Sergey Gotsmanov

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personal information
Sergey Gotsmanov

Full name	Sergey Anatolyevich Gotsmanov
Date of birth	March 27, 1959 (1959-03-27) (age 49)
Place of birth	Minsk, Belarus, Soviet Union
Height	5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Playing position	Forward
Youth clubs
1967-1978	Trudavay
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1978 1979-1990 1990 1990-1991 1991-1992 1992-1993 1993-1996 1996-1999	FC Dinamo Brest FC Dinamo Minsk Brighton & Hove Albion Southampton VfL Halle 1896 FC Dinamo Minsk Dinamo-93 Minsk Minnesota Thunder	027 0(2) 289 (31) 016 0(4) 008 0(0) 019 0(4) 018 0(7) 012 0(3) 013 0(0)
National team
1984-1988 1992-1993	USSR Belarus	031 0(2) 003 0(1)^[1]
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Sergey Anatolyevich Gotsmanov (Belarusian: Сяргей Гоцманаў; Russian: Сергей Анатольевич Гоцманов) (born in Minsk, Belarus March 27, 1959) is a former Belarusian footballer who played for the USSR in the 1980s.

1 Playing career
2 Honours
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Playing career

[edit] Dinamo Minsk

Having spent most of his youth at Trudavay, he graduated to the FC Dinamo Minsk first team in 1979, where he was part of the team that won the Soviet championship in 1982 under manager Eduard Malofeev.

He made his international debut against Finland on 15 May 1984 and, in his second international appearance on 2 June 1984, he came on as a substitute against England in a friendly at Wembley and scored the opening goal as the USSR won 2-0.^[2] In the 1988 UEFA European Football Championship, he was a member of the Soviet Union squad, appearing in two of the Group B games as the Soviet Union headed the group (with England coming in last with three defeats); he also appeared in both the semi-final (when he was elbowed in the face by Italy's Ancelotti) and the final, where the Soviets were defeated 2-0 by the Netherlands, with goals from Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten.^[3]

His exploits with both FC Dinamo Minsk and the USSR national team earned him the accolade as Belarusian Footballer of the Year four times (in 1983, 1985, 1987 and 1989); this feat was subsequently matched by Alexander Hleb.

[edit] In England

In February 1990, Gotsmanov joined Brighton & Hove Albion on a non-contract basis and scored four goals in 16 games for Albion, and in his short time at the Goldstone Ground he became something of a cult figure with the crowd. In one game he showed his class when he rounded the opposition goalkeeper and saluted to the fans in the South Stand before putting the ball in the net. Albion wanted to sign Gotsmanov permanently but could not compete with the terms offered by Southampton and the player moved to The Dell.

In August 1990 Southampton paid a fee of £150,000^[4] for Gotsmanov’s services and he was considered by some fans to have been signed just to keep Saints’ other recent Soviet signing, Aleksei Cherednik, company.^[5] His chances with the Saints were limited and he struggled to oust Alan Shearer, Matt Le Tissier and Rod Wallace from the starting line-up. In his season with The Saints he only made 14 appearances in all competitions and failed to score.

[edit] Later career

In September 1991 he departed for German football where he spent a season with VfL Halle 1896 before returning to Minsk, firstly with FC Dinamo Minsk, before moving to their reserve team Dinamo-93 Minsk.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, he made three appearances for Belarus, scoring in his first appearance on 28 October 1992, a 1-1 draw with Ukraine^[6]. In the mid 1990s, he moved to the United States where he played for Minnesota Thunder.

His wife, Olga, was the Belarusian national gymnastics coach. He is currently resident in Woodbury, Minnesota, where he has coached in local youth football. His son, Sasha Gotsmanov, played for Colorado Rapids, before moving to Minnesota Thunder.