On 26 October 1863, representatives from 12 English football clubs and schools met at the Freemasons tavern in London to discuss and develop common rules for playing football: at this time, many clubs had their own versions of the rules, which which made it very difficult. to celebrate matches. It was not possible to reach an agreement in a single meeting: delegates needed six meetings to achieve it. But the date of October 26 has gone down in history as the birthday of the English Football Association (FA), the organization that still governs English football today.
Commemorative plaque at the place where the Football Association was founded
Photo: Spudgun67/wikimedia.org
The year was 1963. The centenary of the FA was approaching. They decided to celebrate the holiday with a match between the England team and the world team. It was scheduled for October 23. It was not the first time that such a match was played: in October 1953, a match was already played at Wembley Stadium under the motto “England Team – World Team” – on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the FA. That match aroused considerable interest: 97 thousand spectators gathered in the stadium. However, the world team was listed as such only nominally; In fact, it was the European team: representatives from other continents were not included in its composition.
And in the match of the century (of course, it was again held at Wembley) the world team really came together. It is true that the representatives of the Old World constituted an overwhelming majority: of the 16 players called up for the match, only Jalma Santos (Brazil) and Luis Eizaguirre (Chile) arrived from outside Europe. Theoretically, the captain of the team Alfredo Di Stéfano, who in the first half of his career played for Argentina and Colombia, could also be attributed to Latin Americans, but in 1963 he had already long received Spanish citizenship and moved to Madrid, where He played for Real Madrid.
Di Stefano on the left, Armfield on the right (foreground)
Photo: A Jones/Getty Images
Without Pelé and Garrincha, but with Yashin
A natural question arises: where were the two-time world champions Pelé, Garrincha, Vava? It’s a mystery. They write that Pele, so to speak, did not leave the club and the other two refused for unclear reasons. It was not possible to find reliable information on this matter. But even without the famous Brazilians, the composition of the world team was a pleasure to behold: Ferenc Puskás, Denis Law, Eusebio, Ballon d’Or winner Raymond Kopa, Josef Masopust and the already mentioned Di Stéfano…
You can list everyone: there were no weak links in that team. But I will name only one more player who appeared in the world team that day: Lev Yashin. I don’t know if our famous goalkeeper was worried before that game, but he played wonderfully at Wembley. In the first half, Jimmy Greaves had at least three excellent chances to open the scoring, but Yashin always stood in his way. Then Greaves finally scored, but the referee did not count the goal: by that time the game had already been stopped for a foul and Greaves did not hear the whistle.
Yashin takes the ball after Greaves’ shot
Photo: Dennis Oulds/Getty Images
“Schnellinger, tsuryuk!”
The world team did not attack as hard, but they also played well. They say that before the match a cartoon was published in one of the English newspapers: the national team players appeared in poses that showed that they did not understand each other. However, the language barrier was not an obstacle to mutual understanding between the partners: Denis Low later recalled: “It is very easy to play with football players of this level; it is not even necessary to communicate in the same language” .
And Lev Yashin wrote in his memoirs: “When he threw the ball onto the field, he did not look for someone to give it to: two or three teammates were always in convenient starting positions. And no one needed a clue: each one knew perfectly well his place. And they passed the ball to each other in such a way that it was a pleasure to receive it: the receiver did not have to reach for it or change the pace of his run, the ball rested comfortably on his foot. We only spoke to Schnellinger. And even then not out of necessity, but simply to encourage each other. I shouted: “Schnellinger, tsuryuk!” (“Back”-translated from German) And he turned his red head towards me, put on a stern face and leaned back: “Yashin, arbeiten, arbeiten! (“work” – translated from German)”
Another important historical day in football:
The first Italian championship was held in one day! One of the participants will soon play in Serie A
In general, the most friendly atmosphere reigned at the world team camp. For Yashin’s birthday, which took place on the eve of the match, his teammates presented him with a luxurious cake. The players constantly committed innocent and friendly pranks: they threw other people’s socks on the chandeliers in the locker room, tangled the laces of their neighbors’ boots… And Karl-Heinz Schnellinger once ran his hand over the body of the brunette Jalma. Santos and with feigned astonishment began to examine her hand: they say, had she turned black? Then, suddenly, he grabbed a washcloth, soaped it up, and started rubbing Santos as hard as he could. Now he would be suspended from football for that kind of joke. And then it was possible. Santos himself, by the way, literally laughed out loud when the German tried to “wash” him. Speaking about the situation in the world team, Yashin summed up: “We all feel like we’ve known each other for a thousand years and have been playing together for a long time.”
“Davidson was a good judge”
The first half ended with the score 0:0. After the break, the Yugoslavian Milutin Soskic stood in goal for the world team. And not at all because the coach of the national team, Fernando Riera, was dissatisfied with Yashin’s game: it was simply decided in advance that all substitute players of the world team would take the field. For this reason, Riera made four changes in a row during the break, and shortly after, another one. English coach Alf Ramsay took a different approach: although he too had five substitutes, the English team played the match without a single substitution. By the way, Ramsay was the only one who participated in a similar game in 1953. Then he was still an active player and in the last minute of regulation time he saved England from defeat, setting the final score 4: 4.
Jalma Santos, Milutin Soskic and Lev Yashin
Photo: Evening Standard/Getty Images
But in 1963 the game was not as productive. The scoring of the match did not open until the 66th minute: Shoskic saved Greaves’ shot, but the ball rebounded to Terry Payne, who finished. The World team came back in the 82nd minute thanks to the efforts of Denis Law. And the result of the match, like 10 years before, was summed up in the 90th minute: the tireless Greaves gave England a 2-1 victory. Referee Bob Davidson of Scotland had a good match. Many years later, Greaves spoke of his work as follows:
“I don’t remember Davidson at all.” He must have been a good judge!
“Yashin was simply magnificent”
After the match, the press, teammates and opponents were full of praise for Yashin.
The two-time world champion Jalma Santos confessed to our goalkeeper:
– I’m already finishing playing, but if I hadn’t met you on the same team, I wouldn’t have had the most powerful impression of my life.
The English columnist Geoff Ellis wrote:
“Now it is clear to everyone that Yashin was nicknamed Octopus not because of a pretty word. His foresight is simply amazing. His agility is excellent and his courage surprising.”
And Greaves, who never scored against Yashin, was succinct: “Yashin was simply magnificent.”
After the match, already in the hotel room, the annoying Shoshkich, who lived in the same room with Yashin, complained to him:
– If you had played the second half, the British would not have seen these goals.
The discreet Yashin consoled his colleague:
– You are worrying in vain. The British have a holiday and let them rejoice today!
Here we admire another legendary goalkeeper:
“I want to finish high school. Parents have been racking their brains for 30 years.” Buffon’s great path
And although the world team lost that day, this match became one of the brightest in Yashin’s career. But it is possible that it did not exist. After Yashin unsuccessfully won the 1962 World Championship, he experienced a serious psychological crisis and even thought about ending his career. He was greatly helped by the fans, who invariably whistled at his recent idol at the USSR Championship matches. In those days, a huge role in Yashin’s fate was played by Dynamo coach Alexander Ponomarev, who convinced Lev not to make a hasty decision. He gave him permission and sent him to the town to rest. When Yashin returned, Ponomarev first played against him only in away matches, where the fans were not so angry, and only then they began to let Yashin play at home.
From left to right: Alfredo Di Stefano, Denis Low and Lev Yashin
Photo: Keystone/Getty Images
And although Yashin continued to be booed until the end of the 1962 season, he got over it. And the following season was perhaps the best of his career. Dynamo won the USSR Championship again, but the important thing here is not that they won, but that Yashin played this tournament with unprecedented confidence, playing 22 out of 27 games to zero and conceding a total of only six goals. You know how he played in the game of the century. And half a month later, on November 10, a qualifying match for the Euro Cup took place in Rome; Yashin was wonderful there too, almost single-handedly eliminating the game against Italy. Well, the result of the season was summed up in December 1963, when Yashin became the winner of the Ballon d’Or: this is so far the only case when the award for the best footballer in Europe is awarded to a goalkeeper. By the way, in the following three seasons the Ballon d’Or also went to the participants in the match of the century: in 1964 it was received by Denis Law, the following year by Eusebio, followed by Bobby Charlton, who died the day before yesterday.
“Number 10 of the World Team”
The match between the England team and the world team took place in style: in the presence of 100,000 spectators, the players were received on the stadium field by the Duke of Edinburgh himself, husband of Queen Elizabeth II. The match was broadcast live in many countries, including the Soviet Union; Nikolai Ozerov, of course, commented on the match for the Soviet spectators. However, he was in a hurry with the “of course”: Nikolai Nikolaevich came to London with adventures that deserve a separate story, and only miraculously managed to get to the game. Due to delays in processing the business trip, Ozerov left Moscow on the day of the match and arrived in time for the back-to-back matches. There was a transfer in Paris, but due to bad weather the plane headed to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam there were no seats on the flight to London; and then 100 kg of luggage was taken off the plane to board the Soviet commentator. In London there was already a car waiting for Ozerov. However, due to the gigantic traffic jam that formed in front of the stadium, Nikolai Nikolaevich had to run the last three kilometers on foot. When he went up to the commentary booth, the teams were already on the field. Ozerov later recalled this moment: “I saw Yashin… Then everything was fine.” It is true that Ozerov had to comment on the match cautiously, constantly controlling himself: the management forbade him to call Ferenc Puskás by his name. After the Hungarian events of 1956 he emigrated to Spain, for which he was declared persona non grata in the socialist countries. Ozerov carried out the order, not once in 45 minutes (Puskas came on after the break in place of Eusebio) without saying the Hungarian’s name. I wonder what the viewers must have thought: that the commentator forgot the name of the number 10 of the world team?
After 1963, holding matches with the participation of the world team became a tradition: about 20 such matches were held. In 1997, when the centenary of Russian football was celebrated, the Russian team became the rival of the world team; I think some of the readers were at this meeting that took place in Luzhniki. But in the history of world (and national) football, the first of these matches will remain forever: the match of the century.
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