Khatskevich Fired from Dynamo. Finally!

We explain why patience ran out not only for fans but also for club president Ihor Surkis.

It would seem, mid-August, the start of the season, with only 5 official matches played. Yet the main hopes of Dynamo fans have already been shattered — in those very 5 matches came a major setback in the domestic championship (a home 1:2 loss to Shakhtar) and a fiasco in Europe (an exit in the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League to Brugge).

Below — the key arguments for why Oleksandr Khatskevich and his coaching staff should have resigned.

No results

As a coach, Khatskevich has spent three seasons at Dynamo, yet his number of trophies with the capital club remains practically the same as in 2004, when Khatskevich the player left Kyiv for China. Everything Dynamo has won since his return — two Super Cups, which, to be fair, are essentially two exhibition games.

Shakhtar once again easily dominates the league, and the Cups also go to the arch-rival. Dynamo fans find no reasons for joy in the already not particularly interesting domestic rivalries. While Khatskevich still beat Paulo Fonseca's team several times in head-to-head meetings, he lost the important match against the team of Luís Castro (and at home!).

Even if one wants to talk about Europe at all, it's only in a whisper.

2017/18 season: exit to Young Boys in the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League (in the play-off round the Swiss side was beaten by CSKA), and the end of the run in the Europa League when meeting the first halfway decent opponent, Lazio.

2018/19 season: exit in the Champions League qualifying play-offs to Ajax (fine, we'll forgive that), and another fiasco in the Europa League round of 16, plus an extremely painful one — 0:8 on aggregate against Chelsea. Against Chelsea, which in the knockout play-offs of the same Europa League had three goals scored against it by each of Slavia and Eintracht.

2019/20 season: thanks to Brugge, we proudly head into the Europa League group stage.

No play

It's not that Dynamo's play sparkled under Serhiy Rebrov either, but with him at the helm in Kyiv, at least they saw the Champions League and even the play-offs of that very competition. Khatskevich, however, delighted neither with results nor with the style of play the team showed.

Over these two-plus years, Dynamo became memorable for monotony and an unwillingness to build play from a position of strength — against decent opponents Kyiv almost always played reactively and as the underdog.

«Well done, Dynamo, didn't expect that!» — when did you last hear something like that?

No trust

Khatskevich repeatedly criticized his players in public: when things went wrong, the traditional explanation was individual mistakes (and where would we be without them, and whose job is it to minimize them?), and more than once the overall level of the players was questioned. Yes, from time to time Khatskevich said he also makes mistakes, but any real desire to change things on a global scale was entirely absent.

The players' reaction, who in interviews repeatedly backed the coach, initially surprised. However, over time the situation became clear: why would they be upset, if they keep playing regularly even without any progress or — what's worse — despite a noticeable decline. Here, we can send regards to Serhiy Sydorchuk, Denys Harmash and several other guys.

At the same time, the team was also strengthened. Yes, Dynamo can't currently afford to pay 10 million euros per player, but newcomers did arrive, and their own decent youth was supposedly coming along. And where are they all? Yes, there is Mykolenko, but his talent is so obvious that it would be surprising if he didn't play. Yes, Verbych is playing, who settled into the team remarkably well from the first matches. In his case, though, everything was clear right away — a ready-made player of decent level came to the team. But where are the rest?

Khatskevich failed to get along with Yevhen Krasnikov (the man who handled recruitment at that same Metalist) and wrote off all the Brazilians brought in, after which he began signing players through agent Vadym Shabliy, who is close to him (and to the region that will not kneel).

And here is the outcome.

Vasyl Obaraz