Soviet Union national football team

• 1. Introduction

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  The Soviet Union national football team once lost a European Championship semi-final on the toss of a coin. In 1968 the Soviets and Italy finished their semi-final goalless. Nobody ordered a replay. It was decided to settle the tie with a coin, and Italy advanced. The team represented the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991. In that time it reached seven World Cup finals tournaments. How did a state shut out of international sport build a side that went that far? Why did it miss the World Cup on only two occasions, and what kept it away? And whose team was it, once the country behind it had vanished?

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• 2. From Isolation to Helsinki

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  In September 1922 a football team from the Finnish Workers' Sports Federation toured Russia, and the visit carried real weight. The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922 had left Soviet Russia diplomatically isolated and unable to enter international competition. The Finnish tour was the first international contact for Soviet sport since 1917. In Petrograd, a Soviet Russia XI won 4-1. At the end of December that year, Russia formed the Soviet Union through the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR.

  The new state joined the Red Sport International, which described any sports event outside its circle as "part of the bourgeoisie". In May 1923 the Soviet side travelled to Finland and won 5-0. The first match against another national team followed in August 1923, nine months after the Union was established. A Russian SFSR team beat Sweden 2-1 in Stockholm.

  A year later came the first match as the Soviet Union itself, a 3-0 win over Turkey. The first fixture was played on the 16th of November 1924. A return match followed in Ankara. Those two games were the only officially recognised internationals the Soviets played before the 1952 Summer Olympics, although unofficial friendlies against Turkey took place in the 1930s.

  The 1952 Olympic tournament was the Soviet Union's first competitive tournament, and it began with a 2-1 win over Bulgaria in the preliminary round. That earned a first-round tie against Yugoslavia. Before the match, both Tito and Stalin sent telegrams to their national teams, which showed how much the heads of state cared. Yugoslavia led 5-1. A Soviet comeback in the last 15 minutes produced a 5-5 draw. The replay went to Yugoslavia, 3-1.

  The defeat to the archrivals hit Soviet football hard. After just three games of the season, CSKA Moscow, which had supplied most of the national squad, had to withdraw from the league. The club later disbanded. Boris Arkadiev, who coached both CSKA and the national side, was stripped of his title of Merited Master of Sports of the USSR. His single year in charge, 1952, opened a long list of national coaches, several of whom later came back for second and third spells.

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• 3. Champions of Europe

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  When the 1960 quarter-final against Spain came around, Spain refused to travel to the Soviet Union, and the tensions of the Cold War handed the Soviets a walkover. They had already progressed easily to that stage. In the semi-final they beat Czechoslovakia 3-0 and reached the final against Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia scored first. Led by the legendary goalkeeper Lev Yashin, the Soviets equalised in the 49th minute. The score stood at 1-1 after 90 minutes. With seven minutes of extra time left, Viktor Ponedelnik scored, and the inaugural European Championship belonged to the Soviet Union.

  In 1964 the Soviets tried to defend the title, beating Italy in the last 16 by 2-0 and 1-1. Sweden came next, and the Soviets won on aggregate after matches of 1-1 and 3-1. The finals were held in Spain, where the Soviets beat Denmark 3-0 in Barcelona. In the final, the host nation scored a late goal and won 2-1.

  Euro 1968 ended for the Soviets on the 8th of June 1968 with a defeat to England in the third-place match. Only four teams reached the finals, which were held in Italy.

  The 1972 finals were played between the 14th and the 18th of June 1972, again with only four teams. The Soviets beat Hungary 1-0 with a second-half goal. West Germany won the final, thanks to the effective play of Gerd Müller.

  The 1988 finals in West Germany had eight teams. The Soviets topped Group B above the Netherlands and beat Italy 2-0 in the semi-final. The Netherlands, who had lost to them in the group, avenged that defeat in the final with a 2-0 win. It was the last European Championship the Soviet Union took part in.

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• 4. World Cup Years

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  Gavriil Kachalin coached the Soviet Union at its first World Cup, in 1958, which it reached through a qualification playoff against Poland. The group held Brazil, England and Austria. The Soviets collected three points, one from England and two from Austria. That sent them into a playoff with England, and Anatoli Ilyin scored in the 67th minute to knock the English out. Hosts Sweden then eliminated the Soviets in the quarter-finals.

  In 1962 the Soviet group included Yugoslavia, Colombia and Uruguay, and the match with Colombia finished 4-4. Colombia scored three goals, in the 68th, 72nd and 86th minutes. The Soviets still topped the group. The hosts knocked them out in the quarter-finals. Lev Yashin was in poor form against both Colombia and Chile, and that was considered one of the main reasons the team went no further.

  The 1966 World Cup produced the Soviet Union's best finish, fourth place. Group 4 held North Korea, Italy and Chile, and the Soviets beat all three. Yashin shone in the quarter-final win over Hungary. Two defeats followed, on the 25th and the 28th of July, to West Germany in the semi-final and Portugal in the third-place playoff. The semi-final finished 2-1. The 1966 squad scored 10 goals, the second-highest tally for a Soviet World Cup team.

  At the 1970 World Cup, the opening match against Mexico gave the Soviets a place in history, as the first team to make a substitution in a World Cup match. Belgium and El Salvador completed the group. The Soviets reached the quarter-final easily, then lost to Uruguay in extra time. It was the last time the Soviet Union reached a World Cup quarter-final.

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• 5. Gaps and Returns

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  The refusal to play Chile after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état cost the Soviet Union its place at the 1974 World Cup, and the team was disqualified. The bleak run continued. The Soviets also failed to qualify for the 1978 World Cup and for the European Championships of 1976 and 1980.

  The 1982 World Cup was the Soviet Union's first major tournament in a decade. It opened with a loss to Brazil, with goals from Sócrates and Éder Aleixo. Scotland and New Zealand completed the group. In the second round the Soviets beat Belgium 1-0 and drew 0-0 with Poland. They finished second in their group, and that ended their run.

  Missing the 1984 European Championship did not stop the Soviets from qualifying for the 1986 World Cup. In Group C with Hungary, France and Canada, they used Irapuato, Guanajuato as their training ground. They scored nine goals and won the group. Belgium then beat them 4-3 after extra time in the round of 16. Their 12 goals remain the most by any Soviet World Cup team.

  The 1990 World Cup, where the Soviets were drawn with Argentina, Romania and Cameroon, was their final major championship. Their only success was a 4-0 win over Cameroon. They lost the other two matches and went out in the group, the only time that happened in their World Cup history.

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• 6. Olympics and Other Honours

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  In 1958 FIFA prohibited national team players from the Olympic football tournament, since Olympic players were required to be amateurs. The Soviets kept fielding their national team players anyway. They effectively bent the rules by listing their best players as members of the military.

  Gold medals came in 1956 and again in 1988, with bronze medals in 1972-1976 and 1980. The 1980 Olympic roster, under coach Konstantin Beskov, was identical to the senior team that played the qualifying tournaments in 1979-1981. Dinamo Stadium in Minsk was designated the official stadium for the 1980 Summer Olympics, yet neither the Soviet senior team nor its Olympic side ever played there.

  The Soviets stayed away from the 1984 Olympics, which they did not enter. They also did not qualify for the tournaments of 1960-1964 and 1968.

  The Nehru Cup in India gave the national team an annual competition from 1985 to 1989, and the Soviets won it in 1985. In 1979 the Gazzetta Sports World Team of the Year award went to the Soviet side, in the middle of a stretch when the team was missing from the major tournaments.

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• 7. Names and Numbers

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  Oleg Blokhin holds two Soviet records, with 112 caps and 42 goals between 1972 and 1988. Goalkeeper Rinat Dasayev is second on the appearances list with 91 caps from 1979 to 1990. Albert Shesternev follows with 90 between 1961 and 1971. Lev Yashin is sixth, with 78 caps between 1954 and 1967.

  Behind Blokhin on the scoring list, Oleg Protasov scored 29 goals in 68 caps. Eduard Streltsov scored 25 in only 38 appearances between 1955 and 1968. Viktor Ponedelnik scored 20 goals in just 29 appearances between 1960 and 1966.

  On the pitch, these players wore the team's traditional red jerseys, white shorts and red socks.

  Gavriil Kachalin held the manager's job in three separate spells, in 1955-1958-1960-1962 and 1969-1970. Konstantin Beskov did the same in 1963-1964-1974 and 1979-1982. Valeriy Lobanovsky took charge in 1975-1976-1982-1983 and 1986-1987.

  From 1988 to 1990 the team was run by a coaching staff led by Lobanovsky, with Yuri Morozov and Sergei Mosyagin. A second staff, led by Anatoly Byshovets with Vladimir Salkov and Gadzhi Gadzhiyev, ran it from 1990 to 1992. That was the last spell on the list.

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• 8. A Team Without a Country

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  Andrei Kanchelskis, who came from the Ukrainian SSR, kept playing after the breakup, this time for the new Russia national football team. His path reflected the makeup of the old side. A large percentage of the Soviet team's players had come from outside the Russian SFSR, mainly from the Ukrainian SSR.

  The Soviet Union qualified for Euro 1992, but the breakup meant its place was taken by the CIS national football team. That side was composed of players from the newly independent Soviet republics. After the tournament, the former republics competed as separate independent nations.

  FIFA and UEFA consider the CIS team, and ultimately the Russia national football team, to be the Soviet successor. FIFA allocated the Soviet team's record to Russia. Olympic records are not combined because of the policy of the IOC, so the Olympic medals stay apart from the record that Russia inherited.

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