In Leonenko, biography

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Viktor Leonenko is the legendary footballer of Dynamo Kiev and the Ukrainian national team of Ukraine. Forward received his glory in Kyiv. Nevertheless, his name is forever inscribed in the history of our football-he became the author of the first hat-trick in the championships of Russia. It happened in the third round. And a few weeks later, there was just a story that changed his life.

But for starters, a little background. Leonenko moved to Moscow from Tyumen at 21. On the Dynamo line - at that time the football player was serving military service and was transferred from the Tyumen team to the capital. With the head coach of the blue and white Valery Gazzaev, he had a good relationship. I always had before his eyes-I lived at the base. Abroad, Gazzaev taught me to be purchased correctly.

In those years, the guys had nothing to have nothing, all in the bazaars washing everything in a row. But not Gazzaev. He called me: "It is better to buy an expensive thing than a mountain of cheap." And with what smile I met at the base when they brought me to Moscow from the Tyumen hospital! But just Gazzaev became the reason that the young striker escaped from Moscow to Kyiv.

Let this reason be formal - the coach scolded the player in training for the mat. But in reality, Leonenko himself was obsessed with the dream of playing Dynamo Kiev. In addition, before moving to Moscow, the football player signed the paper that after the end of the military service he would go to Ukraine. But from Moscow to release a football player did not burn with a desire.

He lay in the hospital there. I pretended that I had radiculitis. I wake up at seven in the morning - by the bed there is the head of the Dynamo Moscow Sergey Nikulin. Golden man. Says: “For the fees 40 minutes. Say goodbye to your wife - and to the airport. ” I still served in the army, so the Dynamo took by the gills. Having seen me at the base in Novogorsk, Gazzaev smiled: they caught, they say, the simulator, ”Leonenko recalled.

There were persuasion. And at the highest level. Leonenko recalled that he was taken to a meeting with a deputy who hinted that he had nothing to go to the Chernobyl zone. And the transfer process itself happened using a truck with Austrian numbers. And I drove into Novogorsk, hastily thrown into the clothes of the clothes. He loaded the refrigerator, which stood in my room, and drove them.

From Moscow to Kyiv kilometers - they got in the hours for twelve. And the second driver was driving my Fiat, ”says the football player. After his transition, Leonenko did not communicate with Gazzaev. But he received unexpected calls with threats. He himself recalls this way: “Some bandits with a Caucasian accent were named from Moscow. Fasted, demanded to return Fiat.

Soon the calls stopped. Apparently, the Kyivians paid for Fiat, since they retained him. ” In Kyiv, Leonenko became the champion of Ukraine four times and is still one of the ten best team scorers - in 98 matches he scored 61 goals. FC Dynamo Moscow.