Lev Yashin

Soccer Player

• Born: October 22, 1929
• Birthplace: Moscow, Soviet Union (now in Russia)
• Died: March 20, 1990
• Place of death: Moscow, Soviet Union (now in Russia)

Sport: Soccer

Early Life

Lev Ivanovich Yashin was born in Moscow, Soviet Union (now in Russia), on October 22, 1929. His parents were factory workers, and the family lived in an older-style wooden communal apartment building on the outskirts of the city.

During the 1930’s, life in Moscow was difficult. Most people were poor, and many were persecuted by the Soviet government. One of the few pleasant distractions from such concerns was participation in sports. Lev began his sports career by playing hockey with friends on a frozen pond near his home. From an early age, he earned a reputation as an uncanny goalkeeper. Working with limited equipment—often no mask, no body padding, and no glove—Lev did whatever he had to do to stop the puck from getting past him. He was of ordinary size, but with long legs and arms, and he was extremely wiry and quick. Because it seemed that he could always get an arm out to intercept any shot at the goal, his friends began to call him “Octopus.”

The Road to Excellence

The distractive powers of sport proved even more important in Lev’s life during World War II. In late 1941, Nazi armies had almost reached Moscow. They were repelled only by the most concerted effort, involving not only the military, in which Lev was still too young to serve, but also the civilian population of the city. Lev’s parents were heroically engaged in the effort. Lev spent all his nonschool time playing on hockey teams sponsored by the Communist Youth Organization in order to entertain the struggling populace. In the summer, Lev and his friends turned their athletic skills to soccer, the sport in which Lev achieved lasting renown. By the time the war ended, Lev had become one of the most highly regarded goalkeepers in the Moscow youth leagues.

When Lev finished high school in 1946, he went to work in the factories, as his parents had before him. He stayed active in soccer, however, by playing with a number of Moscow soccer clubs. He then played on a Soviet army team while completing his two-year military service obligation. Returning to civilian life in 1950, Lev was accepted as a backup goalkeeper for Dynamo, one of Moscow’s most popular world-class soccer teams. The remainder of Lev’s career was associated with this great team.

In 1954, Dynamo’s regular goalkeeper became ill, and Lev was called upon to play in important games. His performance assured his permanence in the position. His athletic dives to stop opposing kicks thrilled the huge crowds that attended Dynamo’s games versus Moscow rivals Torpedo and Spartak and teams from other cities. In the next two years, no team scored more than 2 goals in a game against Lev’s defense, and Dynamo was the national champion in 1954 and 1955. Lev’s popularity soared, as did his standard of living in Soviet society. He was chosen to represent his country in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, and thanks largely to his sparkling defense, his team was victorious.

The Emerging Champion

In 1956, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev initiated a thaw in the restrictions on art, dance, music, and literature, a development that occasioned much hope among the Soviet people. With such a spirit of hope, Lev became a member of the Communist Party in 1957. Possibly, party membership played a role in his selection for the Soviet Union’s World Cup team in 1958 and for the Soviet team that won the first European Championship in 1960. Lev’s play in these tournaments was extraordinary, establishing him internationally as soccer’s leading goalkeeper.

In the remaining years of the 1960’s, Lev was active on two more Soviet Olympic teams—1960 in Rome and 1964 in Tokyo—and on two more World Cup teams. With the exception of a disconcertingly mediocre series of games in South America during the 1962 World Cup competition, Lev was continually remarkable in defense of the goal. Soccer analysts attributed his success to his amazingly quick reactions and his fine sense of anticipation, but Lev often said he was simply willing to sacrifice more of himself physically than others were in order to stop the ball.

Despite such sacrifice, Lev was rarely injured. Perhaps his luck was attributable to his schedule of almost constant play: daily practice, weekly games with Dynamo, and seventy-eight games with the Soviet national team. In 1963, he was the first goalkeeper named European player of the year and received soccer’s coveted Ballon d’Or Award.

Continuing the Story

As he approached forty years of age, Lev gradually began to coach more than play with Dynamo. He also served as adviser to the Soviet national team. In 1972, he announced his official retirement as a soccer player. In that year, he graduated from the prestigious Moscow Higher Party School, a leadership training institution of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. He became an administrator of the Dynamo team and a member of the Soviet Union’s State Council on Physical Culture and Sports. In his eighteen years in this capacity, he was central in the Soviet Union’s eventual formal recognition of the professional status of its athletes.

Before his death of stomach cancer on March 20, 1990, he approved a measure to give state pensions to world-class athletes whose competitive youth deprived them of other life skills in a society that gave them little reward except renown.

In June of 1990, two months after Lev’s death in Moscow, the yearly Lev Yashin Invitational Soccer Tournament was instituted in his honor in Anchorage, Alaska. In 2003, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) named Lev the top goalkeeper of the twentieth century.

Summary

Lev Yashin’s remarkable goalkeeping career helped change popular opinion about the importance of a goalie, making the goalkeeping position central to a team’s success. Fans of soccer all over the world still recognize a “Yashin style” of play for goalkeepers. After his days as a player were over, Lev continued to devote his life to the advancement of sport.

Bibliography

Galeano, Eduardo H. Soccer in Sun and Shadow. Rev. ed. New York: Verso, 2003.

Hunt, Chris. The Complete Book of Soccer. Buffalo, N.Y.: Firefly Books, 2006.

Radnedge, Keir, and Gary Lineker. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Soccer: The Definitive Illustrated Guide to World Soccer. London: Carlton Books, 2004.