Trebor Mahtal’s flourishing reputation as a serial title winner was done no harm whatsoever as he led Dynamo Kyiv to the national title and his first continental trophy in his first season in Ukraine. That made it four successive top-tier titles for the Zambian, who now faced another Champions League challenge as a result of last season’s success.
Dynamo had rather a quiet summer, allowing Roman Yaremchuk to join APOEL for £475k and the likes of Heorhiy Bushcan to leave. In their place came just exciting centre back William Escobar for £2m from Atlético Nacional. Mahtal had plenty of money available, with a £25m transfer budget but, after missing out on a few targets, he put his faith in exciting homegrown prospects. They’re led by strikers Mikhail Ivanov and Artem Skydan, left winger Yevhen Riabtsev, right backs Vladyslav Momot, Volodymyr Lysiuk and Artem Voloshyn and centre backs Vladyslav Sychov and Jhonatan Sánchez. But in January, they added another Colombian in midfielder Alexander Romero for £1.6m from Independiente Medellín.
Mahtal stuck with the unconventional 3-5-2 that worked so well last season, with Ivanov competing with Darko Dmitrovic for the second striker role.
Stepping Up To The Champions League
Dynamo leapfrogged the Europa League for the Champions League second qualifying round. They began against Dundalk and looked a little rusty in a 3-2 away win, which they’d led 3-0, then won 3-1 at home through last season’s top scorer Vladyslav Vanat and midfielders Seydou Diarrassouba and Anton Tsarenko. Next up was CSKA-Sofia and Diarrassouba and centre back Maksym Diachuk earned a 2-1 home win before midfielder Volodymyr Brazhko and Dmitrovic earned the same scoreline in Bulgaria.
An arguably easier tie followed for a chance to reach the league phase against Croatian side Osijek. A brilliant away performance saw Vanat score the opener then create two more in a 4-1 win, before a rotated side lost 3-2 at home to ease through to the league phase.
An interesting set of fixtures began at home to Fenerbahce, which started with a dreadful first half with a combined three shots. The second half didn’t get much better with Fenerbahce having more attempts but none really threatening Jorge Ararat. But, deep into injury time, Skydan was taken out in the box and the referee pointed to the spot. That gave newly-monikered wonderkid Diarrassouba the chance to steal three points and he calmly sent Livakovic the wrong way to seal a massively undeserved win!
They were equally limp at Feyenoord, who took their chances to win 3-1, before getting destroyed 3-0 at home by Liverpool and 5-1 at Inter. Vanat rescued a point at Celtic then scored the only goal in another poor game at home to Valencia. After the winter break, they got hammered 5-0 at Bayern but snuck a 2-1 win over Monaco to edge into the playoff round in a pretty respectable 22nd place. However, they did so by conceding a new competition record of 27 goals!
Watching the playoff round draw, Mahtal thought they’d avoided all the big sides as the likes of Arsenal, Bayern, Chelsea and PSG disappeared before Dynamo were pulled out in tie eight. However, he’d forgotten that Barcelona was the final remaining team. Unsurprisingly, they got ripped apart, losing 3-0 at home so Mahtal fully rotated and only lost 3-0 in Spain.
Ukrainian Title Defence
Dynamo began the domestic season with a rotated team winning Superkubok Ukrayiny 1-0 over Dnipro. But they remained 2nd-favourites with their 13/2 title odds well behind the 4/11 of Shakhtar, who have some brilliant players led by 20-year-old homegrown winger Marat Khlebnikov, who’s worth £80m.
The title defence picked up where last season ended as Vanat’s brace earned a 3-1 at Kryvbas. And they got a flying start as they won the next three without conceding, including Vanat’s hat trick downing Chornomorets 3-0. The good start continued as young stars Ivanov and Skydan scored in a 2-1 win at Metalist to take Dynamo to seven successive wins before a shock 2-1 defeat at home to Kolos after a month-long international break. That sent them into a big trip to Shakhtar with a tired, injury-hit squad that started awfully, gifting their rivals a 2-0 lead. But Mahtal laid into them at the break and made a few subs that gave them some impetus and inspired a superb comeback led by Vanat’s brace.
An exciting moment for the club saw 18-year-old Riabtsev bag a hat trick along with Ivanov’s brace in a 5-1 win at bottom-side Poltava. But the challenge of competing in the Champions League and in the league seemed to catch up with them with a defeat at Karpaty and a 0-0 at LNZ that took Shakhtar top before Dynamo hosted them in early December. The two teams played out a drab affair in which the only highlight was Momot picking up an innocuous second yellow card.
Exciting Title Fight Goes To The Final Day
Winger Vitinho returned from a mass of injuries to score twice in a 4-0 win over Kryvbas in the first game back after the winter break. But they drew 3-3 with 3rd-place Polissia, which saw Shakhtar draw level after 20 of the 30-game season. Vanat put the team on his shoulders with back-to-back braces downing Chornomorets and Metalist 2-0 but they drew at Veres while Shakhtar lost at Karpaty. The out-of-form Diarrassouba stepped up with a brace to defeat Metalist 4-1 then got injured and they lost 2-0 at Kolos without him, which saw Shakhtar go back to the top in what was technically a four-way title battle.
Game 1 – Poltava (16th, home): The run-in began with an easy game at home to bottom-side Poltava and Dynamo cruised to a 5-0 victory. Shakhtar only drew at Chornomorets, to send Dynamo back to the top on goal difference, Polissia won but Karpaty lost to drop out of the race.
Game 2 – Matalurh Zp (13th, away): Another easy game followed but Dynamo made hard work of it with Vanat scoring the only goal despite having 19 shots to two. Shakhtar only drew again, 1-1 at home to Veres, to drop two points behind Dynamo but Polissia won to move within two points of them.
Game 3 – Karpaty Lviv (4th, home): The biggest test of Dynamo’s run-in came at home to Karpaty. And they fell to a surprise 1-0 defeat to a pretty shady penalty. However, Shakhtar’s bottle job continued as they lost 2-1 at Kolos while Polissia, who could have gone two points behind Dynamo, lost 2-0 at Choronomorets.
Game 4 – Dnipro (5th, away): Another potentially challenging game took Dynamo to Dnipro. Shakhtar and Polissia both won on the Saturday, temporarily taking Shakhtar top of the league. And the pressure got to Dynamo as they conceded inside two minutes, again gave away a penalty that was this time missed, before Diarrassouba rescued a point.
Dynamo went into the final day with a four-goal advantage over Shakhtar, with Polissia three points back but out of it. Dynamo went to next-to-bottom Bukovyna, while Shakhtar visited 5th-place Dnipro.
Game 5 – Bukovyna Chernivtsi (15th, away): Dynamo began brightly as Vitinho got down the line and crossed for Ivanov to tap home from two yards after 5 minutes. While Shakhtar went a goal behind after 8 minutes and 2-0 down inside 23, and the title was all over as they conceded again just after half time. It was one-way traffic for Dynamo as they struggled to put chances away and that cost them as another nonsense penalty saw Bukovyna equalise, only for the ref to even things up three minutes later then award another in injury time! And Vitinho scored both to seal the title.
Shakhtar shockingly ended up losing 4-1 at Dnipro, which saw Dynamo win the title by 2 points. They finished on 66 points after 20 wins, 6 draws and 4 defeats, scoring 69 – which was bettered by Dnipro’s 76 – and conceding 25. Vanat was the best player in the league with 19 goals, a 7.49 average rating and 7 player of the match awards, while Tsarenko led the assists with 11.
Time For A New Challenge
Mahtal enjoyed another good season, moving on to five consecutive domestic titles as he wrapped up his second with Dynamo Kyiv. Their star man was undoubtedly Vanat, who led the way with 26 goals in 38 games followed by Ivanov (14), Diarrassouba (11) and holding midfielder Brazhko (10). But Mahtal very much had a soft spot for their creative force Mykola Shaparenko, who got 15 assists followed by Tsarenko (11) and Vitinho (9).
However, the final-day title success would be Mahtal’s final act as the manager of Dynamo Kyiv. Back in April, he noticed an interesting opportunity that would take him into central Europe for the first time in his managerial career. So he applied, got an interview and they offered him a role that he could take up at the end of the current season.
He leaves Dynamo after 700 days and 99 games in charge, winning 69, drawing 15 and losing 15, with a 69% win percentage. His side scored 228 and conceded 102, lifting two league titles and two cups, including his first continental title.
So where would Mahtal be moving to for club number five on this EuroTrip adventure? Join us on Monday to find out!
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