Oleg Blokhin

Oleg Blokhin
Oleg Blokhin.jpg
Personal information
Full name Oleg Blokhin
Date of birth November 5, 1952 (1952-11-05) (age 58)
Place of birth Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Playing position Forward
Youth career
1962–1969 Dynamo Kyiv
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1969–1988 Dynamo Kyiv 432 (211)
1988–1989 Vorwärts Steyr 041 00(9)
1989–1990 Aris Limassol 022 00(5)
Total 495 (225)
National team
1972–1988 Soviet Union 112 0(42)
Teams managed
1990–1993 Olympiacos
1993–1994 PAOK
1994–1997 Ionikos
1997–1998 PAOK
1998–1999 AEK Athens
1999–2002 Ionikos
2003–2007 Ukraine
2007–2008 FC Moscow
2009– Chornomorets Odesa (Sportive Director)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.
† Appearances (Goals).

Oleh Volodymyrovych Blokhin (Ukrainian: Олег Володимирович Блохін) (born 5 November 1952 in Kiev) is a Ukrainian football coach, who was formerly a standout striker for the Soviet national team, while rising to fame with Dynamo Kyiv. He was named European Footballer of the Year, winning the Ballon d'Or, in 1975, becoming the second Soviet and the first Ukrainian player to achieve such a feat.

Contents

Career

Blokhin was born in Kiev, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, in 1952

Playing

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.

Coaching

After retiring as a player, Blokhin coached Greek clubs Olympiacos (Under him they won the Greek Cup twice, in 1990 and 1992, and the Greek Super Cup once, in 1992), AEK Athens, PAOK, and Ionikos.

He began serving as the head coach of the Ukrainian national team in September 2003. Under his leadership, Ukraine reached the quarter-finals of 2006 World Cup. There, Ukraine lost to Italy, who eventually progressed to become the 2006 World Champion. Following the side's failure to reach UEFA Euro 2008, Blokhin stepped down as coach on 6 December 2007.[1]

On 14 December 2007, he was named head coach of FC Moscow.[2] The club finished 9th (from 16) and after the season ended Blokhin was fired from the club.[3] 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.[4]. 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[5].

Career statistics

Club Season League Cup Europe Total
Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals
Dynamo Kyiv 1969 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
1970 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0
1971 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
1972 27 14 2 0 0 0 29 14
1973 29 18 8 4 6 1 43 23
1974 29 20 4 3 5 1 38 24
1975 28 18 0 0 11 8 39 26
1976 19 8 1 0 6 2 26 10
1977 29 17 3 2 8 2 40 21
1978 26 13 8 4 2 0 36 17
1979 24 17 6 1 4 0 34 18
1980 33 19 7 3 4 1 44 23
1981 29 19 7 3 2 0 38 22
1982 24 10 3 0 6 1 33 11
1983 31 10 1 0 4 0 36 10
1984 30 10 1 1 2 0 33 11
1985 29 12 5 1 0 0 34 13
1986 23 2 2 1 10 5 35 8
1987 20 4 5 5 7 5 32 14
1988 0 0 3 1 2 0 5 1
Total 432 211 67 29 79 26 578 266
SK Vorwärts Steyr 1987–88 13 5 0 0 0 0 13 5
1988–89 28 4 1 1 0 0 29 5
Total 41 9 1 1 0 0 42 10
Aris Limassol 1989–90 22 5 6 2 0 0 28 7
Total 22 5 6 2 0 0 28 7
Career Total 495 225 74 32 79 26 648 283

[6]

National team Season Apps Goals
Soviet Union 1972 9 8
1973 10 1
1974 3 0
1975 7 2
1976 12 4
1977 10 4
1978 10 6
1979 5 1
1980 2 1
1981 6 5
1982 9 2
1983 9 5
1984 3 1
1985 4 0
1986 11 2
1987 1 0
1988 1 0
Total 112 42

Politics

In 2002, Blokhin was elected to Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) for a second term. In October 2002, he joined the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine. Recently, Blokhin has showed no political activity, concentrating on his coaching job.

Family

Blokhin was married to Irina Deriugina, the prominent Soviet/Ukrainian gymnast and world champion in free-stand exercise, but the couple divorced in the early 1990s. They have a daughter named Irina.

2006 Racial controversy

On 22 February 2006 in an interview (Russian) on the Ukrainian sports website sport.com.ua, Blokhin made the following comment:

The more Ukrainians that play in the national league, the more examples for the young generation. Let them learn from [Andriy] Shevchenko or Blokhin and not from some Zumba-Bumba whom they took off a tree, gave him two bananas and now he plays in the Ukrainian League. [...] I remember when I played football, if we lost a game, it was not easy to walk the Kiev streets – there were many friends out there who could beat you up for that. But is there any sense in beating up a foreigner? Okay, you beat him up – next thing he does is pack up and go.

These comments received considerable coverage in Western editorials.[7][8][9]

Individual honours

Notes

External links