Mikhail Yakushin

Mikhail Iosifovich Yakushin was born on November 15, 1910 in Moscow to a former peasant family. At about five, he became interested in football, playing with friends in the yard, and at ten he joined the ranks of the children's team "Union". Later in his career, the STS club appeared.

At the age of 19, Mikhail Iosifovich first put on a hockey sweater of the Moscow team, while continuing playing on the football field - in 1928, he already moved to the adult STS team, where he played as a midfielder.

Mikhail Iosifovich was an extremely versatile and developed person, he played basketball and volleyball at a high level, and was a decent middle-distance runner. But he was especially brilliant in bandy, where in the 1930s and 1940s he was the country's strongest center forward, the leader of Dynamo Moscow, and was its captain and playing coach.

The list of achievements in bandy eloquently testifies to the extraordinary athletic talent of Yakushin: USSR champion, eight-time winner of the USSR Cup. In all these competitions, he scored over 300 goals. In ice hockey, Dynamo also won the first USSR championship, and Yakushin occupied a prominent place in the team.

After serving in the army in 1933, Mikhail Iosifovich ended up in the Dynamo football team, where he continued to collect titles. In total, he played 105 matches for the football team and scored 45 goals. He won three championships and one USSR Cup.

Many clubs wanted Yakushin, but he always remained loyal to the white and blue colors. In his last years at Dynamo, Yakushin played under the leadership of the outstanding coach Boris Arkadyev, from whom he managed to learn the basics of coaching.

- Nikolai Petrovich Starostin invited me to Spartak in 1935, when we went to France to play with Racing. He tempted me with a trip to the workers' Olympics in Antwerp. But no, you can't buy a gypsy. Where would I go from the team I had dreamed of playing for all my life? Nikolai Petrovich asked me then not to tell anyone about our conversation. I kept my promise for fifty years. Only then did I break it when I had to set an example for young footballers, - Yakushin recalled.

Having finished his career as a player in 1944, Mikhail Iosifovich immediately headed Dynamo as a senior coach. And already in 1945, the white-blues became champions, beating the CDKA by one point in a tough fight. A bright side of Yakushin's coaching talent was the ability to reveal talented players. Under his leadership, Leonid Solovyov, Vasily Kartsev, Vladimir Savdunin, and Alexei Khomich started playing for Dynamo.

In the same 1945, Dynamo went on a tour of Great Britain, a successful performance in which significantly increased the authority of Soviet football.

Yakushin eventually became the most successful coach in the history of the club. He managed to lead the white-blues to the championship six times, and in 1953, Dynamo, under his leadership, won its second USSR Cup.

After Dynamo, Yakushin worked for several years in the coaching staff of the USSR national team, three times stood on the coaching bridge of Dynamo Tbilisi, and headed Pakhtakor Tashkent. In 1967, the USSR national team under his leadership had a brilliant season and was ranked first among European national teams by the weekly France Football.

In 1975, Yakushin decided to end his career, after which he actively worked in the USSR Football Federation. He acted as a football columnist for the Football Hockey magazine. From 1993 until his death, he was a member of the board of directors of Dynamo Moscow.

"Dynamo Constellation" is a unique project launched on the day of Alexey Khomich's 100th anniversary in March 2020. Based on the results of the fan vote, the final roster of 11 outstanding Dynamo players was formed. During 2020 and 2021, 11 stars included in the constellation were named after legendary Dynamo football players: Alexei Khomich, Lev Yashin, Mikhail Yakushin, Konstantin Beskov, Mikhail Semichastniy, Igor Chislenko, Sergei Solovyov, Valeriy Maslov, Viktor Tsarev, Igor Dobrovolskiy and Alexander Novikov.