00:05Every goalkeeper knows it. The story's not about them. It's about the strikers. The gun
00:12midfielders. The ones who score the goals that win the matches. But in our regular segment,
00:19keep it clean, the goalies get their moment. And this time it's arguably the most famous
00:25keeper of them all. And certainly the most famous Russian footballer, Lev Yashin.
00:33Yashin never won a World Cup, but he played in four of them from 1958 to 1970.
00:40An icon of the giant Russian club Dynamo Moscow, football's greatest stage provided him the forum
00:46to display to the world his pioneering style of goalkeeping. Unafraid to leave his line,
00:54ordering his defenders into position, and launching counter-attacks, he carved a pathway
00:59to today's sweeper keepers. So fit and flexible for his era, it appeared he had eight arms.
01:10And when he wore all black on the international stage, he earned the nickname the Black Spider.
01:19Even if he was more commonly dressed in green, 10 years after winning an Olympic gold medal with the
01:26Soviet Union in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, Yashin was the driving influence in the
01:33Soviet's only World Cup semi-final appearance in 1966. And their only European championship in 1960.
01:45When he retired in 1971, the list of international greats who traveled to Moscow for his testimonial
01:52included Pele, Eusebio, Bobby Charlton, Gerd Mueller, and Franz Beckenbauer.
02:01Yashin's reflexes took him to 151 penalty saves and 270 clean sheets, while his devotion to his homeland
02:09secured him the order of Lenin. There was no higher honor for a Soviet citizen, but for a citizen of
02:18the
02:18beautiful game, there were three awards even greater. The first, his 1963 Ballon d'Or, still the only time the
02:29game's biggest individual honor has gone to a goalkeeper. He was also judged goalkeeper of the 20th century by FIFA.
02:39And in 1994, FIFA named the trophy for best goalkeeper at the World Cup, the Levy Yashin award.
02:48It's since been renamed the Golden Glove, but the trophy's symbolism and connection to Yashin remains as strong as ever.
Comments