Lev Yashin - Only goalie to win Ballon d'or

The greatest goalkeeper of them all, Lev Yashin revolutionised his position and became a hero of the Soviet Union.

This summer, the image of him flying high will be seen by millions of people because it is Yashin who is on the 2018 Fifa World Cup poster.

He was an international star and an iconic figure, famous for his black outfit and flat cap.

But he had his childhood torn away in a country ravaged by war and died aged 60 after a retirement plagued by ill health that led to him losing a leg.

Valentina Timofeevna Yashina leans back in her armchair. She is talking about her husband, one of the greatest footballers of all time. Behind her, on the top shelf of a glass cabinet, there is a chocolate replica of the Ballon d’Or he won in 1963. The foil is peeling in several places now, but it is still gold.

Lev Yashin, the only goalkeeper ever awarded the prize, is an icon of the Soviet Union, the empire that fell in 1991, a year after his death at the age of 60. He is the Black Panther, the Black Spider, a legend who is nowhere more real than here in this living room, where the woman he shared his life with still speaks about him in the present tense.

Valentina is 88 years old now and she still lives in the apartment they were given by the state in 1964. Yashin looks down from the walls - frames he shares with friends and family; fellow footballing greats Franz Beckenbauer, Pele and Eusebio, his two daughters and grandchildren. In the hallway, dozens of medals hang on a red fabric strip.

Lingering cigarette smoke fades slowly from the kitchen. Valentina is comfortable, she has a mischievous smile and there is brightness in her eyes. Now she is leaning forward and urging us to listen. This is a story about a father, a goalkeeper, the country he played for which no longer exists, a time all together different to our own.

Walking beyond the padded, thick front door of Valentina’s winter-proof Moscow apartment, you step back in time into a life of a footballing legend. Everywhere you look there are posters, trophies, signed footballs - a huge number of personal treasures gathered over a remarkable career. This was Yashin’s home for 26 years.

There are so many mementos it is hard to keep track. There is the stuffed lion toy on the sofa (Lev means lion in Russian). There is a pennant from Ipswich Town - Valentina does not remember how it came to Yashin. There is the gold medal he won at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, a medal that was shown countless times on the long, celebratory train journey home across Russia from Vladivostok.

But there is one major piece missing from the collection - a World Cup medal. The best Yashin achieved on football’s biggest stage was fourth place at the tournament England hosted and won in 1966. In fact, despite revolutionising his position - and despite receiving the game’s most prestigious individual accolade - a poor World Cup almost prematurely ended Yashin’s career.

In 1962, the Soviet Union went out in the quarter-finals, defeated 2-1 by host nation Chile. Yashin, then 32, had not performed to his best. Two soft goals contributed to his team’s downfall and the single Russian language report of the game painted him as the scapegoat.

When the team returned from South America, angry supporters greeted them at the airport. There were signs reading “Yashin retire” and “Time to get your pension”. The windows of Yashin’s home were smashed, insulting messages were left on his car, threatening letters arrived in the post. He called these days the “most bitter of my football life”.

How could you not take it badly?

Yashin had been the hero in 1960, holding off a dominant Yugoslavia side in the European Championship final while his team-mates up the pitch conjured a comeback win in extra time. After Chile, Valentina says she had never seen her husband so down.

“He wanted to quit,” Valentina says. “When Lev came back to Moscow they were whistling in the stadiums as soon as his name was announced. There was screaming and jeering. They thought it was all his fault - that it was only him who had lost the game, not the whole team. The journalist who reported from the match did not know about sports - his job was to write about South American politics.

But Yashin - a man who had built his success on hard work - found the resolve to carry on despite adversity. It was not the first time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/yashin

 

I'm sure BT or Sky are going to be doing a program on him, saw it advertised I think..

 

Get out.

 

My favourite thing about that article is that his wife keeps a chocolate replica of his Ballon d'or.