Today is the player's 65th birthdayDynamo» 70-80s Alexander Hapsalis. On this occasion, we are talking about the main milestones in the football biography of the famous Dynamo player.
Alexander Khapsalis (left)“He knows how to gather around him, unite and set up comrades. Technical, high-speed, wholly devoted to the game, endowed with willpower. It creates a lot of chances in the game.”
Football-Hockey weekly (No. 24, 06/13/1976) about Hapsalis
Alexander was born on October 17, 1957 in the small town of Talgar in Kazakhstan - where in 1949 his parents were taken into exile from the Odessa region. At that time, the Stalinist regime fought mercilessly against "rootless cosmopolitans" and other "nationalists". This is how representatives of national minorities were called in Soviet Newspeak, and the father and mother of the future football player were Greeks. The Hellenic diaspora lived in the Black Sea and Azov regions - from the mouth of the Danube to Taganrog and Novocherkassk - for centuries, and they cannot be called newcomers.
From Talgar to Kyiv
He started playing football at the Talgar football school, and in 1971 he moved to the Almaty sports boarding school. Since 1973, he has been declared for the Almaty "Kairat". In 1975, at the international tournament in Tashkent, he became the top scorer and was recognized as the strongest player in the competition. It was after this tournament that Dynamo Kyiv coach Mikhail Koman told Hapsalis that Valery Lobanovsky would like to watch his game.
At the same time, representatives of Moscow CSKA were actively hunting for the young midfielder, while the Soviet army had a simple conversation - a summons from the military enlistment office in the teeth! Therefore, the export of Alexander to Kyiv had to be carried out according to all the canons of conspiracy. According to Hapsalis himself, he flew to the capital of Ukraine under a different surname, wearing a wig and even a hat with earflaps.
Since 1976, Alexander played for the double of the Dynamo team, and in 1978 he became a player in the main team, one of the leading players.
When Alexander was 18 years old, information was received on him by the local KGB department, during one of his trips abroad, the football player was offered to sign a contract by representatives of the Greek Panathinaikos. Despite the fact that Hapsalis refused, the special services "took him on a pencil" and considered him as a potential traitor to the Motherland. He signed a paper, where he admitted that he was "born in the spirit of communist ideas and incapable of treason", but in fact, in order not to upset his father, who, despite the repressions against their family, sincerely believed in the precepts of the CPSU. As a result, the brave Chekists left Alexander alone, so he did not become a secret KGB officer.
At the beginning of his career, doctors diagnosed Hapsalis with heart disease and forbade him to play football at a serious level. However, Alexander signed the necessary documents stating that in the event of death on the football field, all responsibility would be removed from the doctors, and continued on his way to big football.
On the field, his distinguishing features were speed and ease of running, courage in the fight against rivals, a constant desire to sharpen the attacks of his own team, and leadership qualities.
The spring of 1980 in Alexander's career is a triumphant European championship among youth teams. The USSR national team under the leadership of Valentin Nikolaev, having passed in the quarterfinals of the Italians, in the semifinals twice beat their peers from Yugoslavia.
The first final match with the GDR in Rostock did not reveal the winner - 0:0, and in the return at the 51st minute Yuri Susloparov scored the decisive goal. Impressive statistics in the final round: four wins, two draws, goal difference - 8:1! In the final, Nikolaev released Hapsalis onto the field. The second European "gold" for Alexander turned out to be no less bright than the first in the youth championship of the continent in 1976.
Conflict with Lobanovsky
In 1982, Hapsalis left Kyiv due to disagreements with VVL. Although now to call such a petty misunderstanding is ridiculous. And it was like this. Again, a word to the hero himself: “For several years of playing in Dynamo Kiev, I already felt how much my skill and understanding of football had grown, I understood that maturity was coming, and the prospect of the first team was becoming more and more real.
In the second round match of the championship in 1982 with Minsk, one of ours in the center lost the ball. I ran to secure, rolled up, but unsuccessfully - the attack of the opponents continued. I gave all my strength to this jerk, and when a second later I heard something very offensive from Lobanovsky, I answered just as sharply. He reacted immediately, ordering me to be replaced. I didn’t even wait for the replacement, left the field, took my things and left the stadium.
He was young and hot, like any Greek. Decided to leave the team. I trained on my own, did circles at the SKA stadium, arranged tests for myself... But not in the team. The guys at the temple twisted their fingers - what are you doing, Hapsik, you can’t boil like that because of nonsense! Lobanovsky - and he did not want to let go, he said that everything was fine and that we should continue to work. But in my blindness I got to the Moscow general, chairman of the Central Council of the Dynamo society, who said: “Since you have decided to leave, senior lieutenant Hapsalis, then go to the team of your society - to the Moscow Dynamo. Which, on my own head, I did."
So, at the suggestion of the generals of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, Hapsalis changed Dynamo Kiev to Moscow. And how did Alexander's attitude towards Lobanovsky develop in the future?
Here are quotes from the interview of the football player himself: “I will laugh in the face of the person who says that Lobanovsky killed people. On the contrary, he brought them up, made them personalities. And he treated us all in the most decent way - there was not a single case when he did not fulfill this promise. He seems to be tough at work, but he took amazing care of people. Gets, say, a player an apartment. A couple of days later, Lobanovsky comes to him and sees that the player is sleeping on the floor. “Why else?” he asks. "Furniture has not yet been bought." "Come on, give me the phone." "Not installed yet." The next day, the football player was given a telephone, furniture was brought in, and it was assembled - often Lobanovsky personally paid for all this to be done on time. He liked to repeat that a player should train and play, and life is not his concern.
Or here's another one: “Lobanovsky simply taught us the modern pace of football. He taught me to think faster, work with the ball faster, make decisions under pressure. At each training session, each player was always opposed by someone. He was very fond of the Dutch national team with Cruyff, and he liked that, playing against her, the opponent did not have a second to think: the pressure was total. He pulled us to this as well.”
From Kyiv to Leningrad
At first, everything worked out for him in Dynamo Moscow, he even won the Union Cup in 1984 in a new team for himself. All the positive came from the then head coach of Muscovites Alexander Alexandrovich Sevidov. But the noble and somewhat naive soul - San Sanych - trusted his former student at Dynamo Minsk Eduard Malofeev. He, as usual since the biblical period, betrayed him and sat on his post.
Hapsalis himself and Eduard Vasilyevich did not immediately get along. The conflict arose due to the fact that he could not stand Lobanovsky, Dynamo Kiev and everything connected with them. It even got to the point that the coach wrote denunciations to the KGB about Alexander. Therefore, the following year, the player was forced to leave the team.
After almost a six-month "vacation", Hapsalis played for SKA Kyiv, which played at that time in the Second League. However, he failed to reach his former high playing level. After SKA there were Kolos (Nikopol), then Kirovograd Zvezda. The last Hapsalis club on the territory of the Soviet Union was Kirovets, based in Leningrad, where the football player's wife lived at that time.
Moving to the USA
It was thanks to his wife that Alexander's life changed dramatically. His wife, a soloist of the Leningrad Music Hall, performed on tour in Los Angeles. There, she unexpectedly ... stayed to study at the college as a beautician, and soon her husband, our hero, joined her.
In California, he joins the San Diego Soccers professional futsal club and becomes the US futsal champion. After the end of his sports career, he founded his own football school Dynamo Soccer School in Los Angeles.
This page of the hero's life needs attention. Strictly speaking, in the States, not futsal, which is usual for Europe, is cultivated, but a game that is only similar to it and supplemented by some rules, rather from the NHL. For example, the constant change of lineups on the court, like in hockey. And this game is called differently, "American" - Indore.
Oleksandr took root very seriously in this very indoor environment: both as a football player, and as a coach, and as a manager.
One of us had a chance to communicate twice with Alexander Antonovich - "an American". The first time was in New York in 2005 at the traditional tournament named after Valery Vasilyevich Lobanovsky, where he brought his Dynamo (Los Angeles). It was amusing to admire their "zarub" against the same almost native "Chernomorets" (New York), for which the former real Odessa "Chernomorets" Vasily Ishchak played, although the latter does not live in New York, but in Toronto. The Olympic champion of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, former Dynamo Moscow player Igor Sklyarov, played for the team from Philadelphia.
The second time recently - in August 2019 - in Tashkent at the tournament in memory of Pakhtakor football players who died in a plane crash back in 1979. Alexander Antonovich, who played there for the USSR legends team along with Mikhailichenko, Zavarov, Belanov and others, told how he is still seriously involved in football and futsal in the USA.
Achievements
Played for teams: "Kairat" (Alma-Ata) - 1973-1975; Dynamo (Kyiv) - 1976-1985, 206 games, 13 goals; SKA (Kyiv) — 33 matches, 2 goals; Kolos (Nikopol) - 52 matches, 6 goals; Zvezda (Kirovograd) - 43 games, 3 goals.
Two-time champion of the USSR (1980.1981), silver medalist of the USSR Championship (1978), bronze medalist of the USSR championship (1979), three-time winner of the USSR Cup (1978,1982,1984).
Winner of the European Youth Championship (1976), winner of the European Youth Championship (1980), US mini-football champion (1993).
