Today the Donbass Arena studio hosted an online conference with Yuriy Dudynskyy that gradually came to an openhearted conversation. Hirnyky’s ex-halfback answered the questions asked by the press office reporters and visitors of the site. 

–– Mr. Dudynskyy, as far as we know you were born in Donetsk, not far from CS Shakhtar. One can say that this predetermined your destiny.
  - Yes, I was born practically in five minutes’ walk from the stadium. I don’t think that this affected the choice of my future career of a football player, for children could join SC Shakhtar group only starting from the age of 12 years, and I began playing football when I learnt to walk. First I played with the ball in the back yard with my friends, and when we turned 12 we moved to the stadium. The children of my generation were fond of football during warm part of the year and in winter played hockey. Moreover that SC Shakhtar was in the neighborhood. When we grew up a bit we started playing on stadium ground which was always open so that any team could come and play, but, of course, when Shakhtar training group was not working out. On the other hand, Shakhtar was an integral part of my childhood. Sometimes I think that I might have been born at the stadium. 

- Did you have any idols in your childhood?
  - Of course I did, and, first of all, they were Shakhtar players: Snegiriov, Ananchenko, Alabiev, Saveliev. In a word, they were football players whom we could often see. We used to bring back the ball for them, and sometimes we would almost fight with our play mates for doing this. Only the best had the honor to bring back the ball. Besides, I can remember that away teams that came to play with Shakhtar used to train on a field next to the stadium. It was a rule. Shakhtar hosted teams like Dynamo (Tbilisi), Spartak and CSKA. We used to come and watch football players, we saw players like Streltsov and Voronin with whom I had to clash later on. We seldom got to see international players on TV, but, of course, we knew who, say, Pelé was. 

  - Your first coaches were Georgiy Bikezin and Petro Ponomarenko. Could you tell about their coaching philosophy?
- I was invited to join football group by Petro Ponomarenko, and later continued to play with Bikezin for two years, but, frankly speaking, I seldom attended trainings. It was just that back then I preferred playing on a beach, overtaking opponents, scoring. Then I felt like no one was setting limits for me. And in football group they mostly underscored physical training, etc. Petro Ponomarenko is remembered as a coach who raised a great many of good football players. In due time I used to occupy a position of a football academy principal, as well as used to be an owner of such academy. I have always wanted to employ a coach like Petro Ponomarenko. He possessed unique pedagogical qualities, and children loved him very much. Petro Ponomarenko was like a father, a coach and a teacher for his disciples.

- Mr. Dudynskyy, tell about your most memorable match.
- Perhaps there were quite a lot of such games. But memory retains the victorious matches. Especially when you score, moreover that I didn’t score too many goals. None of our games was easy, pass-through or unnecessary. That’s why we had so many interesting games in USSR Championships. Of course, I will remember international matches with Barcelona, Juventus as long as I live, regardless of what we missed in them. It is natural, for their lineups featured the strongest players of their caps. Take Juventus for example – there were eight World Champions in it. We played good games with Germans and Hungarians. And in USSR Championships we had exciting clashes with Dynamo, Kyiv and Moscow teams.

- Did you play equally well with both of your feet?
- Actually, I played with my both feet. But I must have kicked better with my right foot. But in my time almost everyone was double-footed. But of course there were some exceptions. I also noticed that left-handed players often kicked with their right foot, and vice versa.

- So it was not a problem for you to move to the right flank from the left one?
- No, it was not, because I had been playing in the position of centre forward and in W positions since I was a kid and it wasn’t until later that I moved to the position of a halfback.

- Do you think it is reasonable to buy so many Brazilians, or it is better to train Ukrainians and buy just a couple of leaders to match them?
  - Of course everyone wants our lineups to be mostly composed of Ukrainian stars. And in my time the teams with prevailing majority of local players achieved better results. And in Shakhtar local guys were setting the pitch, and naturally, they bore more responsibility for the results. One couldn’t play bad with friends and family watching from the stands. Later I had a period when I ended my football career and worked as a coach for children. It was impossible to work back then – there were no balls, no equipment, no grounds to play on and no financial means for coaching. During twenty years there was no football for children as such. Coaching staff was mostly represented by enthusiasts. For example, when I coached children in Rutchenkovo Football Center at the Kirovets stadium together with Zviagintsev and Malyshev we had one ball for three groups and hand-me-down uniforms from first team. Actually, these could be called uniforms only too tentatively, those were simply rags washed into shabbiness. That’s why we lost a couple of generations of potential football players, after all. And when football entered its restoration epoch we discovered that there were few skillful Ukrainian players. That is why football clubs started to rely on players from the West. I think international players helped Ukrainian football. We shall see what happens next. 

- Would you like to coach the present-day Shakhtar?
- My coaching career had not been a success from the very beginning. There had been a possibility for me to fill in one of the numerous coach vacancies. We have given an example of Ponomarenko’s phenomenon earlier today. Maybe one should be born to be a coach as well? I understand the principles of coaching, I see nothing complicated in it. But I think I would not make a good head coach for Shakhtar first squad. I have been working with children for many years now, and I am really keen on this job. I am better off with the present state of things.

- Is there a player in today’s Shakhtar who reminds you of yourself?
- I spent the best years of my career in the position of a halfback. But the thing is that they don’t have a right flank halfback as such in Shakhtar nowadays. For one, Srna performs as a defender as well as a halfback and even as a forward. But for Srna I can say that the way he plays the game appeals to me. I also liked to play like this. But my qualities of a defender were somewhat poorer. I was not troubled by this, for in the majority of cases I had Yaremchenko behind me to back me up. We used to have more distinct duties on a ground.

- You were one of the best players in your positions not only in Shakhtar, but in the entire Soviet Championship. Then why is that that you were never capped?
- Perhaps I wasn’t capped because I did not meet all of the requirements for a national team player. But take Starukhin for example, he was the best goalscorer and the best USSR Championship player, but he was never invited to join the cap either. I met Lobanovskyy outside the pitch. He liked the way I played, he praised me, but never invited me to join the cap… It’s up for the coach. I was only capped once while playing for junior cap where they invited me after winning Europa Championship among students.

–– Do you wish you had been capped?
–– It’s hard to say. Any football player wants to join the cap, wants to be the best one in Europa League and the World Cup. But not all of us can do it. Maybe if I were given a second chance I would take football more professionally. After all back then the attitude towards my job was different. We had a very cohesive team, we were like family. I felt so much at home being a part of it that I didn’t want to join any other squad. No, I don’t wish I had been capped, for I had a job I loved and got paid for doing what I wanted to do. For those days it was alright for me. My work was manifold and interesting. We had a new rival every week, traveled a lot, met new people. I am not sorry for anything, when you play football those are the days of your life.

- Mr. Dudynskyy, your cabinet at Shakhtar’s arena gives one the impression of a museum or a room for trophies. When I first got there I had difficulty knowing where to look first: so many stories, memorable events. You immediately come to realize the importance of the room and its occupant. Tell about the most interesting pieces of your collection, and how you managed to bring all of them together?
  - Not all of these honors were won by our fosterlings under my coaching. By the time I came here the third part of them had been already earned by Shakhtar juniors. Of course, all of the trophies are equally dear to me, because they were not bought, but honestly gained. The majority of them are first-place honors. Which of them are the most precious? Those won in Ukrainian championships, as well as in Braghin tournaments. Our juniors gained victories in most various international tournaments, and every new cup always brings a lot of joy. To tell the truth, we have no more room to keep the trophies. But what we really want is not winning more prizes, but raising more skillful players.  

- What do your responsibilities of coordinator for Football Center for Children and Juniors include?
- For now I mostly work with football players aged between 7 and 13. For the most part I am responsible for administrative and economical part as well as organizing various tournaments. I also accompany a lot of teams of different age groups to competitions as a chief delegate. That’s what I do.

- What did Shakhtar need to defeat Fulham, in your opinion?
- I think timing was important. In England they were in the Championship with both of their feet, while this match was practically an opener for us. Maybe we underestimated the rival. After all, we still had the aftertaste of UEFA Cup victory. It showed that a lot of players showed worse results than they were able to, there was not enough commitment. They could have played more aggressively.

- Do you think the team is strong enough to win the Cup and the Championship this year?
- Of course it is, why not? Kyiv team is just two points ahead of us, and if we come to consider their game we won’t see anything special in the way they play it. We have good chances to win the championship.

- Mr. Dudynskyy, you mentioned that you used to have three trainings a day…
- Yes, we did during the camp.

- I can see a point in two trainings, but why three?
- Championships used to begin later before, in April, and we didn’t have such good pitches like we do today. Nowadays the grass is green even in winter, and I can still remember the days when the first matches were played without any grass at all. I can say that three months training camp was simply a drudgery. We were training on very bad turf. We didn’t go to training camps in Spain or Arab Emirates, but in Sochi or Elisovets. Sometimes we would train knee-deep in snow or on ice. Back then three times a day was our norm, the first one being warming up that gradually came to a one-hour training, and running in the evening.

- What can you say about the quality of turn in the latest matches?
- It is good for this time of the year.

- You have a peculiar family name, you must have been nicknamed a lot…
- Naturally, every kid has this or that nickname which normally is made up by way of shortening of the surname. They called me Duda.

- Did you give anyone nicknames?
- I cannot remember.

- What about a nickname for Pyanykh? (‘Drunk’ in Russian)
- Well, we didn’t call him Drunk (laughs). We called him by his first name, Volodya.

- Can one say that they used to pay more attention to set play before?
- Shakhtar was famous for its dangerous corners, because we had Starukhin with his perfect headers. As for direct free kicks, we were not that skillful in them back then, a great many goals are scored from this position now, set play proves its value.

- Mr. Dudynskyy, Shakhtar took the 12th place in 1974 in USSR Championship, and were runners-up in the next year. In what way did the team change?
- I cannot recall any particular reasons at now. Maybe the reason was that the team was still taking shape and some of the leading players like Konkov left the team. The thing is that today each head coach has at least twenty players at his disposal, while we used to play every game with the same lineups, including USSR Championship which cannot be compared to Ukrainian one, even in Europa League, with all my respect, maybe this has told upon it.

- Donbass Arena attraction Tour with a Legend is very popular among visitors. If you were a visitor, whom would you like to guide you around the stadium?
- Until now those have been people whom I know personally quite well. Unfortunately, we do not see much of one another lately, but we are very happy to meet every time we do. It would be my pleasure to listen to any of them.

- Then who is the most engaging storyteller?
- They are all excellent storytellers (smiles).

- And who were your best friends during your football career?
  - Speaking of the team, we had been friends and long term team mates with Pyanykh ever since we were kids. Among my team friends I can name Zvyagintsev, Degterev. Outside the team those are Vasin, Starukhin. Back in those days we had neither computers nor TV sets at our training base, and the only way to entertain ourselves was through conversing with one another, and this we enjoyed a lot. 

- Were you ever invited to join any other club?
- Transfers were not given so much publicity back then, but I interested such clubs as Torpedo, Moscow, and a legendary then Zenit, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), still I had never had the heart to leave a team like Shakhtar.

- Mr. Dudynskyy, do you like to foretell results of the game?
- No, I don’t.

- Can you?
- Of course I can (smiles). I think that we can foretell the results of Ukrainian Championship with 70% of certainty.

- Your football career ended rather early…
- So it did, I was seriously injured in 1972 in Nalchik, meniscus, I should have undergone an operation but I didn’t do it timely. I went to Kyiv but the professor I needed was away, and another one advised me to undergo non-surgical therapy, and after some years there formed a cyst and I started taking injections. Today at 29 a player still has a long way to go in terms of his career, but in my days a player of 30 was considered to be an old man.

- Is there anything that scares you?
- Unemployment.

- They say that you are afraid to fly?
  - That’s true. There was a period of time when I wouldn’t board a plane for something like ten years because of various disagreeable situations like air pockets, but now I feel safer. 

- Do you support any particular team in Europa League this year?
- I cannot support anyone but Shakhtar, but I sympathize with Barcelona, if the Catalonians win this tournament I will be glad for them.

- Mr. Dudynskyy, we celebrated the 8th of March yesterday, hence the question: what should a woman know about football?
- About football? Why, these days women are more knowledgeable about it than men! You just listen to grans! And look how many girls come to see matches, in my time it was but someone’s mom whom one could see coming for the sake of support (laughs).

FC Shakhtar
Press Office