Shulyatitsky, Taras Iosifovich

The early years

Taras Shulyatitsky was born and raised in Ivano-Frankivsk (then called Stanislav) in the Gorka district ^[1] , near the railway station . In the same area was and is the Lokomotiv stadium. Therefore, it is not surprising that Taras, along with his brother Yuri , the future famous coach, became interested in football, playing from morning to evening. They, like other talented children of Gorki, were noticed and invited to their team by the children's coach of Lokomotiv Vladimir Bryndzey (father of Vera Bryndzey , world champion in speed skating) ^[2] .

Shulyatitsky was one of the best juniors in the club system, for his technique he gets the nickname "Pele from the Hill." Already at the age of 16 he made his debut at the base of the adult Lokomotiv team as a midfielder. In those years, the best Lokomotiv football players had a direct road to the main team of the city - Spartak . But, as the brother of Taras recalls, Yuri:

My brother and I did not want to play for Spartak . Our father worked on the railway and we were real patriots of Lokomotiv. It so happened that Taras was taken to the Crimea . Fortunately, our “Spartak” came there to train and the best player of the team Miroslav Dumansky still persuaded his brother to become under the red and white banners ^[2] .

Spartak Ivano-Frankivsk

In the early 1960s, the main Ivano-Frankivsk club was going through hard times, as all the more or less playing football players were taken to the army club from Lviv , which was in its prime. Shuliatitsky, as one of the most talented Spartacists, also went to Lviv, in the future he will have more than once. In the 1965 season, SKA with Shulyatitsky in the composition wins the Ukrainian championship among Class B teams, wins transition matches against Lviv Carpathians and makes its debut in Class A , where it immediately takes the third place in the table. And Shulyatitsky falls into the list of 33 best players of Ukraine together with his fellow SKA and earlier Spartak - Pyotr Danilchuk . In the same season of 1966, Shulyatitsky, Danilchuk and their teammate Stepan Varga made their debut in the USSR Olympic team , while being players in the first league ! ^[2] .

CSKA

In 1967, Shulyatitsky again went on to increase in the army hierarchy - he went to the capital CSKA , which was then led by Sergey Shaposhnikov , a former SKA coach. And if at first the public received him unfriendly, calling him a “Bandera” in the back ^[2] , then he soon becomes the favorite of the public. In the first season, the newcomer becomes a full-time penalty shooter of the army, thanks to powerful and accurate shots from the mark. Spartak Maslachenko, he scores a penalty with such force that he can not believe in the reality of the goal. For the championship Taras scores 6 goals, more than all the other scorers of the club and receives the nickname “Our Taras” from Muscovites. In the same season, he scored Lokomotiv in the 1/4 Cup from the penalty spot, thanks to which he reached the Cup final with the army team, but CSKA lost to the old Dynamo rivals , despite an equal fight, with a large score of 0: 3. For the season, the midfielder deservedly receives the prize “Best Debutant of the Season” , awarded by the Smena magazine in Leningrad. The best For the next season, Shulyatitsky repeats his 6-goal mark, while CSKA is close to winning the “bronze”, but is inferior to fellow countrymen in additional indicators and medals, and a chance to debut in European competitions . After two years of compulsory army service, the midfielder is trying to lure other clubs, including Shakhtar . They already find an apartment in Donetsk for him , but they learn about the creeps of miners towards Shulyatitsky in the worst competitor of the Donetsk team - Dynamo Kyiv . The coach of Kiev, the famous Victor Maslov, says: “Either Shulyatitsky is going to Dynamo, or he will not be in Ukraine” ^[2] . After that, CSKA already learned about the football player’s plans to leave, the Ministry of Defense urgently assigns him an officer rank, as a result of which leaving was extremely difficult. Meanwhile, Shulyatitsky fell into disgrace to the army coach Nikolaev because of a violation of the regime. Recalls the famous army player Marjan Plahetko :

I remember there was a case. Dudarenko lived near Dynamo , and Maslyaev gathered with someone else to visit him. They go to themselves, satisfied, the bags are jam-packed. And Nikolaev passed by a tram. Valentin Sanych saw his handsome men, got out of the car and behind them. They brought him to Dudarenko. And there Volodya and Taras Shulyatitsky are already covering a clearing. Well, Nikolaev to them this event and tore off ^[3] .

Game career at CSKA did not go well. In the 1969 season, Shulyatitsky spent only 9 matches for the club and never scored. In the 1970 season, he completely dropped out of the main squad. In the middle of the season he managed to go to Dynamo Moscow , but even here he never played, going only for a double (8 matches, 1 goal). It’s a paradox, but in the 1970 season both teams for which Shulyatitsky was declared fought for the title among themselves, reaching the golden match , but Shulyatitsky not only did not receive medals - he did not even play the basis of both winners for the whole year. In 1971, Taras returned to Ukraine.

Homecoming

After an unsuccessful season in Moscow, Shulyatitsky goes to Lviv, but not to SKA, but to Karpaty , which made their debut in the major league in 1971. In the "Carpathians" he, like in CSKA, becomes a full - time penalty shooter . And in this season, he makes perhaps the happiest mistake in his life. As the then Carpathian player Lev Brovarsky said in an interview:

- Is it true that in those days it was dangerous to play in the Caucasus ? - Yes. In 1971, we confronted the local “Ararat” in Yerevan. Full stadium , the Armenian team has a total advantage. Markarov scored for us, the opponent pulled ahead. At the end of the half, the hosts shot down Likhachev in the penalty area. The referee of the match Muscovite Tabakov appointed a penalty. Kulchitsky was not mistaken - 1: 1. And a minute before the end of the match, the Ararat players fouled against Hreshchak . Tabakov again appoints a penalty. Spectators run out onto the field. One of the Ararat players frankly hit Kulchitsky, because he knew that he would hit the goal from the penalty spot. Shulyatitsky - the bar, approached the mark. After the game, we immediately headed to the tunnel. Three hours did not leave the locker room. The judge was taken out by a police car. At night near the hotel, the fans went out with banners: “Judge - p ... rust!”. The next day, fans of Ararat approached us at the airport . “Was there a first penalty?” - we ask. "It was." - “And the second?” - “Also.” “Why yell?” - “In the Caucasus, two penalties are not assigned” ^[4] .

Meanwhile, Taras does not linger in Lviv, and the next year plays in the Lokomotiv Vinnitsa in the second league. And in 1973, finally, he returned to his native Ivano-Frankivsk. In Spartak, who spent his first season in the first league. At home, Taras Shulyatitsky and completed his gaming career in 1975 ^[2] .

A Tale of Two Cities

Having tied up with the career of a professional football player, Shulyatitsky again moves between two cities in which his whole life passes - Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk. In Lviv, he works as the director of the Torpedo stadium , and along the way he plays for fans as the local Avtomobilist. In Ivano-Frankivsk opens a children's football school "Nika", which now has an agreement with Kiev "Dynamo". In Lviv, Taras Iosifovich Shulyatitsky died at the age of 55 in 2000. His son followed in his father's footsteps and also became a footballer ^[2] .

In 1966-1967 he spent three friendly matches (not counting matches of national teams against club teams not recognized by FIFA) for the USSR Olympic team - with Yugoslavia (1: 2) ^[5] in his native Lviv at the Druzhba stadium in the presence of 50,000 spectators, and Japan (2: 0, 0: 0) ^{[6] [7]} on the Far Eastern tour. He also played a match for the second team of the USSR with the second team of Bulgaria (1: 1) ^[8] in 1967.

Team

CSKA

• Finalist of the USSR Cup (1) : 1967

Personal

• Prize to the “Best Debutants of the Season” of Smena Magazine : 1967

• Taras Shulyatitsky in the CLISF database (inaccessible link)
• Taras Shulyatitsky in the database cska-games.ru
• Profile on FootballFacts.ru