Vitaliy Khmelnytskyi

Vitaliy Hryhorovych Khmelnytskyi (Віталій Григорович Хмельницький; 12 June 1943 – 13 February 2019) was a Soviet football player and coach from Ukraine.

Playing
Khmelnytskyi was born near Huliaipole. His father went missing in action during the World War II. In 1947 Khmelnytskyi family moved to Zhdanov city (Mariupol). While being Ukrainian speaking, due to lack of schools in native language in Mariupol Khmelnytskyi had to study in Russian speaking school (Russification in Ukraine).

The first coaches of Khmelnytskyi was Yevhen Shpinev at Azovstal youth. Khmelnytskyi started his professional career playing for the 1961 Class B (3rd tier) team Azovstal Zhdanov (FC Mariupol). Next year he was invited by Oleh Oshenkov to Shakhtar Donetsk on recommendations of Yevhen Shpinev and Oleh Zhukov. Donning #11 on his jersey, he replaced Valentyn Sapronov. During his career in Shakhtar, Khmelnytskyi missed the chance to earn a trophy as he was not placed for the final match (1962 Soviet Cup Final), while the next year Shakhtar lost it.

Following 1964 season due to determined wish of CSKA Moscow team to obtain him, Khmelnytskyi decided to join Dynamo Kyiv with which he became four times national champion. In transferring of Khmelnytskyi to Dynamo was involved Vladimir Shcherbitsky. In Dynamo Khmelnytskyi who preferred to play with right foot replaced Valeriy Lobanovskyi on the Dynamo's left flank.

First time Khmelnytskyi was ejected during a 1965–66 European Cup Winners' Cup quarterfinal match against Celtic Glasgow in Tbilisi when he hit Jim Craig in a nose.

Due to injuries, Khmelnytskyi retired early in 29.

Coaching
Soon after retiring, Khmelnytskyi became a coach. He became among the first who enrolled into the Moscow Coaching Courses along with Eduard Malofeyev, Viktor Prokopenko, Pavel Sadyrin, Gennadiy Logofet, Vladimir Fedotov, others. In 1973 Khmelnytskyi was appointed a manager of recently relegated FC Dnipro Cherkasy that lost its status as a "team of masters". Renamed to Hranyt in two seasons the Cherkasy team returned to the Second League. Yet it did not stay there too long as the club in 1974 appeared in a middle of a corruption scandal. This corruption case reached to be dealt at a level of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and feuilleton at the Muscovite newspaper "Pravda" under an eloquent title "Gild the leg".

After coaching Kryvbas, Khmelnytskyi lost interest in managing professional teams and became a sports complex director of the Kyiv factories until eventually received an invitation to become a children coach at the Dynamo football academy.

International career
He capped 20 times for USSR and scored 7 times. Khmelnytskyi played at the 1970 FIFA World Cup. Since he did not fit into the tactical scheme of Nikolai Morozov, Khmelnytskyi missed the 1966 FIFA World Cup and instead of him at the World Cup played Valeriy Porkuyan.

Just before his first match against Greece in Piraeus, Khmelnytskyi had blood running out of his nose due to heat. The away friendly the Soviet team has won 4:1.

Honours

 * Soviet Top League winner: 1966, 1967, 1968, 1971
 * Soviet Cup winner: 1964, 1966