Ivanov, Leonid Grigorievich

Born on the Petrograd side in Petrograd . He began playing in 1936 with the youth team of the Leningrad Electric factory.

Club career

In the major league of the USSR football championship, he made his debut on May 22, 1939 at the age of 17 in an away match of the first round against Moscow Spartak . Despite 4 goals conceded, the young goalkeeper in the very first season becomes the main goalkeeper of the Leningrad “Stalin” (as it was called “Zenith” until 1940), having spent 14 matches. The following year, Leonid Ivanov took part in 18 championship matches.

The USSR Football Championship of 1941 was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II . Zenit players were evacuated to Kazan with an optical plant along with their families and coach Konstantin Lemeshev in the summer of 1942. Working at the plant for 12-14 hours a day, the players found the strength to train and hold friendly matches.

In 1944, the USSR Cup was resumed, which the Leningrad Zenit sensationally won by consecutively defeating Dynamo Moscow (3: 1), Dynamo Minsk (0: 0, replay 1: 0), and Dynamo Batumi (1 : 0), Spartak Moscow (3: 2) and in the final - the Moscow Central House of Artists (2: 1). Leonid Ivanov played a key role in the success of his club, having missed just 4 goals in six matches.

In the post-war championships, Zenit, as before the war, was an average team, not even claiming a medal. Nevertheless, Leonid Ivanov was considered one of the best goalkeepers in the country. Twice - in 1950 and 1951 he was called No. 1 on the goalkeeper position in the list of 33 best football players of the season in the USSR . Leonid Ivanov regularly received invitations to move to Spartak and the Air Force clubs in Moscow, but invariably refused. Once, together with his teammate Friedrich Maryutin, he even had to hide all day from the envoys of the Air Force football club (which was then supervised by Vasily Stalin ), who had flown to Leningrad to force Zenit's best football players to go to the Air Force. The last match for Zenit, Ivanov held on October 21, 1956 at the S. M. Kirov stadium in the last round of the championship against Dynamo Kyiv (5: 1), being the last of the participants in the pre-war USSR championships.

In total, Leonid Ivanov played 289 matches ^[1] in the major league of the USSR championship, in which he conceded 440 goals ^[2] .

Leonid Ivanov named the symbolic club, which includes the goalkeepers of the Zenit football club, who have kept their goal intact in 15 or more games for the club ^[3] .

National Team

In the early 1950s, it was decided to leave the international sports isolation and send the Soviet sports delegation to the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki . Leonid Ivanov became the main goalkeeper of the national football team and defended the goal in all three matches of the team. In official matches, he made his debut on July 15, 1952 in the city of Kotka in the 1/8 final match against the Bulgarian national team . The defeat in the quarterfinal of the tournament from the Yugoslav national team by the leadership of the Soviet Union was regarded as a shame (relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR were openly hostile at that time), a number of players and coaches were deprived of the title of master of sports, and CDSA , as one of the base clubs of the national team, was generally disbanded. Nevertheless, the game of Leonid Ivanov at the Olympics did not cause any complaints, moreover, upon the return of the national team from Finland, he was awarded the title Honored Master of Sports of the USSR .

In total, Leonid Ivanov spent 9 games in the USSR national football team, in which he conceded 12 goals, including 3 official games (9 goals conceded).

Coaching career

Immediately after the player’s career ended, Ivanov took up coaching activities. He trained:

• GOMZ football team, which under his leadership reached the finals of the USSR Cup among physical education teams in 1957 , and the next year won the Leningrad Cup
• Onegets team Petrozavodsk

Life Outside of Football

Having finished with coaching, Ivanov worked as a taxi driver . He wrote the book “At the Gates of Zenith”, published in 1976 and reprinted in 1987.

He died on September 14, 1990. He was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

• Winner of the USSR Cup in 1944
• Order of the Badge of Honor (1957)
• Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1952)
• In 1950 and 1951 he was called No. 1 on the goalkeeper position in the list of 33 best football players of the season in the USSR

• Having made his debut in the USSR national football team on July 15, 1952 in the city of Kotka in the match of the 1/16 finals of the XV Olympiad against the Bulgarian national team , he became the first player of the Leningrad club to play in the official match of the national team ^[4] .
• There is a legend that after the victory in the USSR Cup in 1944, Zenit in its entirety was invited to a gala dinner at the dacha of a certain high-ranking official. According to tradition, the crystal goblet was filled with champagne and allowed in a circle. When the turn came to the owner of the cottage, the goblet unexpectedly slipped out of his hands. Ivanov in a beautiful jump managed to catch him near the floor. Ivanov’s teammate, Boris Levin-Kogan , categorically denying the reality of this event, added: “It sounds beautiful ... Lenya certainly could!” ^[5] .

The plaque on the house number 48 on Kuznetsovskaya street in St. Petersburg (opened September 16, 2004)

• Nevsky time No. 149 (1552) August 21, 1997
• Russian national football team
• Statistics of speeches by L. Ivanov for “Zenith” on aegov.narod.ru
• Forever at the gates of Zenith
• 60 years of the first international match “Zenith”
• Gallery of Shakhtar players and coaches
• Soviet sport. July 25, 2001. The illustrious goalkeeper from besieged Leningrad
• First success
• Football during the war
• Statistics on the website zenit-history.ru