@BIG DUNK
Have you got any more infor on Kolotov? I don't know him.
Viktor KOLOTOV
1976 World Soccer World XI
1975 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup winning captain
1975 UEFA Super Cup winning captain
UEFA Euro 1972 runners-up
Soviet Top League: 1971, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1981
Soviet Cup: 1974, 1978
403 club career games, 122 goals (goal every 3.3 games)
55 caps for the Soviet Union, 22 goals (goal every 2.5 games)
Quotes (some Google translated):
“
An all-action, all-energy box-to-box player who was equally at home helping out his defence as he was pushing forward to add an attacking threat. An inspirational leader capped 54 times for the Soviet Union.”
“Indeed, inspired by the goals of the prolific Oleg Blokhin and the
dynamic midfield play of Viktor Kolotov, Lobanovskyi’s side embarked upon an unparalleled period of dominance in the domestic game over the fifteen years that were to follow.”
“…while Vladimir Muntyan, Anatoliy Konkov and captain Viktor Kolotov
combined skill with ceaseless running, intercepting and harrying as a midfield three.”
“Their
potential match-winner was goalscoring midfielder Viktor Kolotov, one of only two Russians in the Soviet line-up. He
had the strike rate of a forward playing for Dynamo Kyiv and
most likely to unpick the lock.”
“Anatoliy Konkov played as a defensive screen while Leonid Buryak and Viktor Kolotov
performed playmaking duties.”
“The most famous pupil of the Kazan club - Victor Kolotov -
at the age of 20 moved to Kiev, where he became a leader and captain.”
“In the 1975-76 European Cup games against AS Saint Etienne,
Dynamo’s formation featured no proper centre-forward, as strikers Blokhin and Onyshchenko constantly played on the flanks,
with midfielders Leonid Buryak, Viktor Kolotov and Volodymyr Veremeyev exploiting the central space as deep-lying forwards, anticipating the false nine position”
““
Who in Soviet football is able to compare with him in terms of the amount of work performed during the game?” Lev Filatov, a columnist for Soviet Sport, wrote about Kolotov.
A player of unique functionalities, he was only formally listed as a midfielder.
For 90 minutes of continuous movement around the field, he managed to play both a stopper, and a center forward, and a playmaker, and on the flanks of the attack he felt like a master.
“
Viktor Kolotov's range of play is unique! He did everything so correctly and on time that the fans in the stands, who had enrolled the football player as a favorite from the first match, did not stop marveling.
Having made a pass, whether short, medium, long, he flew headlong to the gate. He was stopped, shoved, pushed away, but he was unstoppable, and always strived for the maximum goal - to be the first at the ball after the transfer of a partner and score.
There were legends about
Kolotov's efficiency. The pranksters argued that if necessary, h
e would play both the third half and the fourth, and with the same tirelessness as the first two. But I noticed one characteristic detail. If usually football players try to save at least some grains of strength, then
Kolotov gave all the best for an hour and a half, without a trace, sometimes bringing himself to a state of insanity.
After the game with "Eindhoven" in Kyiv - a high-level match and great tension, when even Oleg Bazilevich and I could not stand - we could not hold our legs, Kolotov came out of the shower, looked at everyone carefully and asked in silence: "So they scored against us or not ?” One of the guys, it seems Volodya Muntyan, exclaimed: “Well, you give, Vitek! Calm down, everything remains as it was - 3:0 in our favor. Unless, of course, the referee credited them with a goal on the scoresheet.” “Understood,” Kolotov said calmly and again went to the shower room.”
The captain's armband fell on him like a bolt from the blue. He used to consider himself an ordinary footballer, modestly and honestly doing his job, and suddenly... The reaction to the trust of the guys was expected.
He did not shout at his partners, did not put on an important air, did not speak in a mentoring tone. Kolotov regarded the captaincy as the need to be an example in life, in training and in the game "- from the book by Valery Lobanovsky "The Endless Match".”
“A terrible wound was bleeding heavily - Viktor was taken from the field on a stretcher. The thigh looked like a "chops with blood" - I barely had enough bandages to make a bandage. But blood showed through the bandages. “Hurry!” Victor urged me. No matter how I held him, barely waiting for the end of the dressing, at five minutes before the invalid jumped up and rushed into the thick of things. In bloody bandages, with burning eyes! The Germans shied away from him in horror" - Viktor Berkovsky, doctor of Kyiv "Dynamo".
“Friends remember endlessly about Kolotov’s kindness and responsiveness. Everyone who came into contact with this amazing person can give many examples when he helped not only with a word and kind attitude, but also with direct participation in solving the most desperate and seemingly insoluble problems.
About his mentor Valery Vasilyevich Lobanovsky, Viktor Kolotov spoke only in superlatives. He noted that the coach not only helped him achieve success in football, but also instilled a love for reading and theater. Viktor Mikhailovich did not miss almost a single tour in Kyiv of the famous Kote Makharadze and Sofiko Chiaureli, singled out historical literature and the work of Ilf and Petrov. It is surprising that, being a serious person, he could watch cartoons with rapture, laughing hoarsely at the adventures of Disney's Tom and Jerry.
“There were no football secrets for him either. In his field, he was a real pro. And he greatly valued what was connected with his favorite team. Back in the early 1990s, when Grigory Surkis became the president of Dynamo, the club gave Viktor a car - a Mercedes assigned to him. Vitya was happy with the present, like a boy. Later, when he bought himself a new car, I asked him to sell me a Mercedes. But he didn’t say anything: “Antonych, ask for anything, but I won’t part with this car. After all, this is a Dynamo gift.”
And he was also a real friend. In the early 1990s, I lost my job. Victor, heading "Borisfen", invited me to be the team administrator. But the salary, as I found out later, was paid out of my own pocket. Probably few people are capable of this. Or here is another nuance that vividly characterizes Victor. One of our common hobbies was hunting. He was an excellent shot, but I assure you that he did not have a single killed boar or hare on his account. Kolotov loved animals. In his presence, even the most angry dog began to wag its tail. I remember once Vitya went into an enclosure with two terrible dogs. He got down on all fours in front of them and began to say something. You should have seen how, in a couple of minutes, two huge shepherd dogs climbed up to kiss him! Hunting for Kolotov was just an opportunity to spend time with friends, to be in nature. Somewhere in his soul, apparently, he was a romantic. With a pack of cigarettes, he could retire to the edge of the forest and admire the surrounding beauty for a long time. So it was on his last hunt, on the eve of his death... "- friend of Viktor Kolotov, aviator Vladimir Byrsya.
“A well-established player appeared before the audience - enterprising, cold-blooded, eager to play.
His efficiency on the field would be enough for two.
He did not stand idle for a single minute: he put pressure on the opponent at the moment of receiving the ball on any part of the field, defended at his own goal, with long passes led Blokhin and Onishchenko into the gap, he himself completed the attacks with accurate blows. His game was extremely meaningful and rational. Nothing superfluous, everything is subordinated to a specific task: I didn’t waste time on dribble in the middle of the field, but in a difficult situation at other people’s goal I was not afraid to play individually. His constant, throughout the match, struggle for the ball was not of a destructive nature. On the contrary, having obtained the ball, he immediately started a new attack. Over the years, his role as point guard became more and more prominent. Opponents, aware of this, paid him increased attention. It was not easy to stop Kolotov without violating the rules. He fully experienced the entire arsenal of anti-football techniques: footboards, linings, kicks to the legs. He endured all this stoically, never left the field, and he himself never stooped to such retaliatory actions. Assessing the level of professional skills of Viktor Kolotov, it is difficult to single out anything in particular,
as this skill was so diverse and balanced. But one circumstance cannot be ignored:
Viktor Kolotov is a member of the Grigory Fedotov Club (a symbolic club that unites Soviet football players who have scored 100 or more goals in their careers). Midfielder! The fact is exceptional, and here you can’t do without numbers. Only in 53 matches for the national team Kolotov scored 22 goals. Moreover, he scored the first goal in the debut game for the national team against the Yugoslav team in 1970 ”- My Football magazine.
“The Spartak full-back Evgeny Lovchev remembers being on the receiving end of the Kyiv pressing game. “So, I am the fullback with the ball, playing against Dynamo, and I roll the ball to the centre-back, a little slower as there is no one [from the opposition] in our half. If you time it, it would take about four or five seconds for the ball to get from me to the centreback. In four or five seconds sprinters run 50m, footballers 30. The moment the ball leaves the full-back’s foot, [the stopper Anatoliy] Konkov screams “TOPTAT’!” [“Flatten them!”]. Then Blokhin, the leftsided forward, runs to cut off the rightback, [Volodymyr] Onyshchenko dashes on the other side to cut off the pass to the left-back, [Viktor] Kolotov goes straight for the centre-back, who is still waiting for the ball to arrive, and Konkov moves forward to take over from Kolotov, covering yet another passing lane… they cut off all the players closest to the ball!” ”
It is said Ricardo Zamora, the legendary Spanish goalkeeper, in 1971 when he first saw Kolotov in Dynamo attack, exclaimed: "What a" six "(Kolotov started in Kiev under the 6th number), on his shirt should be a" nine "! " As the water looked - Kolotov soon put on a T-shirt with a "9" on the back, under whom he played until the end of his career.
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