How Lev Yashin won the Ballon d’Or, becoming the best soccer player in Europe
In the Spring of 1964, before the quarterfinal match of the European Cup between the USSR and Sweden, the 100,000-strong audience of the Central Lenin Stadium burst into applause. The editor-in-chief of ‘France Football’ was awarding Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin with the Ballon d’Or - the prize for the best European player of the year.
His biography, without exaggeration, is legendary: 11-time best goalkeeper of the USSR, five-time champion of the Soviet Union, three-time winner of the USSR Cup. But, in 1962, Yashin seriously considered ending his sports career. Then, at the World Cup Lev, Yashin conceded seven goals in four matches. After losing the quarterfinal match to Chile, the Soviet team returned home. Upset fans believed Yashin was to blame for everything.
They wrote him angry letters, smashed the windows in the apartment where he lived and said that it was time for him to leave soccer. Hie every appearance on the field was accompanied by whistling and jeering. No one suspected that, in that ill-fated match, Lev Yashin was playing with a concussion, having been hit on the head by the ball at the very beginning of the game.
But, a year later, Yashin led Dynamo Moscow to victory in the All-Union championship - in 27 matches, he concededonly six goals. And, in the fall, he played as part of the world team in a match dedicated to the centenary of soccer at Wembley Stadium in London. Along with him, Eusebio, Denis Law, Alfredo Di Stefano and Francisco Hento entered the field. The Soviet goalkeeper did not concede a single goal. The Western press was delighted: “It’s not for nothing Yashin is called ‘octopus’!” - “His agility is excellent, his courage is simply amazing!” And England goalkeeper Gordon Banks admitted: “One half spent on the field with him was enough to understand that we had a genius in front of us.”
Shortly after that, Lev Yashin held a game 1/8 finals of a European Championship qualifying game - after which Italian players began to call the Soviet goalkeeper nothing less than “the devil”.
When the time came to choose the best European player of 1963, the jury (which consisted of 21 sports journalists from UEFA member countries) named Lev Yashin the best.
Yashin is still the only goalkeeper to have won this prestigious award. In 2020, ‘France Football’ recognized him as the best goalkeeper in history.
