The percentage of goalkeeper merit in the success of a team has been discussed since the beginning of football. Someone draws his percentage with mathematical accuracy, another repeats an utterly worn out time about “half-team”, another one embarks on long conversations, during which he often expresses many paradoxical thoughts (a la Joshua after the battle with Usyk). Be that as it may, the goalkeeper component, for example, in the victories of Dynamo Kyiv over Fenerbahce and Sturm is significant. But, looking at the heroic saves of George Bushchan, willy-nilly, he compared him with the Dynamo gate guards of the past. Thus, the idea was born to single out the top ten Dynamo goalkeepers of all time, fortunately, there is someone to choose from. So...
Alexander Shovkovsky. Photo: gettyimages.com1. Alexander Shovkovsky (born 1975)
In what other place, except for the first, can there be a goalkeeper in this hit parade, whom the fans called "Forever the first"! Almost a quarter of a century defended the gates of Dynamo SaSho! A native from Kiev is the club's record holder in terms of the number of matches played (in the foreseeable future, it is unlikely that anyone will beat him in almost six and a half hundred games for his native team), went with her to Crimea (in April 2007, the local Tavriya went on a break, winning against Dynamo with a two-goal difference, and spent the 2nd minute in the 2nd stoppage minute, just in the locker room, however, as the insiders say, it was SaSho who ignited his partners with his fiery speech during the break, and in the second half the Kievans scored four unanswered goals against the hosts, and I couldn’t keep them!), and Rome (in September 2004, angered by the weak play of their favorites and the refereeing of the Swede Anders Frisk, Roma’s tifoseria did not give the opportunity to finish the winning match for the Kyivans), and copper pipes (“The test of copper pipes is difficult,” he writes in his book “Everything is in your hands”), and everything that you can imagine in a football career. A 14-time champion of Ukraine and an 11-time winner of the national cup (these figures are also very, very difficult to improve!), Shovkovsky, unfortunately, could not add a medal for a team victory in the European Cup to his premium collection. Several times (especially in 1999 and 2009) he and his partners were close to what they wanted, but, unfortunately...
And the unofficial title of "world champion in penalty shootouts" for "Forever the first" was firmly and for a long time. The uniqueness of SaSho is that he is the only goalkeeper in the world who has not conceded a single goal in the post-match series at the World Cup! How many series have been won thanks to his skill! This is the "golden collection" of Ukrainian football, which will be admired by future generations. As Alexander writes: “Still, you still need to sometimes return to your past in order not to repeat this kind of mistake in the future.”
2. Evgeny Rudakov (1942-2011)
A native of Moscow appeared in Dynamo Kiev back in 1963, but at first he rarely took to the field. Rudakov's first really working season was 1966. Dynamo then became the champions of the USSR for the second time, and Evgeny left his gates untouchable out of 29 matches played in the championship in 22! A season later, the percentage of clean sheets in the national championship for the talented keeper became even higher: out of 17 out of 14, Rudakov did not concede. Gradually, Rudakov won the competition from Bannikov, and in the early 1970s from Prokhorov and became the main one in Dynamo. I will say more: in the early 1970s, Rudakov was twice nominated for the Ballon d'Or. In 1971, he eventually became 12th, and in 1972 he shared 18th-27th places in the list of the best players in the Old World. In 1975, already, by and large, at the end of his playing career, he achieved European team success - a triumph in the Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Super Cup. Yevgeny Vasilyevich’s career harvest also includes medals in the national team: silver for the European Championship-72 and bronze for the Olympiad in the same year. Rudakov's championship titles are half as many as Shovkovsky's (7), he lifted the USSR Cup three times over his head.
In the memoir literature, a lot is written about the beginning of Dynamo's path to European heights in the mid-1970s. Many as the start of this thorny road highlight the Dynamo (Kyiv)-Shakhtar match in the debut of the 74 season in Kyiv in the presence of 70,000 people. Oleg Blokhin in his book “The Goal I Didn’t Score” defined the hero of that meeting as follows: “If not for Evgeny Rudakov, who worked miracles that evening, our “home model” could have been seriously tested.”
A distinctive feature of Rudakov the goalkeeper is diligence. He worked hard in training until a sweat, but such conscientious work still paid off. “Rudakov’s perseverance was amazing,” wrote Valery Lobanovsky about him. I remember one of my childhood football impressions - seeing off Rudakov from big football. It was September 1977. The Long-armed Devil did not play that day, but received a lot of applause from grateful fans (37,000 spectators gathered in the stands, despite the pre-match rain) before the Dynamo (Kyiv) - Torpedo (Moscow) calendar match .
In the early 2010s, everyone was going to record a big interview with Evgeny Vasilyevich, dialed his home number several times, he did not refuse, but we could not agree on a date. And then I received the discouraging news of his death...
3. Viktor Chanov (1959–2017)
“Viktor Chanov belongs to the category of goalkeepers who need to feel the breath of a serious competitor every day, at every training session, capable of getting into the goal at any moment and staying in it for a long time. He himself is one of those, of competitors, ”wrote Valery Lobanovsky in his book Endless Match.
Kettle, as the fans of Dynamo Kyiv called Chanov, gave the Dynamo club 8 years of his career. I remember how one of the masters of Russian sports journalism once called Chan's style of play "not visible, but reliable." As for me, an apt definition. Viktor Viktorovich is three times champion of the USSR, 5-time winner of the USSR Cup (of which four times with Dynamo), winner of the Cup Winners' Cup, silver medalist of the European Championship. In comparison with Rudakov, there is not enough Olympic medal (he was not lucky with time, because the USSR refused to participate in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and Viktor was called up for that 1983-1984 Olympic team, played in particular two friendly matches against Kuwait) and the UEFA Super Cup. At the same time, Chanov has two European "gold" at the youth (1978) and youth (1980) levels! And Rudakov, and especially Shovkovsky, of course, are more "vanklabmen" than Chanov, because the native of Stalino's playing career included the team of his native city Shakhtar, several Israeli clubs, and even CSKA-Borisfen. But all the same, the memory of this outstanding figure of the star team of the 1980s lives on among veteran fans. Of course, Viktor Viktorovich deserved warm memories!
4. George Bushchan (born 1994)
The current goalkeeper of Dynamo Kyiv and the national team, in my opinion, deserves the 4th place in the historical hit parade of Dynamo keepers. Of course, his career continues, and he may well add whists to himself. A native of Odessa, a champion of Ukraine and a 2-time winner of the Ukrainian Cup, Bushchan has repeatedly shown his playing qualities at the highest level. It is worth remembering Euro-2020 (21), where he was, of course, one of the best in the blue-yellow squad. In terms of the number of dry matches at the time of independence, it is second only to "Forever the first". And, having beaten off a penalty in the Champions League match against the Turkish Fenerbahce, Buschan entered the symbolic club of Dynamo goalkeepers who outplayed their opponents during kicks from the point in European cups (and there, besides him, there are not so many goalkeepers - only five ). In addition, according to the fans, he was the best in Dynamo in July and August of this year. And in two hopeless matches for Dynamo against Benfica, he won the audience's sympathy! Alas, further injury lay in wait for him.
Mistakes? There is no goalkeeper without them. If we compare Buschan with the first three keepers in my hit parade, then, in my opinion, they are more fortunate with star partners (each of them played in one of the three Lobanovsky star teams of different times), but maybe in conditions which the team is currently living in (war, lack of foreign players, turbulence with the domestic championship), are the edges of goalkeeping skills becoming more convex? Be that as it may, the absence of Buschan at the gates of Dynamo and the Ukrainian national team makes itself felt. Speedy recovery George!
5. Viktor Bannikov (1938–2001)
The future president of the Football Federation of Independent Ukraine played a significant role in Dynamo Kiev in the first half of the 1960s. After the first championship in 1961, it seemed that in the future, resounding successes would fall on the people of Kiev, as if from a cornucopia. But from 1962 to 1964 Dynamo finished far from the podium: 5th, 9th, 6th places did not meet the championship ambitions. And it was during this period that Bannikov became the main goalkeeper of Dynamo. At first, he had 7-8 dry games in his credit for the season, and in 1965 their number reached 16, that is, in more than half of the championship games in which the native of Zhytomyr took part, he kept his goal intact, and " Dynamo, not least thanks to his talent, reached the 2nd line in the standings. In the future, Bannikov competed for a place at the Dynamo goal with a younger colleague, Rudakov. And in the 1967 season, he achieved a truly phenomenal success: out of 22 games in the championship, he did not miss in 18! Playing for "Dynamo" (Kyiv) from August 7, 1967 to April 17, 1968, during 1127 minutes of playing time he did not miss a single ball! This fact was noted by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, adding the Ukrainian goalkeeper to the corresponding list under No. 19. As part of Dynamo Kyiv, Bannikov became the champion three times and twice won the USSR Cup, and with the national team he reached 4th place at the 1966 World Cup.
Once, in the early 1990s, I crossed paths with Bannikov, the then head of the Football Federation of Ukraine, in the elevator of the building of the Sports Committee of Ukraine. “I’m going to Vienna,” he said in response to one of the questions of an impromptu interview (as a young journalist, I simply had no right not to take advantage of the favorable opportunity to talk to the legend, although I looked into the Sports Committee for a completely different conversation). At that time, the FFU was establishing European contacts, and Bannikov made a lot of efforts to establish Ukraine as an independent football unit. And over time, a cozy stadium in the center of the capital will be named after the outstanding goalkeeper ...
6. Mikhail Mikhailov (born 1959)
Mikhail Leonidovich, in fact, is the goalkeeper, the competition with which made Chanov better. On account of Mikhailov - a wonderful championship season in 1981, when out of 25 games 12 he was able to play dry. Later, Viktor Chanov moved to Kyiv, and it was very interesting to watch the competition between two talented goalkeepers. Mikhail spent the 1985 stellar season for Dynamo at the highest level! 14 clean sheets in that championship are the merit of Mikhail Leonidovich.
Lobanovsky, speaking about the difference in game mentality between Chanov and Mikhailov, emphasized in the book “Endless Match”: “Mikhail Mikhailov’s confidence ... manifests itself ... when he is convinced that no one is “setting him up” ... The highest sense of responsibility comes to him when he knows there is no substitute."
I note that at the end of his playing career, Mikhailov has been working as a goalkeeping coach at Dynamo for many years. And, judging by the regular appearance of talented keepers at the gates of the Kyiv club, his skill in this matter is outstanding!
7. Oleg Makarov (1929-1995)
The goalkeeper of the first Dynamo champion team in 1961. He spent almost a decade and a half in the team. He became a full-fledged base player in the 1954 season. In the second half of the 1950s, he competed for a place at the Dynamo goal with Yevgeny Lemeshko. 1961 became a truly high point for him. 13 dry matches in the championship on account of Makarov! According to a poll by Sports Newspaper, it was Makarov who became the best football player in Ukraine in 1961.
The main feature highlighted by Makarov's specialists and partners is his poise. When it was hot at his gates, the keeper, who did not know fear, was the best way to keep calm and act confidently in the “frame”. It seems that he did not have outstanding natural data for the goalkeeper's specialty (Makarov's height was only 178 cm), Oleg Aleksandrovich acted as if simply, but confidently. And this calmness was transferred to teammates. And his gaming credo is most accurately expressed by Makarov on the pages of the book “Goalkeeper” written by him with the help of a journalist (not a goalkeeper!) Mikhail Mikhailov: “The goalkeeper has no right to rest, to relax, has no right to turn off the game if he wants to take the balls out of the net.
8. Yuri Romensky (born 1952)
The first Dynamo season of the native of the Azerbaijani city of Mingechevir was not very successful for the team as a whole (only 3rd place in the championship), but very successful for the keeper himself. He immediately became the main one in Dynamo and played 14 matches to zero.
In 1980, Yuri Mikhailovich Romensky kept his net dry for 1098 consecutive minutes! On average that season, he conceded 0.5 goals per match in the national championship. In the memorable Olympic year, Dynamo Kiev returned to the leading roles in Soviet football, and Romensky made a significant contribution to this return. Two-thirds of the 30 matches he played in the championship-80 turned into zero on the scoreboard under the names of rivals from Kiev. Romensky's goalkeeping qualities were especially prominent against the backdrop of Rinat Dasaev's unsuccessful game on an October evening in Kyiv. The Soviet “classico” then was for the people of Kiev - 2:0 in the presence of a 100,000th audience. Season-81 for Romensky was much less successful, because due to pneumonia he was forced to miss a large part of it, however, he played 9 matches and very reliably. But later he moved to Chornomorets, where he played at a fairly high level for several years, and the era of goalkeeper dual power Chanov - Mikhailov began at Dynamo.
9. Anton Idzkovsky (1907-1995)
Anton Leonardovich's height is even smaller than that of Makarov - 174 cm. However, he is not at all shy. Thanks to natural jumping ability and seven sweats shed in training, Idzkovsky was able to literally nurture his goalkeeping skills. Exceptional reaction, spectacular jumps, in fact, review the old Soviet film "Goalkeeper", where Idzkovsky plays the goalkeeper of the Black Buffalos team, and see him in all his glory. As part of Dynamo, a native from Kiev became vice-champion of the USSR following the results of the first allied championship - in the spring of 1936. True, he played fewer matches then than his competitor, Nikolai Trusevich, but later managed to successfully compete with a native of Odessa.
As a coach, Idzkovsky trained a number of well-known Ukrainian goalkeepers, including Oleg Makarov, Yevhen Lemeshko and Viktor Bannikov.
10. Viktor Yurkovskiy (1954-1995)
I remember that in the kindergarten in the second half of the 1970s, we, the Kyiv children, shouting over each other, proclaimed who would be who in our football match. "I am Blokhin!" one said proudly. “And I am Muntean!” - another has made a place for himself under the football sun. “And I am Yurkovskiy!” one of the boys said. “So you are the goalkeeper!” I answered him. “Nah, the goalkeeper is Rudakov,” he answered somehow, even bewilderedly. Yes, the Chokolovsky kids knew Yurkovskiy's last name, but not every kid identified him as a goalkeeper. However, in 1977 and 1978 Viktor Yurkovsky was the main goalkeeper of Dynamo. As a result, with the team he became the champion and vice-champion of the USSR, as well as the owner of the national cup. And in the golden season of 1977, he conceded only 11 goals in 27 games, winning 17 of them to zero! Grandmaster score! In fact, having sent the legendary Rudakov to retire with his confident game, Yurkovskiy, nevertheless, did not stay long at Dynamo and at the end of the 1979 season, during which he lost the competition to Romensky, he headed to his native Crimea.
Yurkovskiy went down in Dynamo history as a goalkeeper who parried two penalty kicks within one minute! It happened on August 26, 1978 in a match between Dynamo Kyiv and CSKA in a crowded small army home arena in the capital of the USSR. The Kievans then eventually won 1-0: the army team did not succeed in forcing Victor to capitulate. Symbolically: the Crimean did not retreat before the Moscow army!
***
Who could still claim a place in the top ten? Of course, Anatoly Zubritsky left a bright mark in the post-war Dynamo. He was the main keeper of Dynamo in the second half of the 1940s. Unfortunately, then Dynamo did not represent a formidable force on the football field, and the Bison often had to correct team flaws himself. It turned out for him with varying success, but at least he won the competition, for example, with Konstantin Skripchenko.
Left his mark on the history of Dynamo and Vitaliy Reva, who successfully replaced Shovkovsky during SaSho's injury, even in the Champions League. He is distinguished by real football longevity. Last year, even at the age of 47, Reva still entered the field as part of the Kyiv team "Left Bank".
For a couple of seasons, Yevgeny Lemeshko won the competition from Makarov for the post No. 1 in Dynamo. Nikolai Trusevich was a worthy competitor to Idzkovsky in the late 1930s. The Dynamo fans also remembered the talented, but unstable Andrey Gavashi (“ours and the goalkeeper Gavashi are losing,” the tribune wits joked). Oleg Makarov saw the roots of Gavashi's mistakes at the goal in "not quite the right school", and also in the fact that "Gavashi did not know one more thing: the goalkeeper plays not only with the ball, but also without it."
Olympic champion Boris Razinsky spent the 1962 season at Dynamo. He joined the ranks of the champion team and immediately became the main keeper. And during the English tour of the Kyivans, Aston Villa bosses tried to offer the Soviet goalkeeper a contract, but then it was impossible.
Valery Samokhin tried to compete with Rudakov for several seasons. He succeeded quite successfully in the 1973 season, when he played more matches in the national championship than Evgeny.
Igor Kutepov and Valdemaras Martinkenas, Oleksandr Rybka and Stanislav Bogush, Denys Boyko and Maksim Koval also delighted the Kyiv fans with their skills – in a word, there are many well-known personalities in domestic football in the list of Dynamo goalkeepers. Alexander Filimonov and Alexander Zhidkov, Vyacheslav Kernozenko and Andrey Kovtun failed to fully realize themselves in Dynamo, Alexander Prokhorov, Vasily Kirichenko, Yuriy Sivukha, Mikhail Moskalenko, Sergey Krakovsky, Ilya Bliznyuk, Taras Lutsenko, Artem Kichak did not succeed in their career vector. , Artur Rudko, Leonid Klyuev, Pyotr Zaits, Anatoly Proskuryakov, Igor Perelman, already mentioned Konstantin Skripchenko.
“It's always a problem when there are two approximately equal goalkeepers in the team. Exposing them to matches every other time, as is sometimes practiced in hockey, is not entirely reasonable, apparently, for football, where the defense must feel the goalkeeper with his back, get used to him and trust him. But how to get used to it, if today is one, tomorrow is another? asks Valery Lobanovsky in his book Endless Match. And yet the master concludes: "But the team needs a good second."
No matter how difficult times may be in our land, the Kyiv goalkeeper school regularly supplies selfless and skillful keepers to the teams of masters. I hope that even the current invasion of arrogant orcs will not interfere with this process. Ukrainians in general, and the people of Kiev in particular, know how to defend their own!
Alexey RYZHKOV
