Oleg Blokhin

Oleg Vladimirovich Blokhin, or Oleh Volodymyrovych Blokhin (Ukrainian: Оле́г Володи́мирович Блохі́н, Russian: Оле́г Влади́мирович Блохи́н; born 5 November 1952), is a former Ukrainian and Soviet football player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest footballers of his generation, Blokhin was formerly a standout striker for Dynamo Kyiv and the Soviet Union.[1]

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Volodymyrovych and the family name is Blokhin.

Oleg Blokhin
Blokhin as manager of Dynamo Kyiv in 2014
Personal information
Full name Oleg Vladimirovich Blokhin /
Oleh Volodymyrovych Blokhin
Date of birth (1952-11-05) 5 November 1952
Place of birth Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s) Forward
Youth career
1962–1969 Dynamo Kyiv
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1969–1988 Dynamo Kyiv 432 (211)
1988–1989 Vorwärts Steyr 41 (9)
1989–1990 Aris Limassol 22 (5)
Total 495 (225)
National team
1972–1988 Soviet Union 112 (42)
Teams managed
1990–1993 Olympiacos
1993–1994 PAOK
1994–1997 Ionikos
1998 PAOK
1998–1999 AEK Athens
2000–2002 Ionikos
2003–2007 Ukraine
2007–2008 Moscow
2011–2012 Ukraine
2012–2014 Dynamo Kyiv
Honours
Men's football
Representing  Soviet Union
Olympic Games
1972 Munich Team competition
1976 Montreal Team competition
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

He holds the all-time top goalscorer record for both Dynamo Kyiv (266 goals) and the Soviet Union national team (42 goals), as well as being the overall top goalscorer in the history of the Soviet Top League (211 goals). He is also the only player to have been capped over 100 times for the Soviet Union and holds Dynamo's appearance record with 582 appearances during his 18-year spell at the club. With Dynamo, Blokhin won eight Soviet league titles, five national cups and two European Cup Winners' Cups. He also competed for the Soviet Union at the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games and 1982 and 1986 FIFA World Cups. During his playing career he won the Soviet Footballer of the Year award three times and the Ukrainian Footballer of the Year award nine times (both records). In 1975, he was named European Footballer of the Year, winning the Ballon d'Or, becoming the second Soviet and the first Ukrainian player to achieve such a feat.

As a coach, he has had two spells in charge of the Ukrainian national team, managing the team at the 2006 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012.

In 2011, Blokhin, together with Igor Belanov and Vitaliy Starukhin were named as "the legends of Ukrainian football" at the Victory of Football awards.[2]

Career

Blokhin was born in Kyiv, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, in 1952. His mother Kateryna Adamenko was multiple champion of USSR in the pentathlon, sprint and long jump. He was born to a Russian father and Ukrainian mother. His father Vladimir Blokhin was a police officer, a World War II veteran, and a competitive sprinter. Owing to his parents, Blokhin quickly mastered sprint, and by the age of 16 ran 60 m in less than 7 seconds, and 100 m in 11.0 seconds.[3]

Playing

Blokhin was one of the greatest players in the world throughout the 1970s, hitting the target regularly through a period of great success at his hometown club Dynamo Kyiv and becoming the greatest goalscorer in the history of the Soviet League, which was one of Europe's strongest. Normally a forward or winger, Blokhin was most renowned for possessing exceptional pace.

Blokhin played during most of his career for Dynamo Kyiv, becoming the USSR national championship's all-time leader and goalscorer with 211 goals, as well as making more appearances than any other player with 432 appearances. He won the championship 8 times. He led Dynamo to the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1975 and 1986, scoring a goal in each final. Blokhin is also the USSR national football team's most capped player with 112 caps, as well as their all-time leading goalscorer with 42 goals; he played in the 1982 and 1986 FIFA World Cups where he scored 1 goal in each. He was one of the first Soviet players to play abroad, signing for Austria's Vorwärts Steyr in 1988, he also played in Cyprus with Aris.

In 1979 Blokhin played a couple of games for the Ukraine at the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR.[4]

Coaching

After retiring as a player, Blokhin coached Greek clubs Olympiacos (Under him they won the Greek Cup and the Greek Super Cup in 1992), PAOK, AEK Athens, and Ionikos.

He began serving as the head coach of the Ukrainian national team in September 2003. Under his leadership, Ukraine qualified for a major tournament for the first time as an independent nation, reaching the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. Ukraine reached the quarter-finals of the tournament, losing to eventual champions Italy. Following the side's failure to reach UEFA Euro 2008, Blokhin stepped down as coach on 6 December 2007.[5]

On 14 December 2007, he was named head coach of FC Moscow.[6] The club finished 9th (from 16) and after the season ended Blokhin was fired from the club.[7] At the end of the season, Blokhin announced that if he knew how things would go in FC Moscow, he would have never signed there. This was because the club released many important players without Blokhin's permission yet still had many high expectations.[8] Others said that the reason Blokhin failed in FC Moscow was that he and the press didn't have a friendly relationship, and because of that the press was constantly attacking Blokhin and that damaged his status among the players.[9]

On 21 April 2011 Blokhin was again appointed head coach of the Ukrainian national team.[10][11] He led the team in UEFA Euro 2012 on home soil, beating Sweden but exiting at the group stage after defeats to France and England.

Blokhin in 2012

On 25 September 2012, Dynamo Kyiv signed Blokhin to lead the club for the next four years.[12] His final matches in charge of Ukraine were World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Montenegro in October 2012.[13] Blokhin was dismissed as Dynamo's manager by the club's President Ihor Surkis on 17 April 2014 because of the "unsatisfactory results of the team".[12] The day before, in a press conference after Dynamo had lost a match against Shakhtar Donetsk, Blokhin had already stated that he had decided to resign.[12] Under his leadership Dynamo never qualified (a rare occasion for the club) for the UEFA Champions League and performed poorly in the UEFA Europa League.[12] In his first year his team finished third in the Ukrainian Premier League and in his second year (when he was fired) Dynamo was seven points behind Ukrainian Premier League leaders Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Shakhtar Donetsk.[12]

Career statistics

Club
Club Season League Cup Europe Super Cup Total
Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals
Dynamo Kyiv 1969 10———10
1970 —10——10
1971 10———10
1972 27142061—3515
1973 29188451—4223
1974 29204395—4228
1975 2818—85—3623
1976 1981082—2810
1977 29173220103519
1978 26138440—3817
1979 24176141—3419
1980 33197320—4222
1981 29197361104323
1982 24103040—3110
1983 31101020—3410
1984 301062——3612
1985 29122195—4018
1986 2325585103712
1987 204312010265
Total 4322116729792640582266
SK Vorwärts Steyr 1987–88 135———135
1988–89 28411——295
Total 41911——4210
Aris Limassol 1989–90 22562——287
Total 22562——287
CareerTotal 4952257432792640652283
  • The statistics in USSR Cups and Europe is made under the scheme "autumn-spring" and enlisted in a year of start of tournaments

International

[14]

Soviet Union
Year Apps Goals
1972 98
1973 101
1974 30
1975 72
1976 124
1977 104
1978 106
1979 51
1980 21
1981 65
1982 92
1983 95
1984 31
1985 40
1986 112
1987 10
1988 10
Total11242

International goals
Score and results list Soviet Union's goal tally first.
#DateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition
1.1972-07-16Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Helsinki Finland1–01–1Friendly
2.1972-08-06Råsunda Stadion, Stockholm Sweden4–34–4
3. 1972-09-01Jahnstadion, Regensburg Mexico1–04–11972 Olympics
4. 2–0
5. 3–0
6.1972-09-05Rosenaustadion, Augsburg Poland1–01–2
7.1972-09-08 Denmark3–04–0
8.1972-09-10Olympic Stadium, Munich East Germany1–02–2
9.1973-05-26Central Lenin Stadium, Moscow France1–02–01972 World Cup qualifier
10.1975-04-02Kyiv Central Stadium, Kyiv Turkey3–03–0Euro 1976 qualifier
11.1975-05-18 Republic of Ireland1–02–1
12.1976-03-10Všešportový areál, Košice Czechoslovakia1–02–2Friendly
13.1976-03-24Vasil Levski National Stadium, Sofia Bulgaria3–03–0
14.1976-05-22Kyiv Central Stadium, Kyiv Czechoslovakia2–22–2Euro 1976 qualifier
15.1976-07-23Lansdowne Park, Ottawa North Korea3–03–01976 Olympics
16. 1977-03-23JNA Stadium, Belgrade Yugoslavia1–04–2Friendly
17. 3–1
18. 1977-09-07Central Stadium, Volgograd Poland3–14–1
19. 4–1
20.1978-02-26Stade El Harti, Marrakech Morocco1–13–2
21. 1978-04-05Hrazdan Stadium, Yerevan Finland4–010–2
22. 6–0
23. 9–1
24.1978-05-14Stadionul 23 August, Bucharest Romania1–01–0
25.1978-10-05Ankara 19 Mayıs Stadium, Ankara Turkey2–02–0
26.1979-03-28Lokomotiv Stadium, Simferopol Bulgaria1–03–1
27.1980-08-27Népstadion, Budapest Hungary1–14–1
28.1981-09-23Central Lenin Stadium, Moscow Turkey3–04–01982 World Cup qualifier
29. 1981-10-07İzmir Atatürk Stadium, Izmir2–03–0
30. 3–0
31.1981-11-18Dinamo Stadium, Tbilisi Wales2–03–0
32.1981-11-29Tehelné pole, Bratislava Czechoslovakia1–01–1
33.1982-06-03Råsunda Stadion, Stockholm Sweden1–01–1Friendly
34.1982-06-19Estadio La Rosaleda, Málaga New Zealand2–03–01982 World Cup
35.1983-04-13Stade Olympique de la Pontaise, Lausanne  Switzerland1–01–0Friendly
36.1983-05-17Praterstadion, Vienna Austria2–12–2
37.1983-06-01Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Helsinki Finland1–01–0Euro 1984 qualifier
38.1983-07-26Zentralstadion, Leipzig East Germany1–03–1Friendly
39.1983-10-09Central Lenin Stadium, Moscow Poland2–02–0Euro 1984 qualifier
40.1984-08-19Kirov Stadium, Leningrad Mexico3–03–0Friendly
41.1986-06-09Estadio Sergio León Chavez, Irapuato Canada1–02–01986 World Cup
42.1986-10-29Lokomotiv Stadium, Simferopol Norway3–03–0Euro 1988 qualifier

Managerial statistics


As of 5 November 2020
Team Nat From To Record Achievement
G W D L Win %
Olympiacos 06/1990 01/1993 96 56 27 13 058.33 League runner-up 1991, 1992, Cup holder 1992
P.A.O.K. 1993 1994 40 19 11 10 047.50
Ionikos 12/1994 02/1997 82 29 18 35 035.37
P.A.O.K. 1998 1998 5 1 2 2 020.00
AEK Athens 11/1998 05/1999 24 16 4 4 066.67
Ionikos 03/2000 01/2002 71 23 18 30 032.39
Ukraine 01/2003 12/2007 44 21 12 11 047.73 Won qual.group for 2006, Reached 2006 World Cup quarter-finals
Moscow 12/2007 11/2008 36 13 12 11 036.11
Ukraine 04/2011 2012 18 7 3 8 038.89 Eliminated at group stage of Euro 2012
Dynamo Kyiv 09/2012 03/2014 61 36 10 15 059.02
Total 06/1990 03/2014 477 221 117 139 046.33

Politics

In 1998 Blokhin was elected to Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) for Hromada.[15] He joined Hromada while still being a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine.[15] In 2002, Blokhin was elected to Verkhovna Rada for a second term. In October 2002, he joined the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine.

Family

Blokhin's father, Vladimir Ivanovich Blokhin, is a native of Moscow, a veteran of the World War II, survivor of the Leningrad blockade, and a former Soviet law enforcement agent. Vladimir Blokhin later worked as a sports functionary for the Soviet Dynamo Society. Blokhin's mother Katerina Zakharivna (née Adamenko) is from a village in Borodianka Raion. She originally worked at a Kyiv sewing factory, but eventually discovered hidden athletic talents and became the Soviet champion in track and field as well as pentathlon. After retiring from sports, she became a staff member at one of Kyiv's universities.

Blokhin was married to Irina Deriugina, a top coach and former world champion in rhythmic gymnastics, but the couple divorced in the early 1990s. Blokhin and Deriugina have a daughter, singer Iryna Blokhina, who wrote and performed the Euro 2012 anthem.[16]

Blokhin and his second wife, Angela, have two daughters, Hanna (born 2001) and Katerina (born 2002).[17]

Honours

Club

Dynamo Kyiv

Individual
Blokhin's Golden Foot, awarded in 2009
  • Merited Master of Sports (1975)
  • Merited Coach of Ukraine (2005)
  • Ballon d'Or: 1975
  • IOC European Footballer of the Season: 1974–75[18]
  • Golden Foot: 2009, as a legend[19]
  • Soviet Footballer of the Year (3): 1973, 1974, 1975
  • Ukrainian Footballer of the Year (9): 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981
  • Soviet Top League top scorer (5): 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977
  • Soviet Top League All-Time Goals and Appearances Leader
  • Soviet Cup All-Time Goals
  • UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1985–86 top scorer[20]
  • European Cup 1986–87 second place on top scorers list.[21]
  • USSR national football team All-Time Goals and Caps Leader
  • Ukraine's Golden Player representative[22]
  • The best 33 football players of the Soviet Union (15): No. 1 (1972—1982, 1985, 1986), No. 2 (1983, 1984)
  • Club Loyalty Award: 1986
  • IFFHS Legends[23]

Ballon d'Or
  • 1974 – 19th
  • 1975 – 1st
  • 1976 – 19th
  • 1981 – 5th

See also
  • List of top international men's football goalscorers by country
  • List of men's footballers with 100 or more international caps
  • Oleh Blokhin club

References
  1. "The 50 greatest footballers of all time | FourFourTwo".
  2. Dvali, Natalia (22 December 2011). "Лучшими футболистами Украины признаны Анатолий Тимощук, Андрей Шевченко и Александр Шовковский". Bulvar Gordona.
  3. Блохин и Беланов – главные спринтеры в истории футбола. Пиковый Блохин считался опаснее Кройффа и стоил как Марадона. sports.ru. 27 April 2008
  4. "Футбольный турнир VII Летней Спартакиады народов СССР. Составы команд". 19 March 2015. Archived from the original on 19 March 2015.
  5. Soccer-Blokhin quits as Ukraine coach by Mikhail Volobuyev, Gennady Fyodorov and Ken Ferris, Reuters, 6 December 2007
  6. FK Moscow hire former Ukraine manager Blokhin ESPNsoccernet 14 December 2007
  7. Блохин освобожден от обязанностей главного тренера "Москвы". Sports.ru. 26 November 2008. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  8. Олег Блохин: "Если бы знал, как будут делаться дела в команде, то весной бы не пришел в "Москву". Sports.ru. 16 November 2008. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  9. Геннадий Литовченко: "Говорил Блохину, что его будут травить". Sports.ru. 4 December 2008. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  10. Ukraine appoint Blokhin, Sky Sports (21 April 2011)
  11. Oleg Blokhin appointed Ukraine coach, Reuters (21 April 2011)
  12. Dynamo president sacks Blokhin for poor performance, Interfax-Ukraine (17 April 2014)
  13. Dynamo Kyiv signs Blokhin as coach for 4 years, Sports Illustrated (25 September 2012)
  14. "Oleg Blokhin". National Football Teams. Benjamin Strack-Zimmermann. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  15. Oleh Blokhin: "I have scored all of my goals", Den (1998)
  16. Донька Блохіна заспіває гімн "Євро-2012" (The daughter of Blokhin will sing the Euro 2012 anthem) with photo. TabloID. 11 November 2011
  17. Yuri Yuris (27 September 2002). Олег Блохин: Место В Истории [Oleg Blokhin: Place in History]. Sport-Express (in Russian). Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  18. Anatolii Skorobahatko (25 August 2015). "Best European footballers by season" (PDF). Ukrainian Football. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 2 June 2017. (ukr.)
  19. "Legends". Golden Foot. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
  20. Cup Winners Cup Topscorers. Rsssf.com (18 December 2003). Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  21. European Champions' Cup 1986–87 – Details. Rsssf.com (17 January 2008). Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  22. Archived 17 March 2005 at the Wayback Machine
  23. "IFFHS announce the 48 football legend players". IFFHS. 25 January 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
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