FC Dynamo Moscow

Dynamo Moscow

Full name	Футбольный клуб Динамо Москва (Football Club Dynamo Moscow)
Nickname(s)	Belo-golubye (White-blues) Dinamiki (Loudspeakers) Musora (Cops)
Founded	18 April 1923 (1923-04-18)
Ground	Arena Khimki
Ground Capacity	18,636
Owner	VTB Bank
Chairman	Yevgeni Muravyov
Manager	Yuriy Kalitvintsev
League	Russian Football National League
2015–16	Russian Football Premier League, 15th (relegated)
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours

FC Dynamo Moscow (Dinamo Moscow, FC Dinamo Moskva,^[1] Russian: Дина́мо Москва́ [dʲɪˈnamə mɐˈskva]) is a Russian football club based in Khimki, Moscow Oblast, currently playing in the Russian Football National League.

Dynamo is the oldest Russian football club and it was the only one that has always played in the top tier of Soviet football (along with Dynamo Kyiv) and of Russian football from the end of the Soviet era to 2016. Despite this, it has never won the modern Russian Premier League title.

During the Soviet era, it was affiliated with the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs – The Soviet Militia) and with the KGB^[2][3] and was a part of Dynamo sports society. Chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria, was a patron of the club until his downfall.

From 10 April 2009 the VTB Bank has been the owner of Dynamo after acquiring a 74% share in the club.^[4] Boris Rotenberg Sr. was chairman until he resigned on 17 July 2015.^[5]

Dynamo's traditional colours are blue and white. Their crest consists of a blue letter "D," written in a traditional cursive style on a white background, with "Moscow" written below it, partially covering a football underneath. The club's motto is "Power in Motion," initially proposed by Maxim Gorky, the famous Russian author, who was once an active member of the Dynamo sports society.

History

Commemorative coin of Lev Yashin, the legendary goalkeeper of the team.

Dynamo Moscow has its roots in the club Morozovtsi Orekhovo-Zuevo Moskva founded as a factory team in 1887. The team was renamed OKS Moskva in 1906 and won a series of Moscow league championships from 1910 to 1914.

After the Russian Revolution, the club eventually found itself under the authority of the Interior Ministry and its head Felix Dzerzhinsky, chief of the Cheka, the Soviet Union's secret police. The club was renamed Dynamo Moscow in 1923 but was also referred to disparagingly as "garbage", a Russian criminal slang term for "police", by some of the supporters of other clubs.

Dynamo won the first two Soviet Championships in 1936 and 1937, a Soviet Cup in 1937, and another pair of national titles in 1940 and 1945. They were also the first Soviet club to tour the West when it played a series of friendlies in the United Kingdom in 1945. Complete unknowns to the British, the Soviet players first drew 3–3 against Chelsea and then defeated Cardiff City 1–10. They defeated an Arsenal side reinforced with Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen and Joe Bacuzzi by a score of 3–4 in a match played in thick fog at White Hart Lane. They drew 2–2 against Scottish side Rangers.

They continued to be a strong side at home after World War II, and enjoyed their greatest success through the 1950s. Dynamo captured another five championships between 1949 and 1959, as well as their second Soviet Cup in 1953. Honours were harder to come by after that time. The club continued to enjoy some success in the Soviet Cup, but has not won a national championship since 1976. Even so, Dynamo's 11 national titles make it the country's third-most decorated side behind Dynamo Kyiv (13 titles) and Spartak Moscow (12 titles).

Dynamo's greatest achievement in Europe was in the 1971–72 European Cup Winners' Cup, where they reached the Final at Camp Nou in Barcelona, losing 3–2 to Rangers. This was the first time a Russian side had reached a final in a European competition, a feat not repeated until CSKA Moscow won the UEFA Cup in 2005.

VTB Bank era (since 2009)

Yuri Zhirkov.

Mathieu Valbuena.

At the end of the 2008 season, Dynamo finished third, qualifying for the 2009–10 Champions League preliminary round. On 29 July 2009, Dynamo recorded a 0–1 away win against Celtic at Celtic Park,^[6] which gave them a strong advantage going into the second leg. However, Celtic comfortably defeated Dynamo 0–2 in Moscow to progress,^[7] sending Dynamo into the Europa League play-off round where the club was eliminated by Bulgarian side CSKA Sofia after a 0–0 away draw in Sofia and a 1–2 home defeat in Moscow.

In 2012, after a poor start to the season in which it lost its first five league games, Dynamo replaced interim manager Dmitri Khokhlov with the Romanian Dan Petrescu, who managed to pull the club out of the relegation zone into a position in the upper-half of the league table. The team was close to qualifying for a place in European competition, but a failure to win in the last matchday left them in seventh, two points below the last Europa League qualifier position. Despite his efforts, Petrescu's contract was terminated on 8 April 2014 by mutual agreement after a heavy loss to league outsiders Anzhi Makhachkala 0–4.^[8] As Dynamo Director of Sports Guram Adzhoyev stated, "Last year Dan drew the team from the complicated situation, lifted it to the certain level, but recently we have seen no progress."^[9] Petrescu was replaced by Stanislav Cherchesov as manager. Under his management, Dynamo qualified for the group stage of the 2014–15 UEFA Europa League in which they won every game before falling to Napoli in the Round of 16. Dynamo was only able to finish in fourth place in the 2014–15 season after a string of poor results in the latter stages.

In June 2015, Dynamo was excluded from 2015–16 Europa League competition for violating Financial Fair Play break-even requirements.^[10][11] As a result, VTB Bank proposed to transfer 74 percent of the shares of the club to the Dynamo sports society. Under the proposed plan, the society would own 100 percent of shares of Dynamo as it did in 2009, while the shares of the VTB Arena would still be held by the Bank. The move would allow the club to comply with the requirements of Financial Fair Play, and VTB Bank would continue to provide support to Dynamo to the extent consistent with Financial Fair Play regulations.

Manager Stanislav Cherchesov was replaced by the returning Andrey Kobelev, and many foreign players, such as Mathieu Valbuena, Balázs Dzsudzsák and Kevin Kurányi, subsequently left Dynamo. Several young Dynamo prospects, such as Grigori Morozov, Aleksandr Tashayev and Anatoli Katrich, who won the Under-21 competition in the 2014–15 season, were introduced to the first-team squad.

On 22 December 2015, Chairman of Dynamo's board of directors Vasili Titov announced that the shares had not been transferred to the Dynamo society; that FFP compliance rather than the share transfer was the top priority for the club; and that he expected the club to achieve compliance by April 2016.^[12]

After the winter break of the 2015–16 season, the club results got much worse. Dynamo won only one game out of 12 played in 2016, Kobelev was fired with 3 games left, and on the final day of the season, Dynamo lost 0-3 to FC Zenit St. Petersburg at home, dropped to 15th place in the table and was relegated from the Premier League for the first time in history.

In October 2016, with Dynamo leading the second-tier Russian Football National League at the time, the newly appointed club president Yevgeni Muravyov claimed that club's debts stand at 13 billion rubles (approximately 188 million euros) and unless a new owner is found shortly or VTB re-commits to covering the club's debts, the club might declare bankruptcy. That would most likely mean the loss of professional license and relegation to the fourth-level Russian Amateur Football League.^[13]

Rivalries

Spartak vs Dinamo in Luzhnikí on 14 March 2010.

Since its establishment in 1923, Dynamo's historical rival has been Spartak Moscow. Clashes between the clubs were seen by their fans and more generally as the most important games in the Soviet Union for more than three decades, attracting thousands of spectators. (Ironically, however, on New Year's Day in 1936, it was a combined Dynamo-Spartak team that traveled to Paris to face Racing Club de France, then one of Europe's top teams.) Dynamo clinched the first-ever Soviet League by beating Spartak 1–0 at Dynamo Stadium in front of 70,000 spectators. Spartak responded by winning the championship the following year. But after Dynamo's decline in the late 1970s, the rivalry has faded. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, first CSKA Moscow and then Zenit Saint Petersburg have emerged as the top clubs in Russian football, with the rivalries between Dynamo and its Moscow neighbours such as Spartak Moscow and Lokomotiv assuming less significance.

Stadium

View of the historical Dynamo Stadium, home of Dynamo from 1928 to 2008. In 2011, it was demolished in preparation for a new stadium to be built, which will be known as the VTB Arena.

Dynamo's ground used to be the historic Dynamo Stadium in Petrovsky Park, which seats 36,540. In 2008, it was closed for demolition. It is to be replaced by VTB Arena in 2017, which will have a capacity of 27,000 (adjustable up to 45,000). Until its completion, Dynamo has been sharing Arena Khimki with rivals CSKA Moscow since 2010, before the new ground for the latter, Arena CSKA, was completed in 2016.

Average attendance

Honours

Soviet Top League / Russian Premier League^[14]

• Champions (11): 1936 (spring), 1937, 1940, 1945, 1949, 1954, 1955, 1957 1959, 1963, 1976
• Runners-up (11): 1936 (autumn), 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1956, 1958, 1962, 1967, 1970, 1986, 1994

Soviet Cup / Russian Cup^[15][16]

• Winners (7): 1937, 1953, 1967, 1970, 1977, 1984, 1994-95
• Runners-up (8): 1945, 1949, 1950, 1955, 1979, 1996-97, 1998-99, 2011-12

Soviet Super Cup / Russian Super Cup

• Winners: 1977
• Runners-up: 1984

Progress Cup

• Winners: 1973, 1981, 1986

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup

• Runners-up: 1971-72

Ciutat de Barcelona Trophy

• Winners: 1976

League and cup history

European campaigns

Season	Round	Competition	Country	Opposing Team	Score	Venue
1972	RU	Cup Winners' Cup		Rangers	2–3	Camp Nou, Barcelona
1978	SF	Cup Winners' Cup		Austria Wien	3–3 on aggregate, 4–5(p)	Two-legged
1985	SF	Cup Winners' Cup		Rapid Wien	2–4 on aggregate	Two-legged

UEFA ranking

As of 30 August 2015^[17]

Rank	Country	Team	Points
70		Braga	26.416
71		Dynamo Moscow	26.076
72		Ludogorets Razgrad	25.625

Players

Current squad

As of 3 September 2016, according to the FNL official website Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Anton Shunin 2 DF Grigori Morozov 3 DF Sebastian Holmén 4 DF Vladimir Rykov 7 MF Stanislaw Drahun 8 FW Kirill Panchenko (on loan from CSKA Moscow) 9 FW Pavel Pogrebnyak 10 MF Aleksandr Zotov 11 DF Ivan Temnikov 12 DF Dmitri Belorukov 13 DF Sergei Terekhov 14 MF Ivan Markelov 18 MF Vladislav Lyovin 21 FW Fatos Bećiraj 22 GK Igor Leshchuk 23 MF Anton Sosnin

No. Position Player 24 DF Alexander Büttner 25 DF Aleksei Kozlov 26 DF Nikita Kalugin 29 DF Luke Wilkshire 33 DF Anton Ivanov 41 MF Aleksandr Sapeta 42 GK Sergei Narubin 43 GK Stanislav Cherchesov Jr. 48 FW Yevgeni Lutsenko 77 MF Anatoli Katrich 87 MF Valeri Saramutin 88 MF Aleksandr Tashayev 90 FW Nikolay Obolsky 96 MF Maksim Kuzmin 98 FW Anton Terekhov

FC Dynamo-2 Moscow

Following Dynamo's relegation from the Russian Football Premier League (which holds its own competition for the Under-21 teams of the Premier League clubs) at the end of the 2015–16 season, the reserve squad FC Dynamo-2 Moscow received professional license and was registered to play in the third-tier Russian Professional Football League, beginning with the 2016–17 season.

Notable players

For details of Dynamo Moscow players with a Wikipedia article, see List of FC Dynamo Moscow players.

Most appearances

R	Player	Nat.	App.
1	Aleksandr Novikov		327
2	Lev Yashin		326
3	Valery Maslov		319
4	Aleksandr Makhovikov		287
5	Gennady Yevryuzhikhin		283
6	Viktor Anichkin		282
7	Sergei Nikulin		280
8	Viktor Tsaryov		279
9	Andrei Kobelev		253
10	Aleksei Petrushin		244

Most goals

R	Player	Nat.	Goals
1	Sergei Solovyov		127
2	Konstantin Beskov		91
3	Vasili Kartsev		72
4	Valery Gazzaev		70
5	Igor Chislenko		68
6	Oleg Teryokhin		67
7	Vasili Trofimov		67
8	Vladimir Ilyin		63
9	Vladimir Savdunin		62
10	Vladimir Kozlov		54

One-Club Men

Player	Nationality	Position	Debut	Last Match
Vasili Trofimov		FW	1931	1949
Lev Yashin		GK	1949	1971
Viktor Tsarev		MF	1955	1966
Eduard Mudrik		DF	1957	1968
Vladimir Kesarev		DF	1956	1965
Nikolai Tolstykh		DF	1977	1983

Coaching and medical staff

Role	Name
Head coach	Yuriy Kalitvintsev
Assistant manager	Hennadiy Lytovchenko
Assistant manager	Yuri Kovtun
GK coach	Roman Berezovsky
GK coach	Nikolai Gontar
Director of sports	Vacant
Team manager	Aleksandr Udaltsov
Administrative Manager	Gennady Samodurov
Press Office	Konstantin Alekseev
Youth team head coach	Sergei Chikishev
Physiotherapist	Sergio de San Martin

Former head coaches

Gallery

• 

  Mikhail Yakushin

• 

  Konstantin Beskov

• 

  Anatoliy Byshovets

• 

  Valery Gazzaev

• 

  Sergei Silkin

Personnel

Club management

Presidents

In the Dynamo organization, the position of "president" has not always been present; several times the head of the club was titled as "chief executive officer (CEO)."

Nikolai Tolstykh, president of Russian Football Union since 2012. Tolstykh played his entire professional career for Dynamo from 1974 to his retirement in 1983 after a serious injury. After retiring, he served as the team's president and general director on numerous occasions.

Date	Position/name
President
1989—1990	Vladimir Pilguy
President
1991—1992	Valery Sysoev
1993—1997	Nikolai Tolstykh
General director
1998	Nikolai Tolstykh
President
1999	Nikolai Tolstykh
General director
2000—2001	Nikolai Tolstykh
2002	Vladimir Ulyanov
2002—2006	Yuri Zavarzin
2006—2009	Dmitry Ivanov
President
2009—2012	Yuri Isaev
2012—2013	Gennady Solovyov
2013—2015	Boris Rotenberg Sr.
General director
2015—2016	Sergey Sysoyev
2016—	Yevgeni Muravyov

References

External links

• Official website
• Club page at the RFPL official site