Klasychne_derby

Klasychne derby

Klasychne derby

Ukrainian football rivalry between Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk


Klasychne derby (Ukrainian: Класичне, as Classico), or the Ukrainian football rivalry is the football match between the two top Ukrainian clubs Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk. The game between those two clubs is a focal point of each football season in Ukraine. Due to war, at least three of their scheduled fixtures were scratched in 1941 and 2014. Since 2014, Shakhtar sometimes plays in Kyiv due to the Russian aggression which technically turned the rivalry into a city derby.

Quick Facts Other names, Location ...

Dynamo and Shakhtar were the top Ukrainian clubs since introduction of the Soviet professional football competitions in 1936. They played against each other as early as 1931 when Donetsk was represented by the Shakhtar's direct predecessor Dynamo Stalino. Participating in competition dominated with the Russian teams, matchups between both teams was not too important within the Soviet Union. Following independence, the rivalry between them two grew into a national-level rivalry sometime after 1996 since the teams were two main contenders for the national title.

In 1970 and 1980s, rivalries between Dynamo Kyiv against FC Zorya Luhansk and FC Dnipro were somewhat notable eclipsing for short while the Donetsk-Kyiv stand-off. Dnipro, that returned to the Soviet Top League in 1981, won two Soviet titles in the 1980s and almost became a Ukrainian champion in the 1992–93 season.

During the times of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian rivalry was overshadowed by the rivalry between Dynamo Kyiv and Spartak Moscow (see Spartak Moscow–Dynamo Kyiv derby) that has developed sometime in the 1960s.

Formation of the derby

Locations of the two teams (since 2016 Shakhtar plays in Kyiv due to the War in Donbass)

Soviet Union

Cover of the Soviet Union. Opening day of the 1960 Soviet Top League season.

The two clubs first met back in 1938 in Kyiv in the Soviet Top League with Dynamo winning it 2–0. At the time, Dynamo Kyiv was the main representative of Ukraine in the Soviet League, while Shakhtar initially had some difficulties to secure their place there. The Donetsk team, however, was considered to be the main representative of the Ukrainian SSR other than Dynamo, representing the most industrialized and heavily urbanized Donbas region in the eastern part of Ukraine. In a few occasions Shakhtar even managed to place higher than the Dynamo's "Capitals" in League, but for the most of the time Dynamo had more success head-to-head. Their meetings were not as popular in the Soviet League outside of Ukraine as the Moscow – Kyiv face off particularly between Dynamo and Spartak.

Ukraine

The 1990s: Dynamo's dominance

The trend of Dynamo's total dominance continued well after the establishment of the Ukrainian Vyshcha Liha (which eventually became the Ukrainian Premier League). For several seasons Shakhtar was not even among the main contenders for the league title, which was often contested by either FC Dnipro or Chornomorets Odesa. Dynamo won every single league title in the 1990s except one, when SC Tavriya Simferopol managed to pull off an upset, winning the inaugural Ukrainian league season, with Dynamo taking the silver medals, and Shakhtar finishing fourth.

In 1996, Rinat Akhmetov became Shakhtar's president and started investing heavily into the club. Shakhtar became relevant again, placing 2nd in 1996–97, and not finishing below 2nd place in the league ever since. In an interview to Vatsko Live (Russian: Вацко Live), former Shakhtar player Andriy Vorobey said that at least since 1997 it was cultivated at Shakhtar that Dynamo is not just an opponent, but rather the enemy.[1]

The 2000s: rise of Shakhtar

It was not until the early 2000s when this fixture obtained the status of a true "derby". In the first years of the decade, Dynamo were still riding the wave of their late 1990s success, when they reached the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals and semi-finals in consecutive seasons. After the death of their legendary manager Valeriy Lobanovskiy in 2002, Dynamo's success in the European and Ukrainian competitions began to decline. This coincided with the continued rise of Shakhtar, who won their first Ukrainian league title in 2001–02, which took the rivalry between the two clubs to a whole new level. In the 2008–09 season, the Ukrainian derby was contested in European competition for the first time. Shakhtar defeated Dynamo in a 2008–09 UEFA Cup semi-final and then became the first side in the sovereign Ukraine era to win a European competition.

The 2010s

During the 2015–16 Ukrainian Premier League, on 16 October, Shakhtar Donetsk beat FC Dynamo Kyiv 0–3 in Kyiv and set two new records. One record was that for the first time during a Ukrainian derby game in Kyiv a team scored three goals. The other record was that for the first time Shakhtar had more Ukrainian derby victories, 26, than Dynamo.[2] On 1 May 2016, in the second Premier League match between them at Arena Lviv, Shakhtar won 3–0 again, making it the first time when Dynamo loses two derby matches one after another with a margin of at least 3 goals. Despite all that, Dynamo became the champions that season.[3]

Venues

As of recently, both Dynamo and Shakhtar play at the Olympiyskiy National Sports Complex in Kyiv.[4] Olympiskyi NSC has been one of Dynamo's two home stadiums since 1951 (the other one being the much smaller Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium). Shakhtar, on the other hand, for the longest time (1938–2001) played at their older Central Stadium "Shakhtar" in Donetsk. In 2008 Shakhtar built new modern stadium Donbas Arena of UEFA elite class, but was forced to leave Donetsk in 2014 due to War in Donbas. Since then, Shakhtar has been based in Kyiv, but until early 2020 played their home matches primarily at Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv.

Statistics

Match tallies

The table shows number of wins for both clubs per competition as well as totals.[5]

Fans of Dynamo Kyiv
Scenes from 2011 Derby game in Kyiv

As of 3 November 2023

More information Competition, Dynamo Kyiv ...
  • Notes:
  1. The Soviet Super Cup was not an official competition. It was organized by an editorial department of the Soviet newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
  2. While in the Soviet Union the Football Cup of the Ukrainian SSR competitions had official status, since gaining Ukrainian independence the status of the Football Cup of the Ukrainian SSR is not determined by the independent Ukrainian Association of Football (Football Federation of Ukraine).

Titles

Number of titles for both clubs

More information Dynamo Kyiv, Competition ...
  • Notes:
  1. The Soviet Super Cup was not an official competition. It was organized by an editorial department of the Soviet newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
  2. While in the Soviet Union the Football Cup of the Ukrainian SSR competitions had official status, since gaining Ukrainian independence the status of the Football Cup of the Ukrainian SSR is not determined by the independent Ukrainian Association of Football (Football Federation of Ukraine).

Year-by-year league's standings

The table lists the place each team took in each of the seasons.

More information 76s, 76f ...
More information 92/93, 93/94 ...
More information 17/18, 18/19 ...

All continental competition games

Dynamo Kyiv win Draw Shakhtar Donetsk win

UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League

More information Season, Date ...

All domestic league games

Soviet League

More information Season, Date ...

Notes:

  • In Soviet league competitions both teams met 82 times, all in the Soviet Top League.
  • 41 wins of Dinamo, 15 wins of Shakhter, 26 draws
  • 128 goals of Dinamo, 79 goals of Shakhter

Ukrainian League

More information Season, Date ...

Notes:

  • In Ukrainian league competitions both teams met 70 times, all in the Ukrainian Premier League.
  • 27 wins of Shakhtar, 25 wins of Dynamo, 18 draws

All national cup competition games

Soviet cup

More information Season, Date ...

Ukrainian cup

More information Season, Date ...

All super cup competition games

Soviet Season's Cup

The match did not have an official status

More information Season, Date ...

Ukrainian Super Cup

More information Season, Date ...

Note:

All other cup competition games

Championship of the Dynamo All-Ukrainian Proletarian Sports Society

More information Season, Date ...

Football cup of the Ukrainian SSR

More information Season, Date ...

USSR Football Federation Cup

More information Season, Date ...

Top goalscorers

  • Players in bold are still active
  • In parentheses are goals scored from penalty kicks
  • Included players who scored at least six goals in games between Dynamo–Shakhtar

As of 22 April 2023[6]

More information Player, Club ...
  • Own goals – Mykola Krasyuk (Shakhtar), Abram Lerman (Dynamo), Oleksandr Pollak (Shakhtar), Oleksiy Drozdenko (Shakhtar), Anatoliy Konkov (Dynamo), Dmytro Chyhrynskyi (Shakhtar), Serhiy Fedorov (Dynamo), Goran Gavrančić (Dynamo), Adrian Pukanych (Shakhtar), Yevhen Khacheridi (Dynamo, 2), Davit Khocholava (Shakhtar), Oleksandr Kucher (Shakhtar)
  • Hat-tricks – Volodymyr Bohdanovych (Dynamo), Valeriy Yaremchenko (Shakhtar), Ihor Petrov (Shakhtar), Ihor Belanov (Dynamo)
  • Both teams – Viktor Fomin, Vitaliy Khmelnytskyi, Oleh Bazylevych, Serhii Rebrov

Crossing the divide

Júnior Moraes (in 2018)
Oleksiy Shevchenko (in 2018)
Oleksandr Karavayev (in black uniform, 2015)

Soviet Union

In bold are players who transferred directly from one club to the other.

Shakhtar then Dynamo
Dynamo then Shakhtar

Ukraine

Since Ukrainian independence, there had been only three direct transfer moves in each direction (Dynamo to Shakhtar, Shakhtar to Dynamo).[7] Most of the direct transfers, however, took place in the 1990s, when the rivalry between the clubs was virtually non-existent.

In bold are players who transferred directly from one club to the other.

Shakhtar then Dynamo
Dynamo then Shakhtar

Notes

  1. Shakhtar is forced to play away from home due to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

References

  1. "Шахтер устанавливает рекорд Классического и обходит Динамо". 16 October 2015.
  2. Динамо вперше в історії програє Шахтарю два матчі поспіль з великим рахунком [For the first time in the history Dynamo loses to Shakhtar two matches one after another with a big score] (in Ukrainian). ua-football.com. 1 May 2016. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  3. ""Шахтер" ведет переговоры с НСК "Олимпийский", который является родным стадионом "Динамо"" [Shakhtar is holding talks with Dynamo's home stadium, Olympiyskiy NSC]. 24tv.ua (in Russian). 19 August 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2020.

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