Lev Yashin was born. "Why do I need a star when I'm dying?" Remembering Lev Yashin

The most famous Soviet footballer was born on October 22, 1929 in Moscow in an ordinary working-class family. His father, Ivan Petrovich, worked at an aircraft factory, and his mother, Anna Mitrofanovna, worked at the Krasny Bogatyr. They left the house early in the morning, and returned tired after dark: in the thirties, overtime work, mainly at the father's defense enterprise, had to be done very often. AT early childhood close relatives looked after Leo, however, as he got older, he was left to his own devices, preferring to spend all the time in the yard. The street became for Yashin a real school of life. In 1935, his mother died suddenly. A few years later, Ivan Petrovich married again - among other things, he realized that his son needed female supervision. Fortunately, the boy's relationship with his stepmother Alexandra Petrovna was warm. And in 1940, Yashin had a younger brother, Boris.

Leo's lifestyle was typical for boys from the working outskirts of Moscow. The children's entertainment was very diverse and often extremely dangerous - in addition to riding trams as "hares", they, finding sulfur or even gunpowder, made caps and threw them on the rails in front of the trams. In winter, the children went skiing sloping roofs local sheds, turning them into a kind of springboards. In order to successfully land and not earn a serious injury, it was necessary to show good coordination, composure and courage. Repeatedly Lev Yashin had a chance to participate in fights - both "one on one" and in "wall to wall" skirmishes.

The entire male population of the capital of the 1930s was "sick" of football, and, no doubt, this hobby could not pass over the boys. Together with his peers Leo from early spring to late autumn uncontrollably "cut" in football. The soccer balls familiar in our understanding did not yet exist, and the boys ran after balls tightly knitted from rags. Lev Ivanovich himself was a good striker as a child and did not even imagine that he would ever take a place at the gate.

In the summer of 1941, the life of an eleven-year-old Lev Yashin turned over sharply - his father took him to relatives in the village, but the war broke out, and they had to return to Moscow. Ivan Petrovich, as an employee of an aviation plant, was given a reservation, and in October the Yashin family went on an evacuation. They landed near Ulyanovsk, where they, together with other Muscovites in an open field, began the construction of a new plant. People lived in tents, Ivan Petrovich disappeared for days at work, and Lev, somehow studying in the fifth grade, nursed his little brother and helped Alexandra Petrovna with the housework. Of course, he did not like it too much, and the boy pestered his father with requests to take him to the factory.

In the fall of 1943, the father finally granted his son's wish - several workers from his shop went to the front, and they needed replacements. Very quickly, Yashin became a third-class locksmith, receiving a full-fledged work card, which he was very proud of. In the winter of 1943-1944, when workers laid fires in unheated workshops between machines and slept here on boxes of materials and tools, a fourteen-year-old teenager became addicted to smoking. He was taught this by his partner, who was afraid that Yashin would fall asleep at the machine from fatigue. And in early 1944, the plant returned from evacuation, and the Yashin family went home. Soon Victory Day came, and the sixteen-year-old Leo received the first in his life and at the same time the most expensive award for him - the medal "For Valiant Labor during the Great Patriotic War."

After the war, locksmith Yashin continued to work at his native enterprise and was in good standing there. Lev got up at half past six in the morning, and returned home late at night, as after work he studied at a school for working youth. Tired, first of all, psychologically - from a long road, hard monotonous work, classes at night school - Yashin found an outlet in mid-1945 by enrolling in the factory football section. The coach there was Vladimir Checherov, who, as soon as he saw the lanky guy, immediately put him in the goal. The lion did not like this, but the desire to play was much stronger, and he decided to remain silent. Workers of the plant trained on Sundays, the only day off. Soon Yashin was included in the factory team and took part in the regional football championship.

In early 1948, colleagues and relatives of Lev Ivanovich began to notice that something was wrong with him. Yashin himself said about this: “Something suddenly broke in me. I have never been known as a quarrelsome person or with a difficult character. And then everything at home and at work began to annoy, he walked all twitchy, he could flare up over any trifle. In the end, I packed my things and left the house. I also stopped going to the factory.” Absence from work at that time was considered as sabotage at a defense enterprise and was a reason for criminal prosecution. Fortunately, fellow football players advised Yashin to ask for military service even before reaching draft age. In the military enlistment office, Lev Ivanovich was met halfway; already in the spring of 1948 he was assigned to one of the units of the Interior Ministry troops stationed in Moscow. They quickly found out that Yashin was a football goalkeeper, and included him in one of the unit's teams. Soon Lev Ivanovich took part in the championship of the capital city council "Dynamo".

Fate smiled on the young man. Once the goalkeeper of one of the teams of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was injured during the warm-up, and Lev Ivanovich had to play two matches in a row. During these fights, Arkady Chernyshev, the coach of the Dynamo youth team of masters, drew attention to him. How he managed to see the genius in the tall goalkeeper, who scored four goals in two games that day, Arkady Ivanovich himself did not really understand - in any case, he later explained it in different ways. After the end of the matches, he invited Yashin to join the Dynamo youth team.

Having started working with Leo, the coach immediately noticed that the guy was much more resilient and conscientious than his teammates. At the same time, Chernyshev discovered a rare analytical gift in the pupil - Lev himself tried to explain to the coach the mistakes he had made during the game and tried to find out how they could be corrected. Working hard, the young man successfully played both in the championship and in the Moscow Cup in 1949. In the semi-final battle, the Dynamo "youth team" met with the Dynamo team, staffed partly by veterans, partly by spare players from the team of masters. Arkady Chernyshev himself took part in the game along with the once famous football players Vasily Trofimov and Sergey Ilyin. The match caused a great stir, the stands of the Dynamo Small Stadium were bursting with spectators who had come. Lev Ivanovich was more reliable than ever and helped his partners win 1:0.

In the fall of 1949, Mikhail Yakushin, the head coach of Dynamo, took Yashin to the main team on the recommendation of Chernyshev. Nevertheless, it was only an advance for the future - two first-class goalkeepers played for Dynamo in those years - the ambitious Walter Sanaya and the experienced Alexei Khomich, nicknamed the "Tiger". Lev Ivanovich could take their place in the Dynamo gates only with a successful combination of circumstances. Initially, Mikhail Iosifovich was distrustful of the new goalkeeper: the long, awkward, thin goalkeeper was very strange - either very constrained, or, on the contrary, relaxed and “unscrewed”. His habit of going far out of the gate was also alarming, which sometimes led to discouraging mistakes. Nevertheless, his incredible diligence and perseverance bribed. Football aces who played in Dynamo liked to stay on the field after training and “knock” on goal. Yashin - in the mud and dust - was spinning like a squirrel in a wheel. It was the experienced forwards who always “surrendered” first, and not the young goalkeeper.

Alexey Khomich, at the request of Yakushin, took the young goalkeeper under his wing. Alexey Petrovich generously shared with Leo the secrets of mastery, while being surprised at his seriousness and thoroughness. Following the example of Khomich, the young goalkeeper started a special notebook in which he noted the actions of goalkeepers and field players after the games he saw, and also wrote down the most important things he learned from teammates and coaches. In the summer of 1950, both leading goalkeepers of the team “broke down” one after another, and on July 2, at the seventy-fifth minute of the match with Spartak from the capital, Lev Ivanovich entered the field of the local Dynamo stadium for the first time in his life. His team was leading 1:0 by this point, but due to a ridiculous oversight by Yashin, who collided with his own defender at the exit from the gate, the final score became 1:1. And four days later there was a complete embarrassment. In the away game with Dynamo Tbilisi, the capital's players started confidently (4:1), but then Yashin conceded three goals in a row in fifteen minutes, and two of them were clearly on his conscience. Although the team of Lev Ivanovich managed to snatch a victory (5:4), the young goalkeeper was excommunicated for a long time from big football - he had to play only for a double for three years.

The offensive three-year "link" to the backup team went to Lev Ivanovich in the end to the benefit. The understudies had their own championship, and thus Yashin had no downtime. Constantly being in the game, he gradually gained confidence in his abilities. However, the most important thing is that it was here that Lev Ivanovich could calmly improve his unique goalkeeping style. However, this could not be called style. It was whole system game, which consisted in the fact that the goalkeeper not only protected the goal frame, but, in fact, was the organizer of the entire team game. Yashin set his goal not only to repel shots on goal, but also to interrupt the enemy’s attacks in the bud. To do this, he often ran far into the field - outside the penalty area - and played with his feet and head. In fact, Lev Ivanovich acted as another defender, cleaning up the tactical mistakes of his partners. Having mastered the ball, the goalkeeper immediately tried to organize a counterattack. For greater accuracy, he, as a rule, sent the ball to the attackers not with his foot, as was customary in those years, but with his hand. And, finally, Yashin prompted the defense players which specific zones needed to be covered. All this led to the fact that the enemy was not allowed to hit on goal or was forced to do it from disadvantageous positions. Partners, who quickly understood the usefulness of the goalkeeper's advice, immensely trusted Yashin's "eccentricities".

Meanwhile, Arkady Chernyshev did not forget about his pupil. In the thirties and forties, almost all Soviet football players put on skates and played bandy in winter - its rules resembled football ones and such a transition was not difficult for the players. Lev Ivanovich, on the other hand, showed the makings of an outstanding striker on the ice. In the early fifties, Canadian hockey was already being cultivated in the USSR with might and main, and Chernyshev was among the first to take up its development. In the fall of 1950, a couple of months after Yashin's unsuccessful debut in the first team, Arkady Ivanovich invited him to try his hand at ice hockey as a striker. However, Yashin himself, despite his impressive growth, wanted to take the gate. Only in March 1953 did he have the opportunity to play in the USSR Cup as an understudy for the Estonian Karl Liiv. He performed quite well and helped his team to win the honorary prize. It is curious that Lev received the title of master of sports first as a hockey player, and only then as a football player. Given the sympathy of Chernyshev, who was the head coach of the USSR national hockey team, he had excellent prospects in 1954 to be part of the main hockey squad and go to Sweden for the World Championship, where, I must say, our team won gold medals for the first time. However, Yashin liked football much more, and, having received a place in the Dynamo starting lineup in 1953, Lev Ivanovich left hockey forever.

On May 2, 1953, the twenty-four-year-old Yashin again appeared on the field of the Dynamo stadium in a match with the capital's Lokomotiv. From the very first minutes, Zhuravl (as the fans called it in those years) played so reliably that since then its place at the base has not been in doubt. And on September 8, 1954, Yashin played his first match for the national team. Soviet football players defeated the Swedes with a score of 7:0. The triumphant return of Lev Ivanovich to big football coincided in time with both the "golden age" of the capital's "Dynamo", and with the outstanding achievements of the national team Soviet Union, one of the first teams in the world. It was Yashin who played a huge role in the success of our players. In the first decade of the legendary goalkeeper's appearance for Dynamo, the club became the champion five times and took second place three times. The defense led by him was considered the most reliable in the country and successfully resisted the strongest torpedo and Spartak forwards in the USSR. Yashin himself, who perfectly studied the style of their game, acted on them like a boa constrictor on rabbits. Defense players in international matches coped with their duties somewhat worse - they knew less about the "habits" of foreign attackers, which means that Lev Ivanovich more often had to enter the game, demonstrating his skills.

In the fifties, Moscow Spartak and Dynamo, as well as the national team of the Soviet Union, began to increasingly go abroad for friendly games with the strongest foreign teams. Yashin was seen in Europe already in 1954, when Dynamo defeated the famous Milan with a score of 4: 1. The results of the games of the USSR national team were just as successful in general - it is enough to note two victories over the German national team, which was world champions (in 1955 in Moscow - 3:2 and in 1956 in Hannover - 2:1). The victory in these matches, as well as the triumph of the Soviet team in the fall of 1956 in Melbourne at the Olympic tournament, was largely determined by the game of the goalkeeper. It was the goalkeeper, who "pulled" literally everything, ensured victory (1:0) in the most difficult final duel with the Yugoslavs, who owned the initiative for the main part of the match.

The victory at the Olympic tournament elevated the players of the national team to the rank of national heroes. The titles of Honored Masters of Sports were awarded to eleven participants in the final match, including Lev Ivanovich. But the strongest football teams of the planet did not participate in this Olympiad, they were considered - unlike players from the socialist countries - professionals. The Soviet team had to prove its strength at the 1958 World Cup. Preparation for it was difficult. Glory turned the heads of a number of young players, and the team did not play very well in the qualifying matches - a replay with the Poles was needed. The Soviet players eventually defeated the Polish national team (2: 0), but thunder struck right before leaving for Sweden. Three players from the main squad, who had spent a stormy evening with the girls the day before, were arrested. The incident also took a heavy toll on the team's morale.

Our players had to fight with the national teams of Brazil, Austria and England to get out of the group. And already the first match with the British, which was successfully developing at first (the score was 2:0 after the first half), went sideways - with the score 2:1, the judge from Hungary awarded a penalty to our goal for a violation that happened outside the penalty area. The Soviet players tried to protest the decision, but the referee answered them: “Not fair? And in the 56th you acted honestly? So the entry of Soviet troops into Hungary backfired on the football arena ... The USSR team played a draw with the British (2:2), and then our athletes beat the Austrians (2:0) and lost to the Brazilians (0:2), the future world champions. A day after the third match was to meet again with the England team for reaching the quarterfinals. The exhausted players of both teams fought to the last, and our players turned out to be stronger (the score was 1:0). However, resist - again in a day! - three times more resting Swedish team, they failed - 0:2. They had nothing to reproach themselves with, Yashin, for example, lost seven kilograms at that competition, and the Western press spoke admiringly of him as the best goalkeeper in the world.

By today's standards, the performance of the national team could be considered successful - a place in the top eight and losing only to vice-champions and world champions. However, in those years, only the most maximalist tasks were set. Both the players and the coaches of the team were criticized, and only Yashin was not touched. In July 1960, the USSR national team, which significantly rejuvenated the composition, took part in the first European Championship. A number of leading football federations (England, Germany, Italy) refused to participate in the competition. The teams of the USSR, France, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia advanced to the final stage of the championship. Confidently beating the Czechoslovaks (3:0), our team met with skilled Yugoslavs. In the first half, the advantage was with the opponent, but Yashin was reliable. Gradually, the Yugoslavs, who had played the duel with the French the day before, "got hooked", and the game leveled off. And in the 113th minute Viktor Monday scored the winning goal (2:1).

The phenomenal game of Yashin amazed not only his opponents, but also those who happened to play with him on the same team. Striker Valentin Bubukin spoke about this: "All of us - Ivanov, Meskhi, Streltsov, I - played, and Lev lived in football." In practice, according to Bubukin, it happened like this: “In 1960, our team beat the Poles 7:1. The goalkeeper rushed after the ball just a couple of times. But here's what he did, in his own words, during the game: “Knocked Kesareva out of the gate, but did not switch off from the episode, but mentally worked as a right-back. He shouted: let's go to Ivanov, then for Vanka he gave a pass to Monday, together with him he struck at the gate. Then he worked in defense, hedged his partners. The opposing striker got into a good position and hit hard, I took the ball with almost no movement. The press then wrote: "Yashin, having read the combination, was in the right place!" However, he did not read the combination, he PARTICIPATED in it!

French journalists called the Russian goalkeeper a "playing coach." In 1961, the leading football magazine of Argentina described the game of Lev Ivanovich as follows: “Yashin showed us what a goalkeeper should be in football. With his instructions, with his commanding voice, with his exits and passes to the edge of the field, he is the basis of the Russian defense, effectively eliminating the best combinations. He really deserves to be called the best goalkeeper in the world, because he became the author of a certain system of the football game.

Winning the European Cup resurrected the hopes of our fans for the successful performance of the team at the next World Cup, held in Chile in May 1962. However, disappointment awaited them - the USSR national team, having started very cheerfully (victory over the Yugoslavs 2: 0), looked more and more tired from game to game. With great difficulty, beating the Colombians and Uruguayans, the Soviet players reached the quarterfinals. At the beginning of the match with the hosts of the championship, Lev Ivanovich received a concussion - one of the Chilean forwards dealt him a severe blow to the head. Substitutions were not allowed at that time, and the goalkeeper was forced to play until the end of the entire match. It is not surprising that he did not save the team in the eleventh and twenty-seventh minutes. There was still an hour of playing time left, but the Soviet players were still unable to score.

At home, the performance of the football team was perceived as a shame. Yashin became the scapegoat this time. It should be noted here that deeply disappointed football fans could judge what happened only by the articles of TASS correspondents and radio reports by Nikolai Ozerov. And from them it just followed that the goalkeeper was to blame for the early departure of Soviet football players, first of all, who did not beat off two long-range and supposedly simple blows - "for Yashin to miss such balls is unforgivable." It seemed that in the current situation, the thirty-two-year-old goalkeeper should retire. Fortunately, the head coach of Dynamo Ponomarev was sympathetic to the feelings of Lev Ivanovich, who did not even try to defend himself from unfair accusations. Often, instead of training, the mentor sent Yashin on a fishing trip so that he could put his feelings in order.

It took a long time to restore peace of mind to the goalkeeper. For the first time, he stood in the frame in Tashkent on July 22 in the Dynamo game with the local Pakhtakor. By autumn, Yashin had regained his fitness form, having conceded only four goals in the last eleven matches of the USSR championship. And in the 1963 USSR Championship, Lev Ivanovich set a record of impenetrability at all, having defended “to zero” in 22 out of 27 games and conceding only six goals. At the end of the year, he received an invitation to play in a friendly game of the world team against the England team. The match dedicated to the 100th anniversary of English football took place on October 23, 1963. The Soviet leadership, which, in general, favored Lev Ivanovich, took an unprecedented step - a live TV broadcast of the game. The famous goalkeeper defended the gates of the world team for the entire first half, and defended in such a way that his game became the main event of the match. The opponent delivered many dangerous shots on goal, but Yashin could not break through. In the second half he was replaced by Yugoslav Milutin Soskic, whom the British scored two goals. The 25-year-old English goalkeeper Gordon Banks, who is still considered the No. 1 goalkeeper in British football, subsequently wrote: “One half spent on the field with him was enough for me to understand that we have a genius in front of us. ... I'm sure if Yashin had remained at the gate, we would not have won. I also remember that the audience at the stadium reacted to Lev more emotionally than to our players. When he left the field, they gave him a real standing ovation. After playing in the world team, Yashin's international authority rose to sky-high heights. A vote by the French edition of France Football recognized Lev Ivanovich as the best football player in Europe in 1963. Yashin became the first goalkeeper to be awarded the Golden Ball.

It should be noted that throughout his football life, Lev Ivanovich, not sparing himself, trained hard. For the most part, he "rattled his bones" on grassless driving ranges, stony in summer, muddy and wet in autumn and spring. In one training session, Yashin received over 200 blows to the chest with a ball. He had, obviously, a completely “beaten off” stomach. But this iron man not only did not wince in pain, but demanded that they beat on his gates and with close range, and point blank. Only once in her life his wife Valentina Timofeevna visited her husband’s training and ran home in tears - she was unable to see such a “torture”. The famous hockey player Vladimir Yurzinov recalled how in the fall of 1970 he happened to watch a two-hour training session of Dynamo football players. Lev Ivanovich was in the game all the time. Then the players went home, and only the 41-year-old goalkeeper and several guys from the team remained on the field, agreeing to “knock” on the goal at his request. When the tired youth left the field, Yashin, noticing the hockey players, persuaded the "real men" to kick him. Vladimir Vladimirovich said: “And we beat. To sweat, to frenzy, to darkness. That's when the camera was needed, the crowd of reporters, flashes of blitzes. That's when people would see the real Yashin - a great man and athlete."

In 1964, the USSR team played in the second European Cup held in Spain. Having easily dealt with the Danes in the semi-finals (3:0), she met with the hosts of the tournament. The game had a clear political connotation - four years earlier, Franco forbade his athletes to play with the national team of the Soviet Union. Despite the confident play of our players, they lost the match (2:1). Fortunately, the goalkeeper was not blamed for the defeat. After that, the USSR national team was headed by Nikolai Morozov, who headed for the renewal of the composition. Throughout 1965, young Yuri Pshenichnikov, Anzor Kavazashvili and Viktor Bannikov alternately defended the gates, and Yashin returned to the national team only in the fall, at the beginning of the qualifying matches. At the end of the year, the Soviet team went on a tour of Latin America, where she played with the strongest teams of the New World. Lev Ivanovich also took part in this trip, defending the gate during the games with the teams of Brazil (2:2) and Argentina (1:1). The performance of the veteran convinced the coach of his indispensability: “We have two Yashins in the frame! Himself and his last name. Even the two-time world champions, led by Pele himself, experienced obvious reverence for the Soviet goalkeeper, and seemed to attack his goal with timidity.

In July 1966, the 36-year-old goalkeeper went to the World Cup in England, where he again became one of the main characters. However, this time he did not play in all, but only in the most important meetings. Having taken first place in the preliminary tournament, the USSR national team defeated the Hungarians in the quarterfinals, and for the first time in history reached the semifinals of the world championship. The game with the FRG team was extremely difficult - at the beginning of the match our midfielder Jozsef Sabo was injured, in the middle of the game the best Soviet striker Igor Chislenko was sent off. A series of unforced oversights on the part of the defenders crossed out Yashin's brilliant game - the Soviet team lost with a score of 1:2. One of the local newspapers called the Soviet goalkeeper the "tragic hero" of the match.

Returning to his homeland, Lev Ivanovich continued to play for his native Dynamo and for various teams: his country, Europe and the world. In his long career as a goalkeeper, Lev Ivanovich has seen many coaches. Relations with them were built, as a rule, on mutual respect. Mentors, understanding the special role of Yashin in the team, usually turned a blind eye to his smoking habit. Another privilege of the famous goalkeeper was the right to leave hotels and training bases and go fishing - even on foreign trips, he carried fishing tackle with him and, upon arrival, first of all asked the locals where the nearest reservoir was located. In his own words, watching the bobber calmed his nerves and helped him tune in to the game.

AT last time Yashin played for the Soviet national team on July 16, 1967 in a match with the Greek national team. At the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, he was in the application as the third goalkeeper, but he did not enter the field. When the head coach suggested that he go to the game with the players of El Salvador in order to “check in” at the championship, Lev Ivanovich flatly refused, not wanting to deprive the main goalkeeper Anzor Kavazashvili of confidence. And on May 27, 1971, Yashin's farewell match took place, in which the world team played against the Dynamo team. Lev Ivanovich played for fifty minutes and did not concede a single goal, then giving way to Vladimir Pilguy, who was scored twice by world football stars. The match ended with the score 2:2.

Having completed his football career at an unthinkably late age (at 41), Yashin headed his native team, and in 1975 became deputy head of the hockey and football department of the Dynamo Central Council. A year later, Lev Ivanovich left for a similar job at the Sports Committee. Very often, they turned to him for a variety of help - both familiar people associated with sports, and those whom Yashin had not seen before. And he helped - went to the authorities, called, punched. A great many letters came to him, and he at least looked through all of them. Sometimes incidents happened because of this: once, in response to a warm letter, a fan from Uzbekistan arrived in Moscow, bringing his wife and seven children with him. He showed up at Lev Ivanovich's apartment, turning it into a hostel for a whole week. All this time, Yashin fed the guests at his own expense and showed them Moscow.

Outwardly, the fate of the former football player looked quite safe, but it was only outwardly - the famous goalkeeper felt like a "black sheep" in the world of officials and could not do anything about it. Accustomed to telling his partners whatever he considered necessary, he found it difficult to put up with the need to hide his thoughts or express himself roundly. "Colleagues" also did not favor him. In the course of public events, being next to Yashin, the country's largest officials involuntarily found out their true price - it was the legendary goalkeeper that the attention of the audience was always drawn to. In 1982, Yashin - despite the personal invitation of the organizers - was not included in the Soviet delegation that went to the World Cup in Spain. The bewilderment expressed on this occasion by the international football community led to the fact that sports officials still took Yashin with them as ... an interpreter. It must be said that the proud football player did not agree with the humiliating status for a long time, but in the end he realized that his “colleagues” characterized themselves by this, not him. Of course, in Spain everything fell into place - the football world perceived him precisely as Yashin and nothing else.

With age, the numerous illnesses of the great goalkeeper began to remind of themselves more and more. Some of them arose a long time ago, for example, a stomach ulcer, others appeared after the body stopped receiving the usual physical exercise. Long-term smoking played a fatal role. Yashin had a stroke, followed by a couple of heart attacks, gangrene, which led to the amputation of his legs, cancer ... March 20, 1990 he died.

Everyone who knew Lev Ivanovich admitted that he was an extraordinary person. And this was not due to his rare football talent. Even more contemporaries were struck by Yashin's human talent. The former locksmith, who only graduated from the school for working youth, knew how to behave with dignity among working people, and next to football and non-football celebrities. Both partners and rivals Yashin enjoyed unquestioning authority. “Screaming” during matches at the defenders, outside the game, he never tried to command anyone and did not try to stand out. He endured grievances patiently, never trying to evade responsibility, if indeed, he was at least a little guilty. Relatives, trying to save the goalkeeper from "self-discipline", told him: "Why are you tormenting yourself, did the team win?" However, Yashin answered this: "The field players won, but I lost." Another characteristic episode - the boys who served balls during the matches, said that Yashin - the famous Yashin - said “thank you” to them for each ball served and never cursed if they were involuntarily mistaken.

To get acquainted, and even more so to make friends with Lev Ivanovich, was considered an honor by all football stars without exception. With many outstanding athletes, Yashin had a purely human sympathy, so among his close friends were football players Franz Beckenbauer, Uwe Seeler, Ferenc Puskas, Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, Bobby Charlton, Eusebio, Gyula Grosic and Pele himself. The great Brazilian athlete always looked at Yashin with reverence and, when he came to Moscow, he would definitely visit him.

Based on the materials of the weekly edition “Our history. 100 Great Names” and books by A.M. Soskin "Shine through tears".

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Yashin, Lev I. Goalkeeper. Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1957). Master of Sports of the USSR of international class (1966).

Pupil of the football school at the plant "Red October" in Tushino.

He played for the Dynamo Moscow team (1950–1970).

Spent 326 (22 seasons) matches in the championships of the USSR. The statistics of the public press center of the Moscow "Dynamo" for the farewell match of L. Yashin counted all his games. There were 812 of them. In terms of the number of medals won, he is the record holder among Soviet football players.

Champion of the USSR 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959 and 1963 USSR Cup Winner 1953, 1967 and 1970 In the list of 33 best players of the season - 14 times - a record of Soviet football.

The best goalkeeper of the USSR (Ogonyok magazine prize) 1960, 1963 and 1966

In the USSR national team - 74 matches - 14 seasons in a row, he played for the national team up to 38 years old (he played for the USSR Olympic team in 6 matches).

Participant of the World Championships 1958, 1962, 1966 (4th place) Olympic champion in 1956. Winner of the European Cup in 1960. Silver medalist of the European Cup in 1964. He played 2 times for the world team (with England in 1963 and Brazil in 1968).

In 1963, he was the first and only goalkeeper to be recognized as the best football player in Europe and awarded the Golden Ball.

In 1986, he was awarded the highest award of the International Olympic Committee - the Olympic Order for his merits in the development of the Olympic movement. In 1988 he was awarded the FIFA Golden Order "For Services to Football".

Head of the Dynamo Moscow team (1971 - 1975). Deputy Head of the Football and Hockey Department of the Dynamo Central Sports Center (1975 - 1976). Deputy Head of the Football Department of the USSR Sports Committee for educational work (1976 - 1984). Senior coach of the Central Sports Center "Dynamo" for educational work (1985 - 1990). Deputy Chairman of the USSR Football Federation (1981 - 1989).

He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1957, 1971), Lenin (1967, 1990), gold medal - Hammer and Sickle, Hero of Socialist Labor (1990).

In 1996, a street in Togliatti was named after Yashin. Since 1990, the Dynamo Moscow football school has been named after him. On May 2, 1997, a monument to Yashin was unveiled on the territory of the Central Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. In 2000, a memorial to Lev Yashin was erected at the main entrance to the Dynamo stadium in Moscow.

Not a single goalkeeper in the world has enjoyed such popularity. His game is a whole era in the development of goalkeeper art. He had excellent coordination of movements and lightning-fast reaction. He was able to foresee how the attack would develop, and, accordingly, to choose a position. Fights with attackers - one on one - he won almost everything. He was not only an outstanding goalkeeper, but also to a large extent an innovator. In particular, his exits far from the goal, which greatly helped the defenders to repel the attacks of opponents, the introduction of the ball into the game with his hand, which allowed him to quickly start counterattacks, the skillful management of the defense has firmly entered the practice of goalkeepers, and until now experts and commentators call these techniques "Yashinsky" .

During his performances on the football field, Lev Yashin kept his goal “dry” in 270 games and repelled more than 150 penalties.

HONEST LIFE IN FOOTBALL

No matter what they say today, we had great era. Because no one, even the most rabid hater of our country, will dare to say that such symbols of Russia of the 20th century as Yuri Gagarin or Lev Yashin were "slaves" or "an invention of Soviet propaganda." It was Gagarin and Yashin who personified the two most attractive sides of the Russian character. The first cosmonaut of the planet is an unstoppable impulse into the unknown. The first goalkeeper of the world - reliability, endurance, stubborn defense of native borders to the end, through I can't.

Lev Ivanovich Yashin was born on October 22, 1929 in Moscow. He was in his seventh year when the legendary film "Goalkeeper" based on the book by Lev Kassil appeared on the screens. The powerful figure of the "goalkeeper of the republic" Anton Kandidov, who defeated severe rivals from among the "black buffaloes", became an example for millions of boys to follow. Football in those days was not just a sport game. He was also a game heroic, romantic and irresistibly attractive. And when in the fall of the victorious 1945 the Moscow Dynamo made a brilliant tour to the camp of the British allies, the 16-year-old Leva Yashin had no doubts: only the Moscow Dynamo. At the gate there was someone to look at: the jumping Aleksey Khomich, nicknamed by the British "Tiger", in the late 40s was in splendor and grandeur. Lev Ivanovich studied goalkeeping skills from him, according to the old tradition, carrying a suitcase with ammunition for the master.

The childhood and youth of the best goalkeeper in the world were not easy. Little Lyova lived with his parents and other numerous relatives in a cramped apartment on Millionnaya Street, not far from the Krasny Bogatyr factory. He studied football in his native yard, between playing Cossack robbers and putting caps on tram rails. Buying a leatherette ball in clubbing brought great joy. Yashin's childhood, like all his peers, ended in 1941, with the outbreak of war. Together with his parents, he went to the evacuation near Ulyanovsk. After graduating from five classes, the boy went to a military factory as an apprentice locksmith. In 1944, the Yashins returned to Moscow, but the factory routine continued. From Sokolniki Leva had to travel to work in Tushino by two trams and the metro. Yashin's first coach, Vladimir Checherov, immediately singled him out in the line of boys and put him in the goal. And in the courtyard of Lev was considered a scorer ...

Dynamo Lev Ivanovich became almost by accident. Exhausting factory work led the 18-year-old guy to a mental breakdown. Yashin left home, moved in with a friend and stopped going to the factory. Kind people advised to go to the army - otherwise you could get a term for parasitism. He began to serve in Moscow, and soon, with the light hand of Arkady Ivanovich Chernyshev, he ended up in the youth team of the Moscow Dynamo. And in the spring of 1949, he was already the third goalkeeper of the main team, after Khomich and Walter Sanay. Yashin's goalkeeper service began with three stupid embarrassments. In the spring of 1949, in Gagra, Dynamo played a test match with the Stalingrad Tractor. The goalkeeper famously knocked the ball out of Stalingrad, and Yashin was preparing to catch it, but collided with defender Averyanov. The ownerless ball treacherously flew into the goal. The venerable Dynamo team led by Beskov, Kartsev and Malyavkin burst their stomachs with laughter. In the fall of 1950, Yashin had to replace the injured Khomich in a principled game with Spartak. The young man's knees trembled in full, and the matter did not end well. Yashin again faced, this time with Vsevolod Blinkov, and Spartak's Nikolai Parshin calmly equalized the score. After the match, a certain police rank appeared in the locker room and ordered to remove "this sucker" out of sight. Until 1953, Lev sat deafly in reserve, and when he accidentally appeared on the field in a game with Tbilisi, the numbers 4:1 in favor of Muscovites quickly turned into 4:4. It's good that Beskov scored the winning goal at the end of the match. Yashin went out of grief to play ice hockey and even won the USSR Cup with Dynamo.

And this loser in the mid-50s suddenly became the best goalkeeper of the Union. Everything was explained obscenely simply: Khomich taught him to work in training until a seventh sweat. And the quantity gradually turned into quality. Yashin stood at the gate beautifully, even elegantly. Contrary to the traditional technique of the 50s, Lev Ivanovich allowed himself to go far out of the gate and effectively disrupt the attacks of a superior enemy. Yashin's zeal happily superimposed on the unprecedented upsurge of our football later - victory at the Olympics in Melbourne (1956) and winning the first European Cup in history (1960). In 1966, Lev Ivanovich became the winner of the English World Championship. In his goalkeeper biography, there are only four world championships, from 1958 to 1970, victories in the championship and the USSR Cup. After Yashin, Dynamo Moscow won the championship only once, in 1976, and even then it was actually half of the championship (for some reason, in that year, for some reason, as in Argentina, the “spring” and “autumn” champions were determined).

Lev Ivanovich stood at the gate until the age of 41. Only a few have extended it on the field more: Stanley Matthews, Roger Milla, Kemerovo nugget Vitaly Razdaev. His example was followed by Dino Zoff, Peter Shilton and Michel Prudhomme. Peter Schmeichel, who left Manchester United, follows the same path.

Longevity might not happen. In Soviet football, those over thirty were culled ruthlessly. In 1962, after the ill-fated quarter-final with Chile, Yashin decided to give up the goalkeeping profession. That championship was not shown on TV, and the version launched by journalists that only he was to blame for both conceded goals instantly spread throughout the country. Our good people demanded to remove the culprit "to retire." Yashin retired to the village, but one wonderful day he decided to return. To spite all the screamers, he played so well that the next season he received the Golden Ball, and Dynamo confidently won the national championship.

Smart, friendly, endearing, Lev Ivanovich became one of the most recognizable Soviet citizens in the world. In the autumn of 1963, he played for the world team in a match dedicated to the 100th anniversary of English football. Back then, such matches were rare and attracted close attention. In the stellar company (Pushkas, di Stefano, Kopa, Eusebiu), Yashin not only did not get lost - he shone at Wembley, not missing a single ball in the time allotted to him. In the spring of 1971, the entire then football beau monde, headed by Bobby Charlton and Gerd Muller, gathered at Yashin's farewell match. Muller actively and in all seriousness tried to score a goal for Yashin, but he could not do it. Lev Ivanovich left like a king. Undefeated and unsurpassed. In the sports press today you can read that that football is "hopelessly outdated", but at one glance at the newsreel footage, you instantly realize that this is a complete lie. Yashin and his manner of playing football are poignantly modern. Recall, for example, how Lev Ivanovich treated fatal goalkeeper misses: “What kind of goalkeeper is this if he doesn’t torment himself for a missed goal! He is obliged to torment. If he is calm, then the end. .

Decades of wear and tear made themselves felt: the great goalkeeper was overcome by serious illnesses. At the celebration of his 60th birthday (it was postponed to August 1989 for the convenience of the public), Yashin appeared before the public for the last time, courageously overcoming ailments. Then there were anxious hospital days, the awarding of the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. And an untimely death in early 1990, at the age of 61. With the death of Lev Ivanovich, Soviet football ended completely and irrevocably. Perhaps we still have to fully realize this loss ...

His last 813th match took place on May 27, 1971. At the end of the farewell match, Lev Ivanovich Yashin addressed the stands at Luzhniki with a short, awkward speech. "Thank you people." He left with the rank of a national hero. On the Alley of Sports Glory in Luzhniki there is a monument to the greatest football player of our time - Lev Yashin.

Yuri BORISENOK. Magazine "My football" №9, 1999

MUCH VISIBLE FROM THE GATE

It is superfluous to prove that goalkeepers during the match have better conditions for observation than field players. Therefore, the impressions of Lev Yashin are of particular interest. After the VIII World Cup, his friend from the national team of the fifties, Sergei Salnikov, talked to him.

Tell me, Leva, where did your distant exits from the gates go, which delighted some, made others clutch their hearts, because they seemed too risky, but in any case did not leave anyone indifferent?

Yes, indeed, there are now fewer such exits, and I explain this primarily by a change in tactical systems. Earlier, in the days of "double-ve", full-backs and a lone-centre stood at a great distance from each other. The wide corridors between them involuntarily tempted opponents to send long passes into the gap. Therefore, quite often I had to make distant sorties, which seemed risky from the outside. Such measures were useful: they spared my protection partners from waste forces and nipped in the bud martial arts that were ready to arise. In fact, these sorties were safe, because they required only an elementary calculation. Now it's different. With the approval of the second central defender, an additional link appeared in previously stretched communications. The defense became more saturated, gaping gaps almost disappeared in it, and, finally, it began to show a steady tendency to move back, closer to the goalkeeper, in order to vigilantly guard the most dangerous area - the approaches to the goal. The reasons for the disappearance of a long pass into the breakthrough lie in the tactically more competent location of the defenders in relation to their wards.

But after all, defense does not always deprive opponents of operational space in the depth of the field! Cases when they, supporting the offensive of their attackers, advance to middle line fields confirm this. The question is, how to explain the absence of a long forward pass from the opponent under such seemingly favorable conditions?

I have already said that the defenders have become more cunning. Being at the middle line, they do not risk attacking the attacker immediately, but prefer to have a head start, which allows them to easily come to the ball first in the event of a long pass. Under such conditions, this pass became nonsense and sank into oblivion, and with it my distant raids.

At the World Cup, five goals were scored against you. How would you characterize each of them?

Talking about it, as you yourself understand, is unpleasant. But I will try to objectively tell about these sad memory cases.

Hungarian Bene scored the first goal for me. Its history is simple. Bene opened well in the place of the right center of attack and received a pass to the legs. The path to the gate suddenly turned out to be open, and Bene went out with me one on one. Realizing that there was nothing else left, I rushed towards him, trying to prevent the blow with a throw to the legs. But the Hungarian, who had enough time to correctly assess all the advantages of his position, coolly disposed of the ball and sent it, raising it above me, into the net.

In a meeting with the German team, Haller opened the scoring. He received a diagonal pass - in my opinion, from Schnellinger - and, it seemed, before he hit the ball, he had to handle the ball, because he was almost with his back to the goal. I instinctively stepped forward to cut his angle of fire. But against anticipation, Haller immediately struck from a very difficult and disadvantageous position. The blow was not strong, but unexpected, and this decided the matter.

In the same match, I missed a goal from Beckenbauer. Beckenbauer with the ball slowly moved towards our goal, looking out along the way, who would be more profitable to pass. He could not decide this for a long time, since all the partners were covered. I bent low, and with difficulty, through the flashing gaps in the palisade of the feet of the players, I tried not to lose sight of him. And yet, unfortunately, at the decisive moment, at the moment of impact, Beckenbauer was hidden from me by the players, and I saw the ball flying into the corner, too late. This is the truth about this goal, which caused a lot of conflicting opinions.

The next goal - from the 11-meter - from Eusebio. Playing with him for the European team in Split against the national team of Yugoslavia, I noticed that his favorite goal angle is under the right hand of the goalkeeper. And here, at the championship, he hit three 11-meter shots before meeting us - and all in the same corner. I had the right to think that he would not change his habit at such a crucial moment, and I prepared for this. However, it turned out to be impossible to do anything: the blow was so targeted and strong.

And, finally, about the last, fifth, ball - in a meeting with Portugal. After a short cross at about 11 meters mark, a fight for a top pass between Korneev and Augusto ensued. Augusto jumped a little higher and earlier and dropped the ball to the side. Turned out to be next to Torres on the move and without interference, powerfully struck under the post. To save the situation, in my opinion, it was impossible.

By the way, is it possible to take any ball in general, or are there so-called indisputable goals, after which it remains only to shrug?

A somewhat abstract question. It can be answered in two ways. Theoretically, any blows are deflected, but for this, in each case, the goalkeeper must - and sometimes this is possible by pure chance - be in the right place on the goal. But it has been practically proven that any, even the most trifling, ball can be conceded due to untimely switching of attention, uneven fields and many other reasons. So in the end it all depends on the fitness of the goalkeeper and partly on a combination of fortunate or unfavorable circumstances.

Which of the goalkeepers and what did you like about the championship?

More than others, I was impressed by the Englishman Banks and the Italian Albertosi. The first draws attention to itself with an exceptionally simple manner of playing, devoid of any artifice. At the same time, endowed with excellent reaction and sharpness, he plays equally confidently both on the goal line and on the exits. The Italian captivates with flexibility and harmony, very plastic and sensitive in handling the ball - in other words, he has excellent technique. In addition - and this is important - he knows how to support and turn the dynamics of the situation to the benefit of his team, quickly and accurately introducing the ball into the game with his hand.

Banks and Albertosi are both strong. I admit that if they had to change teams, then Albertosi, who remained somewhat in the background due to the unsuccessful performance of the Italian national team, could attract more attention,

What do you think has changed in the game of goalkeeping since you started? What techniques have gone out of use and what have appeared?

Nothing has lost its value from the previously accumulated baggage. just bought a bigger one specific gravity and the value of such a tactic as a short exit. Answering your first question, I already talked about the disappearance of the long exit pass. At new system such transmissions became evidence of naivety and straightforwardness of thinking. They had to be abandoned. Instead, the attackers needed other, more flexible forms of playing. Defenders, at the slightest hint of danger, now prefer to group near the penalty area: after all, here, in the conditions of a deliberately created crowd, it is easier for them to repulse the attackers. At the championship, to one degree or another, all the teams paid tribute to this trend, the Goalkeepers found themselves between the goalposts and the wall of their own and other players, located somewhere near the edge of the penalty area. Thus, the operational space was extremely narrowed, and we, the goalkeepers, began to make sorties at the moments of the highest climax, as if from an ambush, unexpectedly came to the rescue where, in our opinion, it was needed most of all. As you can see, the nature of exits has changed: they have become shorter and more frequent, which is why the role of instant decision and fine calculation has increased so much. I will say more, sometimes there is no time for reflection at all, and when you exit, you have to rely on intuition. Now it’s not enough for goalkeepers to only be able to play on the goal line, even if it’s excellent. The current football does not make compromises and imposes tactical requirements on great goalkeepers.

Have you noticed anything new in the strikers' game?

I did not notice anything fundamentally new in the arsenal of technical methods. Attention is drawn to the determination with which all the forwards, who happened to be ahead by chance, attack alone the superior forces of the defense. If in past championships only Pele and Garrincha could afford such a luxury, now there is a whole galaxy of skillful dribblers who, with amazing dexterity, are able to individually beat several opponents in a row. Among such "slalomists" it is necessary to name Eusebio, Albert, Bene, Simoes, Ball and our Chislenko and Metreveli. Interestingly, these and other bright representatives of the attack like to get the ball in their feet and already make their way to the goal with it. It seems to me that such a manner was not developed by chance and is largely dictated by the behavior of the defenders, who are much more willing to provide relative freedom in receiving the ball and stubbornly not giving the opportunity to open behind their backs. Having the ball, the teams value it very much and, in order to keep it at home, they do not even neglect a series of cross passes. A forward pass to aggravate the attack should be done immediately in the case when the front attacker showed signs of activity and found the promised position for sabotage.

Everyone is well aware that during the game you help your partners with a word, a hint. How do they feel about it? Do they always listen to your advice?

I've always appreciated a hint. Yes, and how else? In quick changes of situations, the defender, wanting to insure a partner, sometimes involuntarily loses sight of his ward, but I, standing behind, can see everything in full view - that's what I have to tell! The guys understand that my intervention was caused by the interests of the cause, and by no means a desire to reproach someone, and therefore they always react immediately and, as I would like to hope, are grateful to me for this. True, at the championship with a hint, things did not always go smoothly.

During the games, passions usually ran high. The spectators were also inflamed, raising a frantic noise. As the ball approached the goal, the noise grew into a heart-rending roar. They could not hear me, but I still screamed (more, of course, for self-comfort, and this is really a good way to get rid of nervous tension!). At the same time, I tried to calculate and take such a position so as not to be taken by surprise if the threat came from the area to which I had just addressed the clue. And yet, despite any obstacles, I am for the prompt - friendly and timely.

Is the cut-off free kick still dangerous, or have goalkeepers found an antidote for it?

This blow is to be feared most of all. The art of doing it has grown. There were a lot of craftsmen for whom the “wall”, paradoxically, was not a hindrance, but rather an ally, helping to disorientate us goalkeepers. It is easy to imagine our unenviable share, especially if the blow is made somewhat diagonally in relation to the gate. The part of them that is open for a hit is blocked by us, but we know that a wall-circling hit will follow in the other half, unprotected, and we are nervous about it. At the moment of impact, fear for this ill-fated half involuntarily drives us to the middle of the gate - maybe in which case I will have time both there and here! And the hitters were all completely cunning - aiming to get close to the extreme player in the "wall". The calculation is simple: if the ball does not hit anyone and goes around the “wall”, there is a chance to hit the corner, if it hits, it can bounce to another corner, exactly to the one from which the goalkeeper moved to the middle in search of salvation a moment before. A joyless situation when you don't know what to expect, isn't it? That's why goalkeepers don't like these shots so much. In the championship, several goals were scored in this way.

S. SALNIKOV. Weekly "Football", 1966

CUTE AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, POLITE
"Arguments and Facts" , 11.10.2005
It has been 15 years since he has been with us, but the memory of the legendary goalkeeper Lev Yashin is alive among the fans. About how he was off the football field, to the readers of AiF. Superstars,” said his widow, Valentina Timofeevna Yashina.

AS A WORLD TEAM « SAVED» FOR US YASHINA
"Soviet Sport", 28.10-03.11.2008
It is well known that from love to hate is one step. However, back - too. This was fully experienced by our illustrious goalkeeper. On October 23, 1963 (45 years ago!) In London, the very famous match between the world team and the England team was played, a brilliant game in which Yashin returned the recognition of the fans. But a whole year before that, Yashin was literally “pecked” by these same fans, blaming the national team for the unsuccessful game at the World Cup in Chile.

On October 22, 1929, the famous football goalkeeper Lev Yashin was born. According to generally accepted opinion - the best goalkeeper in the world for the entire twentieth century. Olympic champion, bronze medalist of the World Championship, gold and silver medalist of the European Championship. Five-time champion and five-time silver medalist of the USSR championship, once bronze, three-time winner of the USSR Cup.

11 times recognized as the best goalkeeper of the USSR. In 1963, Yashin (the only goalkeeper) received the prize of the best football player in Europe - the Golden Ball. The founder of the innovative, which later became an example for many great football players of his role, the goalkeeper's style of playing. Recipient of many honorary orders and medals of the Soviet state
At the beginning of his sports career Yashin also played ice hockey (from 1950 to 1953). In 1953, he became the owner of the USSR Ice Hockey Cup and the bronze medalist of the USSR championship, also playing as a goalkeeper. Before the hockey world championship in 1954, he was a candidate for the national team, but decided to concentrate on football.

For the tactics of the game, Yashin was nicknamed the “black spider”, “octopus”, and also the “black panther” (he always played only in a completely black uniform). The great goalkeeper had an excellent reaction and introduced new principles of the goalkeeper's game - he started the attack, throwing the ball far and accurately with his hand, confidently led the defense, was a real "owner" of the penalty area, played excellently with his feet and often, going far from own gate, with an accurate long pass quickly aggravated the situation on the opposite half of the field.

His father, Ivan Petrovich, worked at an aircraft factory, and his mother, Anna Mitrofanovna, worked at the Krasny Bogatyr. They left the house early in the morning, and returned tired after dark: in the thirties, overtime work, mainly at the father's defense enterprise, had to be done very often. In early childhood, Leo was looked after by close relatives, however, as he got older, he was left to his own devices, preferring to spend all the time in the yard. The street became for Yashin a real school of life. In 1935, his mother died suddenly. A few years later, Ivan Petrovich married again - among other things, he realized that his son needed female supervision. Fortunately, the boy's relationship with his stepmother Alexandra Petrovna was warm. And in 1940, Yashin had a younger brother, Boris.

Leo's lifestyle was typical for boys from the working outskirts of Moscow. The children's entertainment was very diverse and often extremely dangerous - in addition to riding trams as "hares", they, finding sulfur or even gunpowder, made caps and threw them on the rails in front of the trams. In winter, the children skied on the sloping roofs of local sheds, turning them into a kind of ski jumps. In order to successfully land and not earn a serious injury, it was necessary to show good coordination, composure and courage. Repeatedly Lev Yashin had a chance to participate in fights - both "one on one" and in "wall to wall" skirmishes.

The entire male population of the capital of the 1930s was "sick" of football, and, no doubt, this hobby could not pass over the boys. Together with his peers, Leo from early spring to late autumn uncontrollably "cut" in football. The soccer balls familiar in our understanding did not yet exist, and the boys ran after balls tightly knitted from rags. Lev Ivanovich himself was a good striker as a child and did not even imagine that he would ever take a place at the gate.

In the summer of 1941, the life of eleven-year-old Lev Yashin turned upside down - his father took him to relatives in the village, but the war broke out, and they had to return to Moscow. Ivan Petrovich, as an employee of an aviation plant, was given a reservation, and in October the Yashin family went on an evacuation. They landed near Ulyanovsk, where they, together with other Muscovites in an open field, began the construction of a new plant. People lived in tents, Ivan Petrovich disappeared for days at work, and Lev, somehow studying in the fifth grade, nursed his little brother and helped Alexandra Petrovna with the housework. Of course, he did not like it too much, and the boy pestered his father with requests to take him to the factory.

In the fall of 1943, the father finally granted his son's wish - several workers from his shop went to the front, and they needed replacements. Very quickly, Yashin became a third-class locksmith, receiving a full-fledged work card, which he was very proud of. In the winter of 1943-1944, when workers laid fires in unheated workshops between machines and slept here on boxes of materials and tools, a fourteen-year-old teenager became addicted to smoking. He was taught this by his partner, who was afraid that Yashin would fall asleep at the machine from fatigue. And in early 1944, the plant returned from evacuation, and the Yashin family went home. Soon Victory Day came, and the sixteen-year-old Leo received the first in his life and at the same time the most expensive award for him - the medal "For Valiant Labor during the Great Patriotic War."

After the war, locksmith Yashin continued to work at his native enterprise and was in good standing there. Lev got up at half past six in the morning, and returned home late at night, as after work he studied at a school for working youth. Tired, first of all, psychologically - from a long road, hard monotonous work, classes at night school - Yashin found an outlet in mid-1945 by enrolling in the factory football section. The coach there was Vladimir Checherov, who, as soon as he saw the lanky guy, immediately put him in the goal. The lion did not like this, but the desire to play was much stronger, and he decided to remain silent. Workers of the plant trained on Sundays, the only day off. Soon Yashin was included in the factory team and took part in the regional football championship.

In early 1948, colleagues and relatives of Lev Ivanovich began to notice that something was wrong with him. Yashin himself said about this: “Something suddenly broke in me. I have never been known as a quarrelsome person or with a difficult character. And then everything at home and at work began to annoy, he walked all twitchy, he could flare up over any trifle. In the end, I packed my things and left the house. I also stopped going to the factory.” Absence from work at that time was considered as sabotage at a defense enterprise and was a reason for criminal prosecution. Fortunately, fellow football players advised Yashin to ask for military service even before reaching draft age. In the military enlistment office, Lev Ivanovich was met halfway; already in the spring of 1948 he was assigned to one of the units of the Interior Ministry troops stationed in Moscow. They quickly found out that Yashin was a football goalkeeper, and included him in one of the unit's teams. Soon Lev Ivanovich took part in the championship of the capital city council "Dynamo".

Fate smiled on the young man. Once the goalkeeper of one of the teams of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was injured during the warm-up, and Lev Ivanovich had to play two matches in a row. During these fights, Arkady Chernyshev, the coach of the Dynamo youth team of masters, drew attention to him. How he managed to see the genius in the tall goalkeeper, who scored four goals in two games that day, Arkady Ivanovich himself did not really understand - in any case, he later explained it in different ways. After the end of the matches, he invited Yashin to join the Dynamo youth team.

Having started working with Leo, the coach immediately noticed that the guy was much more resilient and conscientious than his teammates. At the same time, Chernyshev discovered a rare analytical gift in the pupil - Lev himself tried to explain to the coach the mistakes he had made during the game and tried to find out how they could be corrected. Working hard, the young man successfully played both in the championship and in the Moscow Cup in 1949. In the semi-final battle, the Dynamo "youth team" met with the Dynamo team, staffed partly by veterans, partly by spare players from the team of masters. Arkady Chernyshev himself took part in the game along with the once famous football players Vasily Trofimov and Sergey Ilyin. The match caused a great stir, the stands of the Dynamo Small Stadium were bursting with spectators who had come. Lev Ivanovich was more reliable than ever and helped his partners win 1:0.

In the fall of 1949, Mikhail Yakushin, the head coach of Dynamo, took Yashin to the main team on the recommendation of Chernyshev. Nevertheless, it was only an advance for the future - two first-class goalkeepers played for Dynamo in those years - the ambitious Walter Sanaya and the experienced Alexei Khomich, nicknamed the "Tiger". Lev Ivanovich could take their place in the Dynamo gates only with a successful combination of circumstances. Initially, Mikhail Iosifovich was distrustful of the new goalkeeper: the long, awkward, thin goalkeeper was very strange - either very constrained, or, on the contrary, relaxed and “unscrewed”. His habit of going far out of the gate was also alarming, which sometimes led to discouraging mistakes. Nevertheless, his incredible diligence and perseverance bribed. Football aces who played in Dynamo liked to stay on the field after training and “knock” on goal. Yashin - in the mud and dust - was spinning like a squirrel in a wheel. It was the experienced forwards who always “surrendered” first, and not the young goalkeeper.

Alexey Khomich, at the request of Yakushin, took the young goalkeeper under his wing. Alexey Petrovich generously shared with Leo the secrets of mastery, while being surprised at his seriousness and thoroughness. Following the example of Khomich, the young goalkeeper started a special notebook in which he noted the actions of goalkeepers and field players after the games he saw, and also wrote down the most important things he learned from teammates and coaches. In the summer of 1950, both leading goalkeepers of the team “broke down” one after another, and on July 2, at the seventy-fifth minute of the match with Spartak from the capital, Lev Ivanovich entered the field of the local Dynamo stadium for the first time in his life. His team was leading 1:0 by this point, but due to a ridiculous oversight by Yashin, who collided with his own defender at the exit from the gate, the final score became 1:1. And four days later there was a complete embarrassment. In the away game with Dynamo Tbilisi, the capital's players started confidently (4:1), but then Yashin conceded three goals in a row in fifteen minutes, and two of them were clearly on his conscience. Although the team of Lev Ivanovich managed to snatch a victory (5:4), the young goalkeeper was excommunicated for a long time from big football - he had to play only for a double for three years.

The offensive three-year "link" to the backup team went to Lev Ivanovich in the end to the benefit. The understudies had their own championship, and thus Yashin had no downtime. Constantly being in the game, he gradually gained confidence in his abilities. However, the most important thing is that it was here that Lev Ivanovich could calmly improve his unique goalkeeping style. However, this could not be called style. It was a whole game system, consisting in the fact that the goalkeeper not only protected the goal frame, but, in fact, was the organizer of the entire team game. Yashin set his goal not only to repel shots on goal, but also to interrupt the enemy’s attacks in the bud. To do this, he often ran far into the field - outside the penalty area - and played with his feet and head. In fact, Lev Ivanovich acted as another defender, cleaning up the tactical mistakes of his partners. Having mastered the ball, the goalkeeper immediately tried to organize a counterattack. For greater accuracy, he, as a rule, sent the ball to the attackers not with his foot, as was customary in those years, but with his hand. And, finally, Yashin prompted the defense players which specific zones needed to be covered. All this led to the fact that the enemy was not allowed to hit on goal or was forced to do it from disadvantageous positions. Partners, who quickly understood the usefulness of the goalkeeper's advice, immensely trusted Yashin's "eccentricities".

Meanwhile, Arkady Chernyshev did not forget about his pupil. In the thirties and forties, almost all Soviet football players put on skates and played bandy in winter - its rules resembled football ones and such a transition was not difficult for the players. Lev Ivanovich, on the other hand, showed the makings of an outstanding striker on the ice. In the early fifties, Canadian hockey was already being cultivated in the USSR with might and main, and Chernyshev was among the first to take up its development. In the fall of 1950, a couple of months after Yashin's unsuccessful debut in the first team, Arkady Ivanovich invited him to try his hand at ice hockey as a striker. However, Yashin himself, despite his impressive growth, wanted to take the gate. Only in March 1953 did he have the opportunity to play in the USSR Cup as an understudy for the Estonian Karl Liiv. He performed quite well and helped his team to win the honorary prize. It is curious that Lev received the title of master of sports first as a hockey player, and only then as a football player. Given the sympathy of Chernyshev, who was the head coach of the USSR national hockey team, he had excellent prospects in 1954 to be part of the main hockey squad and go to Sweden for the World Championship, where, I must say, our team won gold medals for the first time. However, Yashin liked football much more, and, having received a place in the Dynamo starting lineup in 1953, Lev Ivanovich left hockey forever.

On May 2, 1953, the twenty-four-year-old Yashin again appeared on the field of the Dynamo stadium in a match with the capital's Lokomotiv. From the very first minutes, Zhuravl (as the fans called it in those years) played so reliably that since then its place at the base has not been in doubt. And on September 8, 1954, Yashin played his first match for the national team. Soviet football players defeated the Swedes with a score of 7:0. The triumphant return of Lev Ivanovich to big football coincided in time with both the "golden age" of the capital's "Dynamo" and the outstanding achievements of the Soviet Union national team, which became one of the first teams in the world. It was Yashin who played a huge role in the success of our players. In the first decade of the legendary goalkeeper's appearance for Dynamo, the club became the champion five times and took second place three times. The defense led by him was considered the most reliable in the country and successfully resisted the strongest torpedo and Spartak forwards in the USSR. Yashin himself, who perfectly studied the style of their game, acted on them like a boa constrictor on rabbits. Defense players in international matches coped with their duties somewhat worse - they knew less about the "habits" of foreign attackers, which means that Lev Ivanovich more often had to enter the game, demonstrating his skills.

In the fifties, Moscow Spartak and Dynamo, as well as the national team of the Soviet Union, began to increasingly go abroad for friendly games with the strongest foreign teams. Yashin was seen in Europe already in 1954, when Dynamo defeated the famous Milan with a score of 4: 1. The results of the games of the USSR national team were just as successful in general - it is enough to note two victories over the German national team, which was world champions (in 1955 in Moscow - 3:2 and in 1956 in Hannover - 2:1). The victory in these matches, as well as the triumph of the Soviet team in the fall of 1956 in Melbourne at the Olympic tournament, was largely determined by the game of the goalkeeper. It was the goalkeeper, who "pulled" literally everything, ensured victory (1:0) in the most difficult final duel with the Yugoslavs, who owned the initiative for the main part of the match.

The victory at the Olympic tournament elevated the players of the national team to the rank of national heroes. The titles of Honored Masters of Sports were awarded to eleven participants in the final match, including Lev Ivanovich. But the strongest football teams of the planet did not participate in this Olympiad, they were considered - unlike players from the socialist countries - professionals. The Soviet team had to prove its strength at the 1958 World Cup. Preparation for it was difficult. Glory turned the heads of a number of young players, and the team did not play very well in the qualifying matches - a replay with the Poles was needed. The Soviet players eventually defeated the Polish national team (2: 0), but thunder struck right before leaving for Sweden. Three players from the main squad, who had spent a stormy evening with the girls the day before, were arrested. The incident also took a heavy toll on the team's morale.

Our players had to fight with the national teams of Brazil, Austria and England to get out of the group. And already the first match with the British, which was successfully developing at first (the score was 2:0 after the first half), went sideways - with the score 2:1, the judge from Hungary awarded a penalty to our goal for a violation that happened outside the penalty area. The Soviet players tried to protest the decision, but the referee answered them: “Not fair? And in the 56th you acted honestly? So the entry of Soviet troops into Hungary backfired on the football arena ... The USSR team played a draw with the British (2:2), and then our athletes beat the Austrians (2:0) and lost to the Brazilians (0:2), the future world champions. A day after the third match was to meet again with the England team for reaching the quarterfinals. The exhausted players of both teams fought to the last, and our players turned out to be stronger (the score was 1:0). However, resist - again in a day! - three times more resting Swedish team, they failed - 0:2. They had nothing to reproach themselves with, Yashin, for example, lost seven kilograms at that competition, and the Western press spoke admiringly of him as the best goalkeeper in the world.

By today's standards, the performance of the national team could be considered successful - a place in the top eight and losing only to vice-champions and world champions. However, in those years, only the most maximalist tasks were set. Both the players and the coaches of the team were criticized, and only Yashin was not touched. In July 1960, the USSR national team, which significantly rejuvenated the composition, took part in the first European Championship. A number of leading football federations (England, Germany, Italy) refused to participate in the competition. The teams of the USSR, France, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia advanced to the final stage of the championship. Confidently beating the Czechoslovaks (3:0), our team met with skilled Yugoslavs. In the first half, the advantage was with the opponent, but Yashin was reliable. Gradually, the Yugoslavs, who had played the duel with the French the day before, "got hooked", and the game leveled off. And in the 113th minute Viktor Monday scored the winning goal (2:1).

The phenomenal game of Yashin amazed not only his opponents, but also those who happened to play with him on the same team. Striker Valentin Bubukin spoke about this: "All of us - Ivanov, Meskhi, Streltsov, I - played, and Lev lived in football." In practice, according to Bubukin, it happened like this: “In 1960, our team beat the Poles 7:1. The goalkeeper rushed after the ball just a couple of times. But here's what he did, in his own words, during the game: “Knocked Kesareva out of the gate, but did not switch off from the episode, but mentally worked as a right-back. He shouted: let's go to Ivanov, then for Vanka he gave a pass to Monday, together with him he struck at the gate. Then he worked in defense, hedged his partners. The opposing striker got into a good position and hit hard, I took the ball with almost no movement. The press then wrote: "Yashin, having read the combination, was in the right place!" However, he did not read the combination, he PARTICIPATED in it!

French journalists called the Russian goalkeeper a "playing coach." In 1961, the leading football magazine of Argentina described the game of Lev Ivanovich as follows: “Yashin showed us what a goalkeeper should be in football. With his instructions, with his commanding voice, with his exits and passes to the edge of the field, he is the basis of the Russian defense, effectively eliminating the best combinations. He really deserves to be called the best goalkeeper in the world, because he became the author of a certain system of the football game.

Winning the European Cup resurrected the hopes of our fans for the successful performance of the team at the next World Cup, held in Chile in May 1962. However, disappointment awaited them - the USSR national team, having started very cheerfully (victory over the Yugoslavs 2: 0), looked more and more tired from game to game. With great difficulty, beating the Colombians and Uruguayans, the Soviet players reached the quarterfinals. At the beginning of the match with the hosts of the championship, Lev Ivanovich received a concussion - one of the Chilean forwards dealt him a severe blow to the head. Substitutions were not allowed at that time, and the goalkeeper was forced to play until the end of the entire match. It is not surprising that he did not save the team in the eleventh and twenty-seventh minutes. There was still an hour of playing time left, but the Soviet players were still unable to score.

At home, the performance of the football team was perceived as a shame. Yashin became the scapegoat this time. It should be noted here that deeply disappointed football fans could judge what happened only by the articles of TASS correspondents and radio reports by Nikolai Ozerov. And from them it just followed that the goalkeeper was to blame for the early departure of Soviet football players, first of all, who did not beat off two long-range and supposedly simple blows - "for Yashin to miss such balls is unforgivable." It seemed that in the current situation, the thirty-two-year-old goalkeeper should retire. Fortunately, the head coach of Dynamo Ponomarev was sympathetic to the feelings of Lev Ivanovich, who did not even try to defend himself from unfair accusations. Often, instead of training, the mentor sent Yashin on a fishing trip so that he could put his feelings in order.

It took a long time to restore peace of mind to the goalkeeper. For the first time, he stood in the frame in Tashkent on July 22 in the Dynamo game with the local Pakhtakor. By autumn, Yashin had regained his fitness form, having conceded only four goals in the last eleven matches of the USSR championship. And in the 1963 USSR Championship, Lev Ivanovich set a record of impenetrability at all, having defended “to zero” in 22 out of 27 games and conceding only six goals. At the end of the year, he received an invitation to play in a friendly game of the world team against the England team. The match dedicated to the 100th anniversary of English football took place on October 23, 1963. The Soviet leadership, which, in general, favored Lev Ivanovich, took an unprecedented step - a live TV broadcast of the game. The famous goalkeeper defended the gates of the world team for the entire first half, and defended in such a way that his game became the main event of the match. The opponent delivered many dangerous shots on goal, but Yashin could not break through. In the second half he was replaced by Yugoslav Milutin Soskic, whom the British scored two goals. The 25-year-old English goalkeeper Gordon Banks, who is still considered the No. 1 goalkeeper in the history of British football, later wrote: “One half spent on the field with him was enough for me to understand that we have a genius in front of us. ... I'm sure if Yashin had remained at the gate, we would not have won. I also remember that the audience at the stadium reacted to Lev more emotionally than to our players. When he left the field, they gave him a real standing ovation. After playing in the world team, Yashin's international authority rose to sky-high heights. A vote by the French edition of France Football recognized Lev Ivanovich as the best football player in Europe in 1963. Yashin became the first goalkeeper to be awarded the Golden Ball.

It should be noted that throughout his football life, Lev Ivanovich, not sparing himself, trained hard. For the most part, he "rattled his bones" on grassless driving ranges, stony in summer, muddy and wet in autumn and spring. In one training session, Yashin received over 200 blows to the chest with a ball. He had, obviously, a completely “beaten off” stomach. But this iron man not only did not wince in pain, but demanded that they hit his goal both at close range and at point-blank range. Only once in her life his wife Valentina Timofeevna visited her husband’s training and ran home in tears - she was unable to see such a “torture”. The famous hockey player Vladimir Yurzinov recalled how in the fall of 1970 he happened to watch a two-hour training session of Dynamo football players. Lev Ivanovich was in the game all the time. Then the players went home, and only the 41-year-old goalkeeper and several guys from the team remained on the field, agreeing to “knock” on the goal at his request. When the tired youth left the field, Yashin, noticing the hockey players, persuaded the "real men" to kick him. Vladimir Vladimirovich said: “And we beat. To sweat, to frenzy, to darkness. That's when the camera was needed, the crowd of reporters, flashes of blitzes. That's when people would see the real Yashin - a great man and athlete."

In 1964, the USSR team played in the second European Cup held in Spain. Having easily dealt with the Danes in the semi-finals (3:0), she met with the hosts of the tournament. The game had a clear political connotation - four years earlier, Franco forbade his athletes to play with the national team of the Soviet Union. Despite the confident play of our players, they lost the match (2:1). Fortunately, the goalkeeper was not blamed for the defeat. After that, the USSR national team was headed by Nikolai Morozov, who headed for the renewal of the composition. Throughout 1965, young Yuri Pshenichnikov, Anzor Kavazashvili and Viktor Bannikov alternately defended the gates, and Yashin returned to the national team only in the fall, at the beginning of the qualifying matches. At the end of the year, the Soviet team went on a tour of Latin America, where they played with the strongest teams in the New World. Lev Ivanovich also took part in this trip, defending the gate during the games with the teams of Brazil (2:2) and Argentina (1:1). The performance of the veteran convinced the coach of his indispensability: “We have two Yashins in the frame! Himself and his last name. Even the two-time world champions, led by Pele himself, experienced obvious reverence for the Soviet goalkeeper, and seemed to attack his goal with timidity.

In July 1966, the 36-year-old goalkeeper went to the World Cup in England, where he again became one of the main characters. However, this time he did not play in all, but only in the most important meetings. Having taken first place in the preliminary tournament, the USSR national team defeated the Hungarians in the quarterfinals, and for the first time in history reached the semifinals of the world championship. The game with the FRG team was extremely difficult - at the beginning of the match our midfielder Jozsef Sabo was injured, in the middle of the game the best Soviet striker Igor Chislenko was sent off. A series of unforced oversights on the part of the defenders crossed out Yashin's brilliant game - the Soviet team lost with a score of 1:2. One of the local newspapers called the Soviet goalkeeper the "tragic hero" of the match.

Returning to his homeland, Lev Ivanovich continued to play for his native Dynamo and for various teams: his country, Europe and the world. In his long career as a goalkeeper, Lev Ivanovich has seen many coaches. Relations with them were built, as a rule, on mutual respect. Mentors, understanding the special role of Yashin in the team, usually turned a blind eye to his smoking habit. Another privilege of the famous goalkeeper was the right to leave hotels and training bases and go fishing - even on foreign trips, he carried fishing tackle with him and, upon arrival, first of all asked the locals where the nearest reservoir was located. In his own words, watching the bobber calmed his nerves and helped him tune in to the game.

For the last time, Yashin played for the Soviet national team on July 16, 1967 in a match with the Greek national team. At the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, he was in the application as the third goalkeeper, but he did not enter the field. When the head coach suggested that he go to the game with the players of El Salvador in order to “check in” at the championship, Lev Ivanovich flatly refused, not wanting to deprive the main goalkeeper Anzor Kavazashvili of confidence. And on May 27, 1971, Yashin's farewell match took place, in which the world team played against the Dynamo team. Lev Ivanovich played for fifty minutes and did not concede a single goal, then giving way to Vladimir Pilguy, who was scored twice by world football stars. The match ended with the score 2:2.

Having completed his football career at an unthinkably late age (at 41), Yashin headed his native team, and in 1975 became deputy head of the hockey and football department of the Dynamo Central Council. A year later, Lev Ivanovich left for a similar job at the Sports Committee. Very often, they turned to him for a variety of help - both familiar people associated with sports, and those whom Yashin had not seen before. And he helped - went to the authorities, called, punched. A great many letters came to him, and he at least looked through all of them. Sometimes incidents happened because of this: once, in response to a warm letter, a fan from Uzbekistan arrived in Moscow, bringing his wife and seven children with him. He showed up at Lev Ivanovich's apartment, turning it into a hostel for a whole week. All this time, Yashin fed the guests at his own expense and showed them Moscow.

Outwardly, the fate of the former football player looked quite safe, but it was only outwardly - the famous goalkeeper felt like a "black sheep" in the world of officials and could not do anything about it. Accustomed to telling his partners whatever he considered necessary, he found it difficult to put up with the need to hide his thoughts or express himself roundly. "Colleagues" also did not favor him. In the course of public events, being next to Yashin, the country's largest officials involuntarily found out their true price - it was the legendary goalkeeper that the attention of the audience was always drawn to. In 1982, Yashin - despite the personal invitation of the organizers - was not included in the Soviet delegation that went to the World Cup in Spain. The bewilderment expressed on this occasion by the international football community led to the fact that sports officials still took Yashin with them as ... an interpreter. It must be said that the proud football player did not agree with the humiliating status for a long time, but in the end he realized that his “colleagues” characterized themselves by this, not him. Of course, in Spain everything fell into place - the football world perceived him precisely as Yashin and nothing else.

With age, the numerous illnesses of the great goalkeeper began to remind of themselves more and more. Some of them arose a long time ago, for example, a stomach ulcer, others appeared after the body stopped receiving the usual physical activity. Long-term smoking played a fatal role. Yashin had a stroke, followed by a couple of heart attacks, gangrene, which led to the amputation of his legs, cancer ... March 20, 1990 he died.

Everyone who knew Lev Ivanovich admitted that he was an extraordinary person. And this was not due to his rare football talent. Even more contemporaries were struck by Yashin's human talent. The former locksmith, who only graduated from the school for working youth, knew how to behave with dignity among working people, and next to football and non-football celebrities. Both partners and rivals Yashin enjoyed unquestioning authority. “Screaming” during matches at the defenders, outside the game, he never tried to command anyone and did not try to stand out. He endured grievances patiently, never trying to evade responsibility, if indeed, he was at least a little guilty. Relatives, trying to save the goalkeeper from "self-discipline", told him: "Why are you tormenting yourself, did the team win?" However, Yashin answered this: "The field players won, but I lost." Another characteristic episode - the boys who served balls during the matches, said that Yashin - the famous Yashin - said “thank you” to them for each ball served and never cursed if they were involuntarily mistaken.

To get acquainted, and even more so to make friends with Lev Ivanovich, was considered an honor by all football stars without exception. With many outstanding athletes, Yashin had a purely human sympathy, so among his close friends were football players Franz Beckenbauer, Uwe Seeler, Ferenc Puskas, Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, Bobby Charlton, Eusebio, Gyula Grosic and Pele himself. The great Brazilian athlete always looked at Yashin with reverence and, when he came to Moscow, he would definitely visit him.

Lev Ivanovich Yashin - a great goalkeeper, the era of Soviet football, an athlete with a crystal reputation, Olympic champion and European champion, winner of the Golden Ball.

You can list the titles and dignity of this person for a very long time, but all this could not have happened. Studying the biography of Lev Yashin, one is amazed at how mysterious fate is sometimes. Well, first things first! Leo began to be interested in football since childhood. And he immediately wanted to become a goalkeeper, like almost all boys of his age at that time. It was simply fashionable to be tall, brutal, powerful and practically the most important on the field, because even then there was a saying that a goalkeeper is half a team. Especially when such heroes are in front of your eyes - Alexey Khomich, "Tiger" of Moscow "Dynamo" who returned in triumph after a British tour. From here, Yashin's fan preferences are understandable - only heroes, only they ... " Dynamo"...

War. How many lives she crippled, how many destinies she changed - do not count. She also influenced Leva. And before that, a difficult childhood (and who had it just in the Stalin years) completely ended in 1941. I had to practically live at work - from dark to dark. At the age of 18, Yashin enters the army, or rather, he himself expresses a desire. The service takes place in Moscow, where Arkady Ivanovich Chernyshov, the coach of the youth team, notices him. Dynamo".

Dreams come true, the head is spinning from such happiness, and Leo himself does not notice how in 1949 he becomes the third goalkeeper of the team after "Tiger" Khomich and Walter Sanay. But then the career of Yashin, a football player "Dynamo" could have ended before it even started! The fact is that the guy ruined almost all the chances that the coach entrusted him. "Butterflies" flew into his net with methodical regularity. The partners were already laughing at him with might and main. And Leo could not stand it - he went into "Dynamo", only hockey, where he won the USSR Cup. Another proof that a talented person is talented in everything.

But the football gut overpowers Leo and he comes back. But only now Khomich personally takes him under guardianship and begins to train for real, like a man! The result is not long in coming - by the mid-50s, Yashin becomes the best goalkeeper in the Soviet Union! Together with the quality, Lev Ivanovich acquires the elegance of the goalkeeper's craft, unusual in those days. And how the spectators gasped with pleasure when Yashin, far outside the penalty area, in a desperate throw, thwarted the opponent's attacks! With almost every game, Lev matured at the gate, gaining experience and skill. And it is with his success that the successes of the USSR national team at the 1956 Olympics and the 1960 European Championship are associated. Yes and his Dynamo" blossomed in a new light and churned out championships one after another! He was praised, he was idolized.

Our man is such that he is quick to punish and loves to quickly throw off the pedestal for any wrongdoing. For Yashin, such a moment came in 1962 at the World Championship in the semifinal match with Chile. For political reasons, that match was not shown on TV, the USSR national team lost with a score of 0-2 and both balls were hung on the conscience of the great goalkeeper. The crowd was outraged. In those days, people didn’t treat the “old people” very well anyway - those who are over 30 years old, and here is another reason. Yashin was sent "retired", but he returned and played in such a way that even the most strict skeptics opened their mouths in amazement. The result of the return was " Golden Ball" for Lev Ivanovich and the championship for his native " Dynamo".

Popularity flooded Yashin with renewed vigor. Now he was recognized even abroad. Our legend even had a chance to play for the world team in a match dedicated to the centenary of English football. Several interesting things happened in that match. Firstly, the entire football elite of that time gathered there - Puskas, Eusebio, Muller. By the way, it was Gerd Muller who tried to break through Lev Yashin in all seriousness throughout the match, but our hero came out of this situation with honor and kept the gate intact. Lev Ivanovich played until the age of 41, which, even then, even now, is considered a rarity. He left football like a real champion, undefeated, with his head held high. His last 813th match took place on May 27, 1971. At the end of the farewell match, Lev Ivanovich Yashin addressed the stands at Luzhniki with a short, awkward speech. " Thank you people" . He left with the rank of a national hero. "Is Lev Yashin parting with football? No, it's impossible, I can't believe it, he's just great!" - lamented Gerd Muller, having learned about this news.

But Yashin did not leave football. Worked as head of family "Dynamo" at the sports committee. On July 27, 1985, the President of the International Olympic Committee H.A. Samaranch presented Lev Yashin with the IOC award - the silver badge of the Olympic Order. Before last days Yashin sought to lead an active lifestyle. According to his wife, he was ordinary person, cheerful and sociable, liked to sit in a male company, admired beautiful women but always remained faithful to the family. Long years hard training later made itself felt, and on his 60th birthday, Lev Ivanovich no longer looked like his former self. It was very striking that he was increasingly overcome by illness (peritoneal cancer was the misfortune of goalkeepers of that period).

At the age of 61 Lev Ivanovich Yashin, the legendary goalkeeper and great man is gone. But his memory lives on in our hearts and will live forever...

Lev Yashin is a great goalkeeper not only of our country, but of the whole world.

We will talk about an amazing person, a symbol of the Moscow Dynamo, and to some extent the entire Soviet era, at least football.

Lev Ivanovich Yashin is truly a legend, his successes and talents are recognized all over the world. Goalkeeper achievements are innumerable.

We know that the best players in the world receive such a prize as the Golden Ball. It is noteworthy that for the entire existence of the prize, only one goalkeeper received it, and this is Yashin.

The childhood of Lev Yashin

Our hero was born in the most ordinary Moscow family of workers. It happened on October 22, 1929. Ivan Petrovich (father) worked at an aircraft factory, Anna Mitrofanovna (mother) at the Krasny Bogatyr.

Parents left for work early in the morning, returning only late in the evening. My father often worked overtime at his factory.

In the first years of his life, Leo was looked after by relatives. Six years after the birth of the son, the mother dies. When the boy got stronger and grew up a little, he began to spend a lot of time on the street, and then it became his second home.

Leva is completely on his own. The father understood that the boy lacked a woman's hand, and after some time, he married a second time. The reason to think about a second marriage was the incident that happened to her son.

One winter, Leo came home in tears, and most interestingly, in one felt boot. As it turned out, he and his friends rode tram buffers, and suddenly a shoe came off one of his feet. After riding the tram a little more, the child jumped off it and went along the rails to look for the loss.

He never found the boots. Leo had a good relationship with his stepmother, he even called her "mom". And in 1940 he had a brother - Boris.

Lev's family lived on the outskirts of the workers. In such places, a harsh temper has always reigned, there were their own rules, their own hobbies.

The future idol of millions, grew up as the most ordinary guy. He often fought, as we have already said, rode trams like a hare, made caps. In winter, the children loved skiing. It seems that there is nothing unusual in this, if not for one thing. On skis they rode on the roofs of sheds, which had a large slope.

Muscovites of those years were very "sick" of football. This sport did not pass by the guys from the outskirts either. Lev and his comrades played football from early spring until late autumn. The ball from the guys was unpretentious. They made it from rags. Time will pass, and, having thrown off the whole yard, the guys will buy a real ball. It's funny that Leo loved to play the striker, but he "disdained" the gate. In winter, sports did not go anywhere from Yashin's life, just football was replaced by bandy.

War years

In 1941 it began. My father had a reservation, as he worked at a defense enterprise, and the family went on an evacuation near Ulyanovsk. My father was at the factory all the time. Leo somehow studied in the fifth grade, and in his free time he nursed his brother, asking his father to take him to the factory.

In the autumn of 1943, the son's request was fulfilled. Several people from the factory went to the front, and it was necessary to somehow replace them. Per short term The lion turned from an assistant into a third-class locksmith. The boy received a full-fledged work card, and was very proud of it. In the factory circulation there was a note about the Leo family, as a new labor dynasty. The happiness of a teenager had no chapel.

Lev Yashin - Black spider photo

At the factory, Yashin became addicted to smoking. The “kind” senior comrade was worried that the boy would fall asleep at the machine from fatigue, and suggested a simple way to cheer himself up with tobacco. When the war ended, Leo was 16 years old. At this age, he received his first - "For valiant work in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945". Later, already in Moscow, Leo combined study and work. The load was very large, in addition, a long distance had to be covered from home to work.

In 1945, Lev signed up for the factory football team. The game became an outlet for him. The team coach was Vladimir Checherov. He immediately put the Lion in the gate. As part of the factory team, Lev participated in the championship of the Moscow region.

Three years later, at some point, Leo's life went downhill. He began to skip work, get annoyed over any trifle, and eventually left home. Absence from the factory could send Lev to the camps. Friends suggested that you need to go to the military registration and enlistment office and ask for service before the military age. And so he did. The army quickly learned that Yashin was a goalkeeper, and included him in one of the three teams that were formed on the basis of the unit.

So Lev began to participate in the championship of the city council "Dynamo". Once, the goalkeeper of one of the three teams was injured, and Lev had to play two matches in a row. Then he was noticed by Arkady Chernyshev, who was in charge of affairs in the Dynamo youth team. So Yashin became a Dynamo player.

In 1948, Yakushin, on the recommendation of Chernyshev, took Lev to the “base”. At that time, Aleksey Khomich and Walter Sanaya played for Dynamo. Leo's chances of becoming number one were slim. In the summer of 1950, both goalkeepers were injured one after the other. Our hero had an amazing prospect of becoming the first number of the Great Club.

The debut took place in the 75th minute of the match with Spartak. The blue and white were leading 1:0, but the goalkeeper made a mistake on the way out, colliding with his defender. So the opponent achieved a draw. Four days later, an away match with Tbilisi teammates took place. The Muscovites led 4:1, but due to the goalkeeper's mistakes, the hosts played back three goals. As a result, the match ended in an away victory with a score of 5:4, but Lev was not seen at the Dynamo gate until 1953.

Impenetrable goalkeeper Lev Yashin photo

For three years, Yashin played only for the double. They didn’t put an end to the goalkeeper, on the contrary, they followed him and tried to help in every possible way. Lev tried not to disappoint, and trained for two. Recognized masters Beskov, Kartsev, Trofimov often stayed after training to beat on goal. And Leo defended them fiercely. As a rule, there was some dispute, and very often the bet was left to the Lion. Khomich communicated quite closely with Lev, at the training camp he always settled with him in the same room, he taught him a lot both in life and on the field.

For those years, Leo played in a peculiar way. Far out of the gate, in fact, playing almost the last defender. His main "know-how" was the introduction of the ball into the game from the hand, and not from the foot. So the ball flew more accurately to the partner’s leg, it was much easier to stop it.

Goalkeeper Yashin on the spot photo

There is a page in Yashin's biography that is not known to everyone. Leo was great at hockey. In 1953, together with the team, he won the USSR Cup. It is noteworthy that Yashin first received the title of master of sports as a hockey player. He became a master of sports in football much later. The prospect of becoming the main goalkeeper of the hockey team opened up before Leo, but he chose football.

Yashin returned to the Dynamo base on May 2, 1953, it was a match with Lokomotiv. Lev was great, and from that game staked out the right to be the first number. In the next decade, Lev Ivanovich became the champion of the USSR five times as part of Dynamo. In the national team, Yashin's successes were no less significant. He was, of course, the first number of the national team. With her he won Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956. If not for the game of Yashin, this victory might not have happened. In 1960, Lev won the first European Championship with the national team.

Two years later, the USSR national team goes to the World Championship in Chile. At the group stage, the team looked confident, and thanks to the game, Yashina ended up in the quarterfinals. In 1/4 of our team, the hosts, the Chileans, opposed. At the very beginning of the match, Yashin received a strong blow to the head. Outcome concussion. Substitutions were not allowed at the time and Lev had to play almost the entire match with an injury. In that match, the Soviet squad lost 2:1. And Yashin was made to blame for everything, they say, he did not help out.

Lev Yashin - the legend of Moscow Dynamo

Lev Ivanovich had to go through a difficult time. Upon arrival in the capital, especially dissatisfied fans tried to beat the goalkeeper. On the streets they looked askance at him, they wrote dirty tricks on the walls of the entrance, the same daredevils repeated their thoughts on the phone. Life has become a nightmare. It's not about football. Yes, and age. The goalkeeper is 32 years old, it's time to end his career. But fate decreed otherwise. July 22 in Tashkent, local "Pakhtakor" played with blue and white.

Yashin entered the field, each touch of the ball by the goalkeeper was accompanied by a whistle. As a result, Dynamo conceded 2 goals. At the base, the goalkeeper did not appear again until the autumn, but in the last 11 matches of the championship, Lev conceded only 4 goals. Looks like the hero is back. The following season, Yashin helped Dynamo win the championship. In the same year, Leo set the "Eternal Record" 22 out of 27 matches, the goalkeeper defended to zero. It was amazing!

Lev Yashin in game photo

In the same year, Lev Ivanovich's finest hour struck. On October 23, a match dedicated to the centenary of English football took place. The British hosted the world team. Yashin played for the "earthlings" the entire first half, the goalkeeper's game became an adornment of this match. The British struck a lot of dangerous blows, but failed to break through the Russian goalkeeper. During the break, Yugoslav Shoshkovich took the place at the gate. Then the British finally opened the gates of the opponent. The whole world was amazed by Yashin's game. In his homeland, he was “forgiven” for all his past “mistakes”.

Monument to L. Yashin photo

In 1964, there was the European Championship, where the team, whose gates were defended by Lev, became the second, losing in the final to the Spaniards. This time, they did not make a “scapegoat” from Yashin. Two years later, the team played in the World Championship. Yashin was already 36 years old, but he was unconditionally the first number. The team performed well, only losing to the Germans in the semifinals.

Four years later, Yashin, despite his age, will be in the national team's application for the Mexican World Cup, though already as a substitute. The last trophy that Yashin won in a long playing career was the USSR Cup won by Dynamo on August 8, 1970.

Yashin's career ended with a farewell match on May 27, 1971. The Dynamo team played with the world team. At the 50th minute, Lev Ivanovich was replaced

Vladimir Pilgui, who conceded two goals. The match ended in a draw 2:2. After the end of his career, Lev worked as a sports official. He was not comfortable in his new place. It is noteworthy that Yashin was not forgotten after football life, unlike many other football players.

Leaving the sport had a bad effect on the health of the legend. The termination of loads discouraged the body. Yashin survived two heart attacks, a stroke, amputation of both legs and cancer. In early 1990, Yashin was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. Gorbachev was supposed to personally award, but an official from the Supreme Soviet arrived. During the ceremony, Yashin whispered to Khazanov - “Why are they torturing me? Why do I need this Star when I die?

Lev Ivanovich Yashin died six days after the award was presented. The legendary goalkeeper died on March 20, 1990. The fate of Yashin was not easy. But with his work, his achievements and deeds, he forever inscribed his name in golden letters in the world of sports. Here he is, a legend, a real hero and an example to follow! Dynamo fans mention his name in their chants, proudly wear his portraits on T-shirts and place his figure on banners. Not every football player is honored with such an honor! The name of Lev Ivanovich, the legend of sports, will always live in the hearts of true football fans.