Place of birth Stalinsk, USSR Name Anatoli Zinchenko Years Team Role Football player | 1967–1968 Traktor Volgograd Height 1.82 m 1968–1971 FC SKA Rostov-on-Don | |
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Full name Anatoli Alekseyevich Zinchenko Date of birth (1949-08-08) 8 August 1949 (age 66) | ||
The player who changed Russian football
Anatoli Alekseyevich Zinchenko (Russian: Анатолий Алексеевич Зинченко) (born August 8, 1949 in Stalinsk) is a retired Soviet football player and Russian coach. He is best known for being the first Soviet football player to play for a Western European professional club. His transfer to SK Rapid Wien was initiated by Austrian communist journalist Kurt Chastka. Because Soviet footballers were officially amateurs, he was formally employed as an equipment technician at the Soviet embassy while playing for Rapid, while his Rapid salary was sent over to the Soviet government.
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International career
Zinchenko made his debut for USSR on September 24, 1969 in a friendly against Yugoslavia. He was capped three times in total.
Honours
References
Anatoli Zinchenko Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA