The evidence
• Most decorated coach in the former Soviet Union and independent Ukraine and a 1988 UEFA European Championship runner-up as USSR coach.
• Won 13 national league titles, nine domestic cups and two European Cup Winners’ Cups in three spells with Dynamo Kyiv.
• Nurtured three Ballon d’Or winners: Oleg Blokhin (1975), Igor Belanov (1986) and Andriy Shevchenko (2004).
The expert testimony
“Lobanovskiy’s influence on me was so profound that I still often see him in my dreams. He did not divide players into defenders and attackers but developed a range of skills in all of us. He used me for pressing and blocking othe…