Lev Ivanovich Yashin

(October 22, 1929 - March 21, 1990)
Lev Yashin: goalkeeper, height 185 cm, weight 82 kg, merited master of sports of international class. In a team of masters in Moscow Dynamo from 1950 to 1970. At the national championships held 326 matches. USSR Champion 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1967. USSR Cup winner 1953, 1967 and 1970. In the "Top 33" player number 1 (1956. 1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968gg.). In the USSR team spent 79 matcha.Za whole sporting career has played 812 matches, on average, missed less than one ball per match. Winner of the European Cup 1960. Silver medalist of the European Cup 1964. Champion Olympic Games 1956. Semifinalist World Cup 1966.

Winner of the Golden Ball (best football player in Europe in 1963). Member of FIFA team matches (with England in 1963. and Brazil in 1968). In the name of Lev Yashin is called symbolic club, which includes goalkeepers who kept the gate "dry" in 100 or more games. Indicator Yashin - 207 games without goals. Lev Yashin - winner of the IOC Olympic Order (1986) and the FIFA awards the Golden Order of Merit "(1988).

Whatever this may say, we had a great epoch. Because nobody, even the most rabid hater of our country, do not dare to say that these symbols of Russia XX century, as Yuri Gagarin and Lev Yashin, were "slaves" or a "myth of Soviet propaganda". It Gagarin and Yashin personified the two most attractive sides of the Russian character. The first cosmonaut of the planet - the irresistible impulse of the unknown. The first keeper of the world - reliability, endurance, a stubborn defense of native lines to the end, after I can not.

Lev Yashin was born October 22, 1929 in Moscow. He was the seventh year, when you see the legendary film "Goalkeeper" in the book Leo Kassil. The powerful figure of the "goalie of the republic" Anton Kandidova, throws harsh opponents of the number of "black buffalo, has become an example to be emulated by millions of boys. Football in those days was not just a sports game. He was also a game of heroic, romantic and irresistibly attractive. And when the autumn victorious 1945 Moscow Dynamo has committed a brilliant tour of the camp of the British allies, the 16-year-old Lev Yashin doubt is left: only the Moscow Dynamo. At the gate was on anyone look: jumpy Alexei Khomich, nicknamed by the British "Tiger" in the late 40's was in splendor and majesty. He studied, and goalie skills Lev Ivanovich, the old tradition of dragging a suitcase with the maitre ammunition.

Childhood and youth the best goalkeeper of the world were not easy. Little Loew lived with his parents and numerous other relatives in cramped apartments on millionth street, not far from the factory "Red hero". Football was in their own yard, in between playing hide and seek and stocking of cannon on the tram rails. Bid dermatinovogo ball in clubbing brought great joy.

Early years Yashin, like all his peers, ended in 1941, with the beginning of the war. With his parents, he went to the evacuation by Ulyanovsk. After graduating from the five classes, the boy went to a military factory apprentice plumber. In 1944, Yasha's return to Moscow, but the factory continued weekdays. From Sokolnikov Levet had to go to work in Tushino two tram and metro. Get up and five in the morning, returning home after dark: the evening played football for the factory.

First coach Yashin Vladimir Checherov immediately singled him in the ranks of boys and put them in the gate. A yard Loew considered scorer ...
Dynamo Lev Ivanovich began almost by accident. Exhausting factory work has resulted in 18-year-old boy to a mental breakdown. Yashin left home, moved to his friend and stopped going to the factory. Good people are advised to go into the army - or could shlopotat term for parasitism. Server started in Moscow, and soon with the light hand of Arkady Ivanovich Chernyshev was the club's youth team Moscow Dynamo. And in the spring in 1949 he was the third goalkeeper of the core team, after Khomich and Walter Sanaya.

Yashin Goalkeeper service began with three silliest face for. In the spring of 1949 the first in Gagra Dynamo played a controlling game from the Stalingrad "Tractor". Goalkeeper Stalingrad famously kicked a ball, and Yashin was preparing to catch him, but collided with defender Averyanov. Loose ball flew into treacherous gates. Prominent Dynamo led Beskova, Kartsev and Malyavkin strained stomachs with laughter.

Autumn of 1950 Yashin had to go to replace the injured Khomich in principle the game against Spartak. A young man's knees were trembling under the full program, and it is good not over. Yashin again ran, this time with Vsevolod Blinkova and Spartacist Nikolai Parshin calmly equalized. After the match in the locker room was a kind of police official and ordered to remove "this suckling" out of sight.

Up to 1953 Leo dull sitting in the reserve, and when inadvertently appeared on the field in a game with the citizens of Tbilisi, the numbers 4:1 in favor of Muscovites quickly turned into 4:4. Luckily Beskov at the end of the match scored the winning goal did. Yashin with grief left to play ice hockey and even won the USSR Cup with Dinamo.

And the loser is already in the mid-50's suddenly become the best goalkeeper of the Union. All due to impropriety simply: Khomich taught him to work on exercises to sweat. And the number gradually shifted to the quality. Yashin was standing at the gate beautifully, even elegantly. Contrary to the traditional technique 50 x Lev Ivanovich allowed himself far out of the gate and effectively thwart every attack of the enemy.

Zeal Yashin happily thereafter overlaid on an unprecedented rise in our football - a victory at the Olympic Games in Melbourne (1956) and winning the first ever European Cup (1960). In 1966, Lev Ivanovich became a winner of the British World Cup. In his biography goalie only four world championships, from 1958 th and 1970 th, the victory in the championship and Cup of the USSR. After Yashin Moscow Dynamo won the championship only once, in 1976, and even then it was in fact half of the championship (in the same year for some reason, as in Argentina, was determined by "spring" and "autumn" champions).

Lev Ivanovich stood at the gate to 41 years. Over his stretched on the field a few: Stanley Matthews, Roger Milla, Kemerovo nugget Vitaly handed out. His example was followed by Dino Zoff, Peter Shilton and Michel Preud'homme. The same way and should be departed from Manchester United, Peter Schmeichel.

Longevity might not happen. In the Soviet football those over thirty, ruthlessly discard. In 1962, after the ill-fated quarterfinal against Chile, Yashin has decided to part with Goalkeeper craft. On television, he did not show the championship, and launched version of the journalists that both missed balls to blame but he was instantly shattered country. Our good people demanded to remove the culprit "retire". Yashin went to the village, but in one remarkable day, decided to return. To spite all the ranters, and played so well that the next season, won the "Golden Ball", and "Dynamo" won the championship of the country confidently.

Smart, friendly, prepossess Lev Ivanovich became one of the most recognizable in the world of Soviet citizens. Autumn of 1963 he played for the national team of the world in a match dedicated to the 100 anniversary of English football. Then such matches are rare, and they brought attention to. In the stellar company (Puskц?s, Di Stefano, Kopa, Eusebio) Yashin not only not lost - he shone at Wembley, never missing allotted time for a single ball.

In the spring of 1971 on the farewell match Yashin met then the whole football beau monde, led by Bobby Charlton and Gerd Muller. Muller active and quite seriously Yashin tried to score a goal, but was unable to do. Lev Ivanovich went on Royal. Undefeated and unbeatable. In the sports media today can read that he had football, "hopelessly outdated", but one look at archival footage instantly realize that this is totally untrue. Yashin and his way of playing football acutely modern. Recall, for example, Lev Ivanovich belonged to fatal Goalkeeper gaffe: "What is the goalkeeper, if not tortured himself for a missed goal! Obligated to fester. When calm, it means the end. Whatever his past, he has no future ".

Decades of experience on the wear made themselves felt: the great goalkeeper overcame serious illness. On the occasion of its 60 th anniversary (its for the convenience of the audience was moved to August 1989), Yashin was the last time appeared before the public, bravely overcoming ailments. Then there were the alarming hospital everyday, giving the star of Hero of Socialist Labor. And untimely death in early 1990, the 61 th year of life. With the death of Lev Ivanovich Soviet football is over finally and irrevocably. Perhaps, in full for this loss, we still have to realize ...