Oleg Blokhin

Blokhin as manager of Dynamo Kyiv in 2014
Personal information
Full name	Oleg Vladimirovich Blokhin / Oleh Volodymyrovych Blokhin
Date of birth	(1952-11-05) 5 November 1952 (age 71)
Place of birth	Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Kyiv, Ukraine)
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s)	Forward
Youth career
1962–1969	Dynamo Kyiv
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1969–1988	Dynamo Kyiv	432	(211)
1988–1989	Vorwärts Steyr	41	(9)
1989–1990	Aris Limassol	22	(5)
Total		495	(225)
International career
1972–1988	Soviet Union	112	(42)
Managerial career
1990–1993	Olympiacos
1993–1994	PAOK
1994–1997	Ionikos
1998	PAOK
1998–1999	AEK Athens
2000–2002	Ionikos
2003–2007	Ukraine
2007–2008	Moscow
2011–2012	Ukraine
2012–2014	Dynamo Kyiv
Medal record Men's football Representing  Soviet Union Olympic Games 1972 Munich Team competition 1976 Montreal Team competition
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Oleg Vladimirovich Blokhin, or Oleh Volodymyrovych Blokhin (Ukrainian: Оле́г Володи́мирович Блохі́н, Russian: Оле́г Влади́мирович Блохи́н; born 5 November 1952), is a Ukrainian and Soviet former football player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest footballers of his generation, Blokhin was a standout striker for Dynamo Kyiv and the Soviet Union.^[1]

He holds the all-time top goalscorer record for both Dynamo Kyiv (266 goals) and the Soviet Union national team (42 goals), as well as being the overall top goalscorer in the history of the Soviet Top League (211 goals). He is also the only player to have been capped over 100 times for the Soviet Union and holds Dynamo's appearance record with 582 appearances during his 18-year spell at the club. With Dynamo, Blokhin won eight Soviet league titles, five national cups and two European Cup Winners' Cups. He also competed for the Soviet Union at the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games and 1982 and 1986 FIFA World Cups. During his playing career he won the Soviet Footballer of the Year award three times and the Ukrainian Footballer of the Year award nine times (both records). In 1975, he was named European Footballer of the Year, winning the Ballon d'Or, becoming the second Soviet and the first Ukrainian player to achieve such a feat.

As a coach, he has had two spells in charge of the Ukraine national team, managing the team at the 2006 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012.

In 2011, Blokhin, together with Igor Belanov and Vitaliy Starukhin were named as "the legends of Ukrainian football" at the Victory of Football awards.^[2]

Early life

Blokhin was born in Kyiv, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, in 1952. His mother Kateryna Adamenko was multiple champion of USSR in the pentathlon, sprint and long jump. He was born to a Russian father and Ukrainian mother. His father Vladimir Blokhin was a police officer, a World War II veteran, and a competitive sprinter. Owing to his parents, Blokhin quickly mastered sprint, and by the age of 16 ran 60 m in less than 7 seconds, and 100 m in 11.0 seconds.^[3]

Playing career

Blokhin was one of the greatest players in the world throughout the 1970s, hitting the target regularly through a period of great success at his hometown club Dynamo Kyiv and becoming the greatest goalscorer in the history of the Soviet League, which was one of Europe's strongest. Normally a forward or winger, Blokhin was most renowned for possessing exceptional pace.

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 one 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.

In 1979 Blokhin played a couple of games for Ukraine at the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR.^[4]

Coaching career

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

He began serving as the head coach of the Ukraine national team in September 2003. Under his leadership, Ukraine qualified for a major tournament for the first time as an independent nation, reaching the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. Ukraine reached the quarter-finals of the tournament, losing to eventual champions Italy. Following the side's failure to reach UEFA Euro 2008, Blokhin stepped down as coach on 6 December 2007.^[5]

On 14 December 2007, he was named head coach of FC Moscow.^[6] The club finished 9th (from 16) and after the season ended Blokhin was fired from the club.^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[9]

On 21 April 2011, Blokhin was again appointed head coach of the Ukraine national team.^[10][11] He led the team in UEFA Euro 2012 on home soil, beating Sweden but exiting at the group stage after defeats to France and England.

On 25 September 2012, Dynamo Kyiv signed Blokhin to lead the club for the next four years.^[12] His final matches in charge of Ukraine were World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Montenegro in October 2012.^[13] Blokhin was dismissed as Dynamo's manager by the club's President Ihor Surkis on 17 April 2014 because of the "unsatisfactory results of the team".^[12] The day before, in a press conference after Dynamo had lost a match against Shakhtar Donetsk, Blokhin had already stated that he had decided to resign.^[12] Under his leadership Dynamo never qualified (a rare occasion for the club) for the UEFA Champions League and performed poorly in the UEFA Europa League.^[12] In his first year his team finished third in the Ukrainian Premier League and in his second year (when he was fired) Dynamo was seven points behind Ukrainian Premier League leaders Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Shakhtar Donetsk.^[12]

Politics

In 1998 Blokhin was elected to Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) for Hromada.^[14] He joined Hromada while still being a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine.^[14] In 2002, Blokhin was elected to Verkhovna Rada for a second term. In October 2002, he joined the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine.

Family

Blokhin's father, Volodymyr Blokhin, is a native of Moscow, a veteran of the World War II, survivor of the Leningrad blockade, and a former Soviet law enforcement agent. He later worked as a sports functionary for the Soviet Dynamo Society. Blokhin's mother Kateryna Adamenko is from Nebrat village in Borodianka Raion, Kyiv Oblast. She originally worked at a Kyiv sewing factory, but eventually discovered hidden athletic talents and became the Soviet champion in track and field as well as pentathlon. After retiring from sports, she became a staff member at one of Kyiv's universities.

Blokhin was married to Irina Deriugina, a top coach and former world champion in rhythmic gymnastics, but the couple divorced in the early 1990s. Blokhin and Deriugina have a daughter, singer Iryna Blokhina, who wrote and performed the Euro 2012 anthem.^[15]

Blokhin and his second wife, Angela, have two daughters, Hanna (born 2001) and Katerina (born 2002).^[16]

Career statistics

Club

• The statistics in USSR Cups and Europe is made under the scheme "autumn-spring" and enlisted in a year of start of tournaments

International

Scores and results list the Soviet Union's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Blokhin goal.

List of international goals scored by Oleg Blokhin

No.	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	1972-07-16	Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland	Finland	1–0	1–1	Friendly
2	1972-08-06	Råsunda Stadion, Stockholm, Sweden	Sweden	4–3	4–4	Friendly
3	1972-09-01	Jahnstadion, Regensburg, West Germany	Mexico	1–0	4–1	1972 Olympics
4				2–0
5				3–0
6	1972-09-05	Rosenaustadion, Augsburg, West Germany	Poland	1–0	1–2	1972 Olympics
7	1972-09-08	Rosenaustadion, Augsburg, West Germany	Denmark	3–0	4–0	1972 Olympics
8	1972-09-10	Olympic Stadium, Munich, West Germany	East Germany	1–0	2–2	1972 Olympics
9	1973-05-26	Central Lenin Stadium, Moscow, Soviet Union	France	1–0	2–0	1972 FIFA World Cup qualification
10	1975-04-02	Kyiv Central Stadium, Kyiv, Soviet Union	Turkey	3–0	3–0	UEFA Euro 1976 qualification
11	1975-05-18	Kyiv Central Stadium, Kyiv, Soviet Union	Republic of Ireland	1–0	2–1	UEFA Euro 1976 qualification
12	1976-03-10	Všešportový areál, Košice, Czechoslovakia	Czechoslovakia	1–0	2–2	Friendly
13	1976-03-24	Vasil Levski National Stadium, Sofia, Bulgaria	Bulgaria	3–0	3–0	Friendly
14	1976-05-22	Kyiv Central Stadium, Kyiv	Czechoslovakia	2–2	2–2	UEFA Euro 1976 qualification
15	1976-07-23	Lansdowne Park, Ottawa, Canada	North Korea	3–0	3–0	1976 Olympics
16	1977-03-23	JNA Stadium, Belgrade, Yugoslavia	Yugoslavia	1–0	4–2	Friendly
17				3–1
18	1977-09-07	Central Stadium, Volgograd, Soviet Union	Poland	3–1	4–1	Friendly
19				4–1
20	1978-02-26	Stade El Harti, Marrakech, Morocco	Morocco	1–1	3–2	Friendly
21	1978-04-05	Hrazdan Stadium, Yerevan, Soviet Union	Finland	4–0	10–2	Friendly
22				6–0
23				9–1
24	1978-05-14	Stadionul 23 August, Bucharest, Romania	Romania	1–0	1–0	Friendly
25	1978-10-05	Ankara 19 Mayıs Stadium, Ankara, Turkey	Turkey	2–0	2–0	Friendly
26	1979-03-28	Lokomotiv Stadium, Simferopol, Soviet Union	Bulgaria	1–0	3–1	Friendly
27	1980-08-27	Népstadion, Budapest, Hungary	Hungary	1–1	4–1	Friendly
28	1981-09-23	Central Lenin Stadium, Moscow	Turkey	3–0	4–0	1982 FIFA World Cup qualification
29	1981-10-07	İzmir Atatürk Stadium, İzmir, Turkey	Turkey	2–0	3–0	1982 World Cup qualification
30				3–0
31	1981-11-18	Dinamo Stadium, Tbilisi, Soviet Union	Wales	2–0	3–0	1982 World Cup qualification
32	1981-11-29	Tehelné pole, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia	Czechoslovakia	1–0	1–1	1982 World Cup qualification
33	1982-06-03	Råsunda Stadion, Stockholm, Sweden	Sweden	1–0	1–1	Friendly
34	1982-06-19	Estadio La Rosaleda, Málaga, Spain	New Zealand	2–0	3–0	1982 FIFA World Cup
35	1983-04-13	Stade Olympique de la Pontaise, Lausanne, Switzerland	Switzerland	1–0	1–0	Friendly
36	1983-05-17	Praterstadion, Vienna, Austria	Austria	2–1	2–2	Friendly
37	1983-06-01	Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland	Finland	1–0	1–0	UEFA Euro 1984 qualification
38	1983-07-26	Zentralstadion, Leipzig, East Germany	East Germany	1–0	3–1	Friendly
39	1983-10-09	Central Lenin Stadium, Moscow, Soviet Union	Poland	2–0	2–0	UEFA Euro 1984 qualification
40	1984-08-19	Kirov Stadium, Leningrad, Soviet Union	Mexico	3–0	3–0	Friendly
41	1986-06-09	Estadio Sergio León Chavez, Irapuato, Mexico	Canada	1–0	2–0	1986 FIFA World Cup
42	1986-10-29	Lokomotiv Stadium, Simferopol, Soviet Union	Norway	3–0	3–0	UEFA Euro 1988 qualification

Managerial statistics

As of 5 November 2020

Honours

Dynamo Kyiv

• Soviet Top League (8): 1971, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1986
• Soviet Cup: 1974, 1978, 1982, 1984–85, 1986–87
• USSR Super Cup: 1981, 1986, 1987
• UEFA Cup Winners Cup: 1974–75, 1985–86
• UEFA Super Cup: 1975; Runner-up: 1986

Individual

• Merited Master of Sports (1975)
• Merited Coach of Ukraine (2005)
• Ballon d'Or: 1975
• IOC European Footballer of the Season: 1974–75^[18]
• Golden Foot: 2009, as a legend^[19]
• Soviet Footballer of the Year: 1973, 1974, 1975
• Ukrainian Footballer of the Year (9): 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981
• Soviet Top League top scorer: 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977
• Soviet Top League All-Time Goals and Appearances Leader
• Soviet Cup All-Time Goals
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1985–86 top scorer^[20]
• European Cup 1986–87 second place on top scorers list.^[21]
• USSR national football team All-Time Goals and Caps Leader
• Ukraine's Golden Player representative^[22]
• The best 33 football players of the Soviet Union (15): No. 1 (1972—1982, 1985, 1986), No. 2 (1983, 1984)
• Club Loyalty Award: 1986
• IFFHS Legends^[23]

Ballon d'Or

• 1974 – 19th
• 1975 – 1st
• 1976 – 19th
• 1981 – 5th