In the unlikely event that you’ve ever
won an argument with Big Dave down the
pub by reeling off an Opta stat, or
explained the relative merits of ‘expected
goals’ to your dad, then there’s only one
man to thank.
Valeriy Lobanovskyi, a liberated left-winger
in his playing days, always sought perfection.
As a coach, the former maths prodigy found
in Professor Anatoliy Zelentsov a kindred spirit
whose desire to apply collective statistical
analysis to football was met with lukewarm
approval before the pair first united at Dnipro
Dnipropetrovsk in 1972, two years before
arriving in Kiev.
“You know, if not for you,” Lobanovskyi
once declared to Zelentsov at a party, “I
might not have come off as a coach. I owe
you my skills, formation, knowledge,
understanding and realisation of football.”
When the taciturn tactician explained that
“a team that commits errors in no more
than 15 to 18 per cent of its acts is
unbeatable” or “if a midfielder has fulfilled
60 technical and tactical actions in the
course of the match, then he hasn’t pulled
his weight”, the figures weren’t plucked from
the crisp Kiev air.
In Zelentsov’s lab, the pair would pore over
endless statistical streams. “All life,”
conceded Lobanovskyi, “is a number.”
The Ukrainian demanded ‘universality’
from players, producing Oleg Blokhin, Igor
Belanov and Andriy Shevchenko. Across a
combined 21 years as Kiev coach – plus a
spell leading the USSR, with whom he
reached the final of Euro 88 – Lobanovskyi
won just the 30 major honours, including the
European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1975 and- It makes him the 20th century’s most
decorated manager.
The second of those, a 3-0 final demolition
of Atletico Madrid, offered Lobanovskyi’s
high mark. The Soviets’ second goal that
evening – finished by former Ballon d’Or
winner Blokhin – featured no-look passes
from players who instinctively knew all their
team-mates’ runs. It proved the perfect
symbiosis between the manager’s chess-
like system and his side’s outrageous
collective talent.
“I think...” Oleksandr Khapsalys, a Dynamo
midfielder from the late 1970s, once began
during a team talk. He was immediately cut
off by Lobanovskyi.
“Don’t think! I do the thinking for you. Play!”
10 VALERIY LOBAn OVSKYI
09
ERNST HAPPEL
Happel was one of Rinus Michels’ big
inspirations. A number of the latter’s
hallmarks – a fluid 4-3-3 system, teamwork,
the midfield domination – were pure Happel,
borrowed after the Austrian’s Feyenoord led
Ajax 3-1 inside 20 minutes of a 1970 Dutch
Cup tie between the sides.
The Vienna-born man had always been an
idealist. A connoisseur of cards, cognac and
cigarettes, Happel used to spend so long in
a bar near De Kuip that he had his own seat
to discuss tactics with anyone who’d listen.
You would struggle to find a more dominant
victory than in Feyenoord’s defeat of Celtic in
the 1970 European Cup final, after which
Bhoys boss Jock Stein commented, “Celtic
haven’t lost to Feyenoord. I’ve lost to Happel.”
The Austrian’s second great dynasty came
at Hamburg (1981-87): successive
Bundesliga crowns, and the 1983 European
Cup against Juventus. With it, he became
the first coach to win the European Cup with
different clubs.
In 1992, four days before his Austria
played Germany, Happel’s chain-smoking
caught up. Some have said Austria’s game
died with him.08
HELENIO HERRERA
Herrera’s ultra-defensive
sweeper system which
inspired Italian football’s decades-
long mistrust of fun will be forever
synonymous with the Grande Inter side he
built from 1960 to 1968; winners of three
Serie A titles and the European Cup in 1964
and 1965.
The Argentine saw how psychology and diet
could help a team, and broke scoring records
in bagging consecutive La Liga titles with both
Atletico Madrid and Barça in the ’50s. Hardly
the stats of a militant pragmatist.
Psychology extended further. Herrera knew
that superstitious star Luis Suarez believed
he would score if wine were spilt in the pre-
game meal – so the manager made sure he
knocked over a glass for Suarez to perform
his ritual.
Herrera didn’t invent catenaccio, but came
to embody the system he perfected.
“I’ve been accused of being tyrannical
and completely ruthless,” he wrote. “But I
merely implemented things that were later
copied by every single club: hard work,
perfectionism, training, diets. The problem
is that most of the ones who copied me,
copied me wrongly.”GREATEST
MAn AGERS100