Kroshchenko, Anatoly Nikolaevich

During the Great Patriotic War , he lived with his family in Kiev on Uritsky Square and Saksaganskogo Street . His mother worked in a German canteen. Anatoly began to play football after the war. He began his career in sports with athletics and volleyball at the Lokomotiv sports complex. On the recommendation of a physical education teacher, he became involved in boxing . After a month of classes at the age of ten, he took part in the Kiev boxing championship, which became his first and last in this sport. After them, Kroshchenko completely focused on football. At 13, Stepan Martynovich Sinitsa invited him to the Lenin Forge team, where he played one season, and then he was accepted to the Youth Football School, where he began to receive wages ^[1] . He played in FSM together with Andrei Bib and Oleg Bazilevich ^[2] .

In 1955, he began to advocate for the backup team of Dynamo Kyiv , where he spent about three years. Then he entered the Kiev State Institute of Physical Culture ^[3] . In 1958 he became a player of the Kiev North Caucasian Military District , where he was a player of the main squad, having played in all matches of the First League of the USSR in 1958 ^[4] . A year later, the head coach of Vinnitsa Lokomotiv Viktor Zhilin took a group of FSM students to his team, among the players there was Kroshchenko. Lokomotiv became the winner of the First League of the USSR , however, due to a change in the rules, the team did not reach the Higher Division. For this achievement, all players were awarded the title of USSR Masters of Sports . The game of Kroshchenko and Valentin Troyanovsky attracted the attention of the head coach of Dynamo Kyiv Vyacheslav Solovyov . However, due to the fact that Kroshchenko was lying to Solovyov, he was not taken to Dynamo ^[1] .

The next club of Anatolia, in the end, was the Stalinist Shakhtar from the Premier League . The team reached the semifinals of the USSR Cup , where they lost to Dynamo Tbilisi in extra time (1: 2). A year later, he moved to the Kharkov Avangard . The reason for the transition to the new team was the opportunity to attend a pedagogical institute , which he graduated during the year ^[3] . Anatoly spent two years in Kharkov, and the club management allocated him an apartment ^[1] .

In 1963, at the invitation of coach Oleg Zhukov, he moved to the newly created Lviv Carpathians . The head of the "Carpathians" Nikolai Kuznetsov offered Anatoly an apartment in Lviv, but he refused, living as other club players in a hostel. In the “Carpathians” Kroshchenko became the author of the club’s first goal in official competitions, scoring on April 21, 1963 in a meeting against Gomel Lokomotiv (1: 0). He also became the author of the first goal of the Carpathians in international meetings, on June 12, 1963, scoring a goal against the Uruguayan Serro (1: 0). Kroshchenko also went down in the history of Karpaty as a football player who deserved his first removal for an opponent’s blow in the match on June 16, 1963 against the Frunze Alga ^{[5] [6]} .

The club finished its first season in 7th place among 18 teams of the First League. In the 1965 season, he became the team's top scorer with 16 goals scored ^[7] . Kroshchenko had an offer from the Moscow Lokomotiv , but did not accept it. The first half season of 1966 he played for the Dnepropetrovsk " Dnieper ". The director of the Electron plant, which financed Karpaty, wanted to see Kroshchenko as a member of Lviv and the head coach of Dnipro Anatoly Zubritsky let him go back to Lvov ^[1] .

When Karpaty was headed by Evgeny Lemeshko , who made a bet on young players, Kroshchenko continued to play for the main team. Kroshchenko himself, recalling the years of playing for the Carpathians, said that Lemeshko beat him. In one of the matches against Simferopol Tavria in 1967, he became the author of five goals against the opponent’s goal ^[8] . After this match, Anatoly Zayaev called him “his grave digger,” since he was dismissed from the post of team leader for defeat, and with him the coaching staff and sports committee of Crimea ^{[5] [9]} . Anatoly completed the 1967 season with an indicator of 17 goals scored ^[10] .

In “Carpathians” Kroshchenko, unlike other players, received two surcharges. He held a position at the Selmash plant, although he did not work there. He owned a three-room apartment on Franco Street and became the first player of the Carpathians, who had a car - Volga ^[1] . Previously, he went to the " Lada ", but crashed the car, leaving the garage. He bought the Volga after one of the meetings in Gorky at the end of the match with the local Volga , in which he designed a hat-trick ^{[5] [9]} . The season of 1968 ended for the team with a victory in its subgroup, but in the final tournament “Karpaty” took second place and did not reach the Premier League.

This season was the last in the career of Kroshchenko as a football player. He was 32 years old at that time. Despite the fact that the coach of the Carpathians Vasily Vasilyev suggested that he continue to play, but already in the position of a midfielder, he refused ^[1] . In total, Kroshchenko played more than 150 matches in the Karpat team. Included in the list of the team's top scorers in its history, taking fourth place in this list with more than 50 goals ^[11] . In 2010, the website Football.ua included him in the list of 50 best players of the Carpathians, where he took 21st place ^[12] .

At the end of his football career, he was offered the position of deputy chairman of the Karpaty Sports Complex, where he began to work. Later he was the chairman of the Carpathians. At the invitation of Oleg Bazilevich, he moved to Chernigov , where he worked at the Desna club, and then moved to Kadievka with him in 1971. Kroshchenko worked at the local Shakhtar as the team leader. In 1972, "Carpathians" was headed by Valentin Bubukin and Anatoly became his assistant. Then, due to unsatisfactory results, he was fired ^[1] . In 1974 he was the head of the Carpathians. He also worked as a children's coach in the Lviv club ^[13] , where among his pupils were Bogdan Blavatsky , Yuri Giy and Oleg Gula ^{[3] [14] [15]} .

In 1979 he headed the Kerch "Ocean" from the Second League of the USSR . Later he was the head coach in other second-league teams - Dneprodzerzhinsky Metallurg and Zhytomyr Spartak . Then he returned to Karpaty as a children's coach. He worked with football players such as Yuri Benjo and Daniel Richard ^{[16] [17]} .

In 1985, a “soccer special class” was created in Kiev school No. 170, the head of which was Kroshchenko ^[18] . There he coached football players born in 1975 for eight years (from fourth to eleventh grade). Among his pupils were Vladislav Vashchuk , Alexander Shovkovsky , Sergey Fedorov , Igor Kostyuk , Gennady Medvedev , Sergey Balanchuk , Vladimir Polishchuk , Arthur Theodorovich , Alexander and Oleg Venglinsky . Then, together with many of these players, he worked in Dynamo 3 and Dynamo 2 ^{[1] [2] [19]} .

From 1997 to 1999 he worked in the Professional Football League of Ukraine ^[9] . In 1999, he headed the youth team of Ukraine until the age of 19 . The team under his leadership reached the finals of the 2000 European Championships in Germany, where the Ukrainians lost to the French (0: 1). In 2001, the Ukrainian national team under 20 years old under his leadership reached the 1/8 finals of the World Cup in Argentina , where they lost to Paraguay (1: 2). In December 2001, he was appointed head coach of the youth team ^[20] . In January 2002, together with the team, he participated in the Granatkin Memorial , where Ukrainians became the third ^[21] . In November 2002, for “negative results and a number of shortcomings,” he was dismissed from the post of head coach of the youth team ^[22] .

In 2003, he was appointed head coach of the Dynamo Kyiv football and youth school, where he worked for eight years ^[2] . In the summer of 2011, Kroshchenko left his post. Journalist Eugene Shvets noted that under Kroshchenko the level of training of football players fell ^[23] . In 2016, the site “Football 24” included him in the list of “25 greatest coaches in the history of football in independent Ukraine”, putting him in fourth place ^[24] .

Lokomotiv (Vinnitsa)

• Winner of the First League of the USSR (1): 1959

"Carpathians" (Lviv)

• Silver medalist of the First League of the USSR (1): 1968

I met my future wife Alla from Odessa in Lviv. Two children ^[1] . Son Anatoly works as a cameraman in Dynamo Kyiv ^[25] .

Sources:

• Statistics - Profile of the site FootballFacts.ru

• Alexey Babeshko, Andrey Babeshko. Shakhtar is 70 years old. Who is who. Shakhtar footballers 1936-2005. - Donetsk: New World, 2005. - S. 67. - 153 p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 978-966-107-17-1.

• Profile on FootballFacts.ru
• Profile on the site kopanyi-myach.info (Russian)