Lev
YASHIN

Why do I always touch the ball before a match? It’s not just superstition. I need to touch the ball, just like a carpenter touches a plank before he starts to process it. It’s a working man’s habit. *

What goalkeeper isn’t tormented by a missed goal? He’s got to feel tormented. If he stays indifferent, that’s the end. He won’t have any future, whatever his past.

My feet never wanted to throw me up into the air. Just the opposite: every time I jumped for the ball, I felt how great the power of gravity is. The ball never clung to my goalkeeper gloves. Just the opposite: our relationship was similar to that between an animal trainer and a cunning, stubborn animal.

My hardest match was at the 1958 World Cup in Stockholm. One of the English strikers hit me with his boot on the head. That time, goalkeepers threw themselves towards the ball not with their feet forward but with arms stretched out in front – a fish-dive. I finished the match in a fog, as if I was watching from the sidelines. And after the match I didn’t know the score until I got into the bus with the other guys...

I’m really keen on fishing. One day, before a USSR championship match, my daughters and I went fishing on my Volga car from the base in Novogorsk. I told myself: if I catch a fish, Dynamo will win. Suddenly the car was on fire. I barely pulled my daughters out to the roadside and started putting out the fire with my hands. Fortunately, a man drove by in a Moskvich. He had a fire extinguisher and he helped us… The match went well, but the burns on my hands really hurt inside the gloves.

I don’t regret that I have two daughters and no son, my football heir. And do you know why? Everybody would want to see him carrying on after his father, which would have made his life very hard.

* The information is based on the accounts of the personas featuring in this section as well as accounts of their family members, acquaintances and colleagues