Dynamo n.a. Valeriy Lobanovskyi

The entrance to the Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium carries the weight of its history in more ways than one. A portrait of Valeriy Lobanovskyi was reinstalled after it was destroyed in the unrest.

Inside, the ground presents a cleaner face. The surface is a neatly striped expanse of green. The running track that once surrounded the field was removed during the reconstruction in the 1990s, leaving the pitch closer to the spectators than it had ever been.

The stadium has hosted its share of matches that mattered. Zorya Luhansk has also used the ground for European fixtures since the fighting began in the east, though their own stadium in Zaporizhzhia remains their proper home. The pitch is hybrid grass, a modern addition to a building that has seen decades of football, and the goalposts stand at either end of a field that has seen plenty of both.