fans now look back on this golden era with nostalgia. Dynamo most recently lifted the league title in 2021; since then, the capital club have finished in second, fourth and then second again this summer.

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That was enough to ensure participation in the Champions League qualifying rounds. Dynamo performed brilliantly, getting the better of Partizan Belgrade (6-2, 3-0) and Rangers (1-1, 2-0) before then succumbing to RB Salzburg (0-2, 1-1). However, the home supporters could only watch the strong performance on television. Russia’s war of aggression means that the tradition-steeped club, who started off their season with three wins from three matches, played their home games in qualifying in Lublin, Poland in front of an average crowd of 6,500. Dynamo will move to Hamburg for the UEFA Europa League and try to bring back the glory days of old.