The legendary forward of Kyiv Dynamo Igor Belanov told in an interview with Josimar Football, a funny story about his Golden Ball in 1986.
- There is a funny story about Blokhin and me. His trophy is smaller than mine. He won it in 1975, so the model is older than the one I had in 1986. Once, we went to a meeting of several legendary athletes in Dnipro. Each of them brought their trophies, their Olympic medals and the like. President Zelensky looked at my Golden Ball and said: "Wow, that's a big one you have."
He had seen Blokhin's Ballon D'Or before and expected mine to be the same. I said to him: "Don`t worry, I`ve got a pump with me from Odessa. We`ll throw gas to Blokhin. Everyone started laughing. Blokhin and I are friends, we try to stick together. We understand each other's value," said Belanov.