Today is the 76th birthday of the legendary Dynamo Kyiv player of the 70s Stefan Reshko. We congratulate Stefan Mykhailovych on his birthday and recall the bright moments of the biography of the outstanding Dynamo defender, described in the book "Pioneers" by Semyon Sluchevskyi and Volodymyr Kuleba.
Stefan Reshko (photo: fcdynamo.com)"Stepa, today you are obliged to neutralize Gerd Müller. Remember: there is only one person for you in the whole stadium - Müller. He has no right to score for us. And you, Styopa, are personally responsible for this."
That's what Valery Vasiliovych Lobanovskyi instructed Stefan Reshko before the UEFA Super Cup match against Bayern in Munich on September 9, 1975.
An attentive reader can pay attention to the confusion: Reshko then Stefan, then Stepan. So what is his real name?
During the Stalinist and post-Stalin years of the struggle against "foreigner flirtation", Soviet people, primarily public figures, did not have the right to "glow" with names reminiscent of "rotting capitalism". This was strictly monitored by party bonzas at various levels of government. So, for example, the great actor, a close friend of Lobanovskyi and Bazilevich Albert Borisov "turned" into Oleg.
In the world of football, a similar "guillotine" passed, in particular, on Transcarpathian players. First of all, by ethnic Hungarians. And that's why Jozef Beca and Szabo were "renamed" to Josypiv, Ferenc Medvid - to Fedor, Laszlo Ratz - to Vasyl. The only exception was the midfielder of Kyiv "Dynamo" in the 50s, and then the great coach Ernst Yust. Yes, he was allowed to keep his native name probably only because he was the namesake of the hero of Soviet propaganda, the leader of the German communists of the 30s and 40s, Ernst Thelmann.
Reshko is not a Hungarian at all, but a pure-blooded Ukrainian. But the Ukrainian is Transcarpathian, and the name Stefan is also natural there, like Stepan in Eastern Ukraine. So he had to play under a "pseudonym" for many years.
He was born on March 24, 1947 in the village of Klyucharky, Mukachevo District, Zakarpattia Oblast. He was brought up in a deeply religious, truly peasant family. To the peasant - not so much in the social, as in the spiritual meaning of the word. In such families, parents brought up and are bringing up hard work, justice, patience, and perseverance in their children.
As a teenager, Stefan moved to Uzhhorod to learn the profession of a carpenter-carpenter there, at an art vocational school. And he mastered it perfectly. In those years, students were taught to draw, carve, sculpt, sculpt the faces of the leaders of the CPSU and the USSR. Reshko got used to "creating" busts and bas-reliefs of Nikita Serhiyevich Khrushchev, but he considers his best work of art to be the carved casket he gave to his first wife as a marriage proposal in 1966. Unfortunately, she passed away after a serious illness when Stefan was just over 40 years old…
Let's return to the hero's childhood and adolescence. His family was not just religious, but adhered to that creed that provoked a sharp punitive reaction of the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and similar structures, namely, the Baptist faith.
As Stefan Mykhailovych himself recalls, his father did not like playing football even as a child in the village. It came down to parental prohibitions - the Baptist church at that time did not welcome football, considering it a secular pastime. And worldly means hostile. There was no television in Reshka's family. Since a television set in a Baptist home at that time was an enemy propagandist, and therefore a sin. Therefore, Stefan's father did not watch his game, even when his son played for Dynamo and the national team. True, I saw one match - at the UEFA Super Cup - at a neighbor's house. But that was after.
Reshko is a football player
And yet playing football is an exceptional example of a son's disobedience. True, far from home. Children's coach Vasyl Vasyliovych Fedak came to the same art school in Uzhgorod and selected several boys for his training group, including Reshka.
Despite such a late age to start - 14 years old - Stefan, thanks to natural data and the character brought up in the family, rose to become the leader of youth football in Transcarpathia. Therefore, soon he was enrolled in the youth team of the local team of masters "Verkhovyna", and at the age of 17, the head coach of this team, in the past the famous midfielder of Kyiv "Dynamo" Mykhailo Mykhalyna, transferred the boy to the adult team.
Two seasons later, according to his age, he had to go to service in the Soviet Army. Translated into football language, Reshko has already been targeted by the coaches of the main team of the Carpathian Military District - Lviv SKA.
But the religious Stefan did not want to play in a t-shirt with a red star on his chest. And then a fellow villager, a well-known football player at the time, Janos Gabovda, later the winner of the USSR Cup in 1969 as part of Karpaty, and then a forward of Lokomotiv Vinnytsia, recommended the fellow countryman to the coach of the Steamers team from the city above the Southern Bug, a famous goalkeeper in the past. Dynamo" to Oleg Makarov. So Reshko ended up in Vinnytsia.
It is a mystery to me: how it was possible to carry out "sports conscript service" not in the army or Dynamo (Ministry of Internal Affairs), but in a trade union club. Were the Railway Forces of the USSR assigned to Lokomotiv? Be that as it may, Stefan played two seasons in Vinnytsia, and then went "for promotion" - to Odessa "Chernomorets", which played in the elite division of the USSR championships.
At that time, Dynamo Kyiv not only changed the coach (Viktor Maslov was replaced by Oleksandr Sevidov), but also the philosophy of football - specifically, playing in defense. In the 1960s and 1970s, Viktor Oleksandrovych was the most famous supporter of zone defense and an opponent of personal defense. Therefore, despite the change of generations - Vasyl Turyanchyk, one of the most famous "wave breakers" of that time, was ending his career by age - Grandfather did not think about looking for "personal staff-wolf dogs". Therefore, it is unlikely that he could be interested in Reshko.
Sevidov was not a convinced supporter of individual defense, he considered it better to combine these two principles of defense. Therefore, at first I put Viktor Matvienko in the center of the back line in a pair with the "Director" (Vadim Sosnykhin). But, convinced that he would be more useful on the flank, he transferred Victor there. And Stefan Reshko from Odessa was invited to the vacant place.
Lobanovskyi and Bazilevich, who came instead of Oleksandr Oleksandrovych to the Dynamo coaching staff, further developed the tactics of the game in the center of defense. As is known, the new is the well-forgotten old. So, the now fashionable game "in line" was dominant in the 60s.
However, the "Dutch revolution" of the early 1970s in football tactics involved the universalization of players and the intensification of work on the field. Therefore, in addition to the "line game", the game with the front and rear central defenders began to develop intensively.
Valery Vasyliovych and Oleg Petrovych were among the first in world football to effectively deepen the development of this scheme. Yes, "Dynamo" played a great pair of center backs: "rear" and "front". Mykhailo Fomenko acted as a "back" or "libero" (Soviet commentators completely invented their own definition - "cleaner"), and Stefan Reshko acted "on a player" in front of him. Over time, the Meter successfully developed this relationship. Let's remember the famous couples: Serhii Baltacha and Oleg Kuznetsov in the 80s. And in the 90s, "zero" Vladyslav Vashchuk and Oleksandr Golovko became, perhaps, the best center backs not only of Ukraine, but also of all of Eastern Europe.
However, it is fair to consider Reshko as the first high-class forward defender in Dynamo.
His achievements in football are remarkable: 4-time champion of the USSR, 2-time winner of the Union Cup, winner of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Super Cup, bronze medalist of the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
And, of course, the story about this player will be clearly incomplete if we do not mention one iconic duel on the football field. About the duel mentioned at the very beginning.
Stirlitz v. Mueller
Gerhard (Gerd) Müller was an outstanding forward of German and world football, recognized by all as a scorer for Bayern and the Bundesliga, the German national team. During 15 years of playing for the most successful German club, he scored 398 goals in 453 Bundesliga matches, another 68 goals in 62 matches for the national team of his country, the 1974 World and 1972 European champions. Müller is the winner of the "Golden Ball"-1970 and three times (!) - the "Golden Boot" (the award for the best scorer of the national championships of UEFA member countries). He won the Champions Cup three times, the Cup Winners' Cup once, and more, more, more...
Memories are a strange thing: I don't remember the details of recent matches, but I calmly pull from the depths of my own memory the style of play of this Bomber der Nation (bomber of the nation) - a cool nickname. Melnyk (his last name is literally translated from German) easily grinded the defenders of any rival team, and in his own way.
Average height for football players at that time (176 cm), due to his tightly built body and powerful "elephant" legs, Gerd gave the impression of a small big man. His second nickname is Kleines dickes Müller (Little Fat Müller) for a reason. He did not have the fame of an outstanding dribbler, did not have excellent distance speed, but his chips were head play (I remind you that not when he is not tall), the talent to instantly accelerate to short distances, and, above all, a unique sense of goal.
It was this quality that the outstanding Soviet hockey player Oleksandr Almetov was famous for a few years earlier. He, too, was not a super-technician like Vsevolod Bobrov or a foreign hockey field worker like his main rival in the scoring race, Vyacheslav Starshinov, but a scorer! All the chosen ones knew that before Almetov, that in football you have to "just stick to" Müller. They knew, but they could not.
And Reshko managed to stick together in one match! In one, it is because in the replay, in Kyiv on October 6, 1975, Herd did not play - a few days before the meeting, he underwent an operation to tear a thigh muscle.
Lobanovskyi's pre-match dialogue with Reshko in Munich, the first part of which I quoted in the clip, had its continuation. Stefan, who has a kind of "closed" sense of humor, decided to relieve his own excitement a little, and at the coach's suggestion, to "close" the German tightly, turning into his shadow, allowed himself to poke VVL a little: "And what should I do if Muller goes from the field to the bench?". The meter did not give in to the prank, but also did not get indignant, not watching the pre-match rant: "So you will follow him to the bench. I'm fine with that."
Soviet TV did not broadcast that match in Munich directly. Apparently, the authorities did not really believe in the success of our football players. Years later, I watched the recording of that game many times, especially in the editing process for movies and TV shows. Indeed, from time to time the screen picked up a strange couple, as if in some wise dance: "strong kid" Müller - and next to him is a tall, slender, plastic Reshko.
At that time, the famous TV series "17 Moments of Spring" was released on millions of "blue screens" of the USSR. That is why Reshko got the silly, in my opinion, nickname "Stirlitz". The reason is simple and primitive: Stirlitz vs. Mueller, they say.
But those sports journalists who had the habit of reading books, and especially remembered the literature of their youth, sublimely began to call Stefan the "Iron Lumberjack". This is already in honor of the fairy-tale character from the wonderful children's books of the American writer Lyman Baum "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and the subsequent free retelling of this tale by Alexander Volkov in Russian - "The Wizard of the Emerald City". Really tough, but at the same time correct game of our front defender (only two "mustards" and not a single dismissal in his entire football career), and, no less, some such character traits as kindness combined with a heightened sense of justice brought us together a football player and a fairy-tale hero.
This is how Valery Lobanovsky described Stefan's game in his book "Endless Match": "Prudence and thoroughness characteristic of Reshko in life were easily transferred by him to the field. How many forwards bounced away from him like from a wall after brutal fights, writhing in pain with distorted faces, and Reshko, who was as good as anyone, knew how to hide his pain and tried to smile, which annoyed his opponents.
Silent by nature, a kind and just man, Stefan humbly endured all the loads offered during training. When he was not strong enough, sometimes he must have grumbled to himself, but he endured. And he infected his partners with his patience. Therefore, I had every reason to read in their eyes respect for the ability to withstand the seemingly incredible."
A real colonel
The post-game career of Stefan Mykhailovych is not at all typical for football players. While still a student of Dynamo, he graduated from the Police School. And when he hung up his boots on a nail at the age of 31, he went not to coaches, but to teachers, putting on epaulettes. True, then only a senior lieutenant. Nowadays, officers are 10 years younger than such stars.
Why didn't Reshko go on the coaching field? He himself explains his choice by fatigue. "Torn by injuries, spine, knees. In addition, I studied in absentia at the Higher School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and then I was invited to work at the department. And it's easier to be close to your family. I have no regrets. I spent eight full seasons in Dynamo, I'm not saying I was a great player, but I was in a great team with which I achieved great success. And in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he started as a senior lieutenant and became a colonel, head of the department."
He has been a professor since 1997. According to the official portal of the National Academy of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Stefan Mykhailovych is a professor of the Department of Fire and Special Physical Training of the Criminal Police Training Institute, Honored Master of Sports of the USSR, Honored Worker of Physical Culture and Sports of Ukraine.
As you yourself understand, "honored master of sports" is for achievements in football, and "honored worker of physical culture and sports of Ukraine" is for cultivating valiant personnel for the formidable criminal police from this same "fiery and special physical training". I declare right away, if anyone has a question: and to whom this criminal police is formidable, then I refuse to enter into such a useless discussion...
In the Football Federation of Ukraine, Reshko headed the control and disciplinary committee, as well as the security commission. He was the coordinator between the security forces of Kyiv and the UEFA delegate when it came to European Cup meetings or matches of the Ukrainian national team.
Stefan Mykhailovych once admitted: "Happiness is when there is peace of mind, and I have achieved this in my life." And the main support of this happiness is his wonderful family. His current wife Larisa, with whom he has been married for more than 25 years, has three adult children, as many grandchildren. The eldest son, Stefan, showed promise as a football player, but preferred a career as a lawyer. Today, he is one of the most sought-after lawyers in Kyiv. Won't Reshko have an heir in football? In this regard, Stefan Mykhailovych hopes for his grandson Anton.
