On the day of memory of Andriy Gusin

Exactly ten years ago, on September 17, 2014, the former Dynamo and Ukrainian national team midfielder Andriy Husin passed away.

Andriy Gusin

Let's recall the football portrait of Andriy Husin, an iconic player of the White and Blues during the time of Lobanovsky's third star team.

He could have been a solid striker, but Lobanovsky's genius saw in him the makings of the best defender of his era in Ukrainian football. He could have been a great coach, implementing the knowledge he gained under the guidance of Ukraine's leading coaches, but he passed away early, at the age of his prime.

In the history of Dynamo and the Ukrainian national team, Andrii Husin remains young - always smiling and at the same time highly concentrated, cheerful in life and unyielding on the field, a wonderful family man and a football player of the utmost professionalism and dedication.

He remains in memory...

Andriy Husin was born on December 11, 1972 in Zolochiv, Lviv region, into a family of athletes. His father Leonid and mother Valentyna were both talented athletes, so the future collection's athletic genes were in him from childhood. It is clear that the young athlete showed promise in other sports, but football still won out. Andriy studied hard at school, but try it differently when his father works there! Interestingly, at the Lviv Institute of Physical Education, where Andriy Gusin got into as a versatile athlete with great prospects not only in football but also in athletics, he defended his thesis on the tactics of Dynamo Kyiv. Oh, fate, how you know how to prepare stories...

At Karpaty, where he started under the leadership of Andriy Karimov, the tall, handsome young man was identified as a forward. In the same capacity, Viktor Khodukin invited him to Avangard (Zhydachiv), later to Karpaty (Kamianka-Buzka), and Volodymyr Zhuravchak to Gazovyk (Komarne). A whole galaxy of promising footballers of the same age were entering big football at that time - Husin, Kardash, Wirth, Benio... A whole galaxy of Galician footballers who had grown to a good level.

At Lviv's Karpaty, where Andriy Husin joined in 1992, he made an incredible debut. On September 6, with the score 0-0 in a match against Ternopil's Niva, he came on as a half-time substitute and secured the victory for the hosts with two goals, scoring against future national team player Tyapushkin. What other debut could a forward wish for?

On June 26, 1993, Husin made his debut in the national team of Ukraine, replacing Hrytsyna during the break in a friendly match with the Croats. In Zagreb, the guests lost when Andriy closed the standard from Konovalov. So he made a productive debut for the national team. The legendary Oleh Bazylevych, who was in charge of the national team at the time, praised the young player's prospects.

Such a forward could not be ignored. Although he managed to score less than a dozen goals in the club at that time, Dynamo did not ignore the young forward's progress. Lviv's Karpaty lost in the 1993 Ukrainian Cup final, but Husin won! Soon after, Dynamo Kyiv invited the promising footballer to join their team. We can say that the capital's club saved Andriy for Ukrainian football - because at that time several foreign teams were interested in him, including Asmral (Moscow), from which several Ukrainian football players were naturalized to the Russian national team, including Semak from Luhansk region.

At Dynamo, Husin faced unprecedented competition - in those years, Leonenko, Shevchenko, Rebrov, Skachenko, Jishkariani, Prizetko, Samoilov, Nesterchuk, Holokolosov, and this list is certainly incomplete. That is why only the best survived in this struggle-even the talented sometimes fell under the blows of fate, and only the strong-willed found a way to prove themselves.

Husin scored 27 goals in 48 matches in his first two seasons at Dynamo-2, but failed to break into the first team. The forward was even loaned out to CSKA Borisfen, where he scored 12 goals in 30 league and cup matches in 1995/96, thanks to assists from Tsikhmeystruk and other great strikers. It could have been even better, if not for a torn knee wound in a match for the national team and several more bruises in matches in the domestic arena. Andriy was interested in the Israeli team Maccabi Haifa, but he wanted to prove his level at the club he belonged to. But the desired breakthrough did not happen after his return to Dynamo.

There was even a moment when Andriy was seriously considered for reinforcement by the South Korean Ilva. And it's lucky that the foreign club regretted paying 400 thousand dollars for Gusin - that's what kind of player Dynamo could have lost. And while the 24-year-old forward was once again forced to prove his worth through Dynamo-2, fate itself smiled on him, rewarding him for his efforts and intransigence.

Legend has it that Andriy Husin owes his great career to one half in front of Valeriy Lobanovsky. Allegedly, the Meter was discussing the problem of a holding midfielder with his assistants while watching a Dynamo-2 match and said to them: "Why do you say we don't have such a player? Here he is playing, a ready-made fullback running around the field, look at him." And Husin, who had been transferred to the middle line by Onyshchenko just the day before, scored a goal after a solo run across the field...

Since then, everything has happened very quickly: gaining credibility at Dynamo, returning to the national team. Not long ago, center forward Husin traveled to the first league stadiums, and now the support player Husin played against the European champions - the Germans, played in European cups against the giants from the top championships, exchanged shirts with his "twin brother" Karsten Ramelov from Bayer Leverkusen Lobanovskyi's lightning-fast transformation is unexpected for outside observers, but quite logical for the systemic football of Lobanovskyi, where someone who worked on himself externally overcame several steps at a time in the stages of growth of his skills.

Andrii Husin made his debut in the first club team on April 6, 1997, against Vinnytsia's Niva, a recent Ukrainian Cup finalist who was beaten 2-0, and a few matches later he scored his first goal for Dynamo in the Premier League against the future bronze medalist Vorskla. Imagine, on June 7, at the NSC Olimpiyskiy, Husin played in a team with Maksymov against the German national team - and the Ukrainians played an honorable 0-0 draw with the current European champions. It was Andriy's first match for the national team in two years, just after his painful injury in the 1995 Slovenian match.

That Dynamo game was one of the most important experiences in the history of national football. The quarterfinals in the first season, the semifinals of the Champions League in the next. We didn't recognize our favorites, who could have lost to Xamax, Rapid or Anderlecht before. And among the leading players of Lobanovskyi's team was Husin, who scored against Brondby and Aalborg in the qualifiers, Peruzzi against Juventus in Turin, and played powerful matches against Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Bayer Leverkusen. Between 1997 and 2004, Andriy Husin played 264 matches for Dynamo on the domestic and international scene, scoring 32 goals. He became the champion of Ukraine 7 times (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004), won the Ukrainian Cup four times (1998, 1999, 2000 and 2003) and won the Ukrainian Super Cup of the premier draw (2004).

At the age of 32, Andriy Husin left Dynamo Kyiv because he did not fit into Jozsef Szabo's tactical formations, but we could only guess that he was actually leaving to play, not to finish. At Krylia Sovetov and Saturn, under the leadership of Haji Hajiyev, he regained his game tone and extended his sporting longevity. And it is very appropriate - the national team of Ukraine really missed such a player. Even remembering Husin's bright debut for the national team, as well as his outstanding matches against the Germans and French in the 90s, we can say that he saved his best matches for the national team for the later part of his career.

Gusin, 33, was the oldest player in Oleg Blokhin's 2006 World Cup squad. However, he did not go as a tourist, but as a leading player - and not on a discounted ticket, but as one of the leaders of that team. It is difficult to determine which was more important - the Danish goal at the very start of the qualifiers, which helped Blokhin not to lose at the Parken, the Albanian goal in Tirana, the Greek goal in Piraeus. In the 81st minute, Rotan gave a split pass from the left flank to the center, and the tired Gusin, far from being the fastest player in his younger years, bypassed Fissas, Basinas, came out to Nikopolidis and clearly shot past the goalkeeper of the European champions. After the match, Oleh Blokhin threw up his hands - he was about to replace Andriy, and the latter, with his goal, secured a 99.9% ticket to the premiere World Cup for Ukraine. There, as if rewarded for years before recognition, Husin and the national team became quarterfinalists. In total, he played 71 matches for the national team, scoring 9 goals and 1 assist.

Almost until the age of 37, Andriy Gusin was in the applications of Haji Hajiyev's teams - Krylia Sovetov, Saturn, Khimki. He combined his performances with the work of an assistant head coach. When he finally gave up football, he was his assistant at Anzhi. In 2010-2013, Andrii Leonidovych was in charge of Dynamo-2. As a senior coach of the Kyiv reserve team, he helped in the development of such players as Kichak, Rudko, Novak, Sukhotskyi, Liulka, Makarenko, Koval, Partskvania, Dopilka, Kushnirov, Shchedryi, Khoblenko, Chornomorets, Korkishko, Volynets, A. Favorov, Balan, Loginov, Kaverin, Israilov. Not all of these guys-even the 2009 European champions-realized their potential in football later. The results of Dynamo-2 were not the best either, as for the first time in its history it had to defend its place in the First League in head-to-head matches. But those who understood the situation realized that there was no longer a qualifying application, no possibility to strengthen the team with players from the first team during the season. The young coach was working on the sidelines, and the fact that some of his wards made it to the national team, to the international level, means that he still listened to what the coaches advised, drew conclusions and progressed. Just like the player Husin himself...

...He was full of ideas and plans. By and large, he was only at the beginning of his coaching career. Andrii's love for speed was expressed in his hobby as a motorist and motorcyclist. On September 17, 2014, Andrii Leonidovych Husin crashed his motorcycle at a racetrack in the village of Chaiky near Kyiv. He was only 41 years old. He is remembered as a very young man - and his sons recognize him now, because Vanya and Andriy Jr. also play football - and also in the center back. A memorial tournament is dedicated to the memory of Andriy Gusin, and this trophy is played both in the capital and in western Ukraine, where his parents come from.

You must admit that we really miss Andriy Gusin in modern national football. Dynamo, the national team, and our coaching staff all miss him. And the best we can do is to pay tribute to this bright and sunny person, to keep the memory of an outstanding player and representative of a glorious sports dynasty alive.