Oleg Luzhny - the Ukrainian way
by Gary Jacob
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With the physical demands of the next season's new-look Champions League and the Premiership, the Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, delved into the transfer market this week to buy Oleg Luzhny, Dynamo Kiev's powerful right-back.
Luzhny becomes the third Ukrainian to join a British Club, following Oleg Kutznetsov and Alexei Mikhailichenko, who were both at Rangers. Mikhailichenko had arrived at Rangers, after a rather unsuccessful time with Sampodoria in Italy. Mikhailichenko was not the only Ukrainian export to flop in the west. Alexander Zavarov failed at Juventus, and Igor Belanov (of that famous goal) at Borussia Monchengladbach.
So will Luzhny follow suit, or will Arsene Wenger, pull another trump card out, and find another hidden gem ? Before signing, Overmars and Kanu were considered a risk, a theory that has now long been dispelled.
Last summer, as I trekked around India with a friend, among the books that whiled away the excruciatingly long journeys between India's most beautiful cities in Rajastan, was a book called ``Football against the enemy'', by Simon Kuper.
The book is a fascinating insight into how football shapes the lives of people in many countries around the world, and how, in turn, those countries shape the football played.
Little did I know then, that one of those chapters in the book --- Rulers of the Ukraine -- would come back and haunt me months later, as Arsenal were comprehensively outplayed by a skillful and powerful Dynamo Kiev team, whose movement was at times breathtaking.
As the sun scorched down onto our bus, and the only source of air conditioning was an open window, I began to grapple with Ukrainian names. Just who was Valerii Lobanovskyi, Anatoly Zelentsov, Roman Obchenko, Yakovenko, Leonenko, and Luzhny? And why was Kuper so interested in them? Frankly at the time, in 40 degree temperatures, I didn't care. I do know.
As the 30-year old Luzhny, becomes the baby of the Arsenal defence, I thought this would be a fine opportunity to re-read Kuper's chapter again. Many of the characters Kuper talks about in the book, remain in place today. Many of the trade-marks of Dynamo Kiev's performance at Wembley on Thursday 22 October 1998 were now clearly explained to me.
To put Ukraine into context with the old USSR. It is poorer than Russia, has four million people, and has a black-economy to rival any of the rest in the world. Can you imaging a country where the Government has $20m to spend on all its programmes, but the Mafia that were allegedly behind one of their football clubs, in this case Dynamo Kiev, had ten times more ?
As Kuper points out, anyone that watched Kiev play in the 1980's thought of robots. The movement was exceptional, as players found each other with ease, as if plays were rehearsed in training every day.
The present Kiev manager, Valerii Lobanovskyi, was manager then too. He had been the Soviet manager, and had taken Kiev to two European Cup Winners Cup victories in 1975 and 1986.
Lobanovskyi is a disciplinarian, and as Kuper retells, Lobanovskyi once made a player work as a groundsman for five months, before selling him.
Why ? The player had been caught drunk. What would the old and new Tony Adam's make of that?
The robotic appearance of Kiev stemmed from Lobanovskyi's fascination
with the science of football. He joined forces with Professor
Anatoly Zelentsov, and together they created a blue-print for
a Kiev team to cope with the rigour of modern football.
The theory was based on the belief that a player should know where to pass the ball, before he received it. Allied with this was, was his realization that training for stamina and speed were conflicting, and that training should encompass both of these, so that neither were neglected.
Zelentsov went further. Players should be chosen based on scientific principles. In each match, Zelentsov monitored each player for, `intensitivity', `activity', `error rate' and `effectivity' and `realization'.
But before a player could even get selected, Zelentsov had a series of tests to test the player's ability. Unbelievably, these provided the basis for the 1988 USSR team that reached the European Championship final, losing to the Dutch 2-0, with Van Bastern's right-foot volley from the gods.
Each test, which seemed more akin to a third year Undergraduate Psychology dissertation, looked for a different attribute: reactions, nerve, balance, endurance, memory and co-ordination.
As Kuper talked to Zelentsov, he made an assessment that Yakovenko
had played well in a recent UEFA Cup match against Rapid Vienna
. Zelentsov agreed --- Yakovenko had done well on the tests. So
had Luzhny.
So why had Zavarov and Belanov failed ? Kuper suggests the reason was that they could not cope without Lobanovskyi. Let's hope that Oleg Luzhny can with Arsene Wenger.
June 2, 1999