Friday marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of the legendary Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper, two-time USSR champion and one of the main heroes of the 1945 Great Britain tour Alexei Khomich.
Alexei Petrovich was born on March 14, 1920 in the south-east of Moscow. Having tried various sports in childhood (gymnastics, acrobatics, diving, swimming, volleyball), the future goalkeeper eventually settled on football, which the yard boys carried him away. Even then, Khomich began to show the first makings of goalkeeping skills.
The football career of the future Dynamo legend began in the Tagansky Park of Culture and Recreation, for whose youth team Khomich played throughout 1935. Then there were several club teams, and then... the war came. Alexei Petrovich was drafted into the active army, however, like many other athletes, he was enlisted in a separate motorized rifle brigade of special purpose NKVD.
At the same time, football tournaments in Moscow did not stop. The team for which Khomich played belonged to the Dynamo society and played in the tournament of the third club teams. Soon he was noticed in the team of masters, where his old acquaintance Konstantin Beskov was already shining.
In 1944, Khomich found himself in Dynamo, for which he made his debut on September 15 in the final of the Moscow Cup against the capital's Torpedo (4:5), and four days later in the Moscow championship. Alexei Petrovich became the main goalkeeper of the blue and white a year later, in the victorious 1945, when Dynamo Moscow won the USSR championship.
In the autumn of the same year, Dynamo went on a tour of the UK, which became triumphant for the Soviet team. One of his heroes was Khomich, who impressed local fans, journalists and football experts with his style, courage and innovative manner of play.
According to rumors, the head of Chelsea at an informal meeting offered Alexei Petrovich to continue his career in England, but was categorically refused. At the same time, the nickname "Tiger" was fixed for the Hamster. Two years later, in 1947, Khomich, together with Dynamo, visited Scandinavia, where he also showed himself at his best.
– Alexei Khomich left the most indelible impression at Dynamo. When he was successful in the match, it seemed that it was impossible for him to score. And what he was doing in England! Khomich was the goalkeeper of an amazing reaction, an incredible, feline throw. It's not for nothing that they called him the tiger, – recalled Vsevolod Radicorskiy, another participant in the trip to the UK, the defender of the blue and white.
In total, Khomich spent nine years at Dynamo, played in 173 official matches and defended 78 times to zero. Together with him, our club twice became the champion of the USSR and four times – the silver medalist, twice reached the Cup final. Over time, Alexei Petrovich began to appear less often in the starting lineup, which was facilitated by injuries, but he became Lev Yashin's teacher and helped even after leaving the team.
Khomich spent the last three years of his sports career in Minsk, where he first played for Dynamo (1953), and later for Spartak (1954-1955). After finishing playing football, Alexei Petrovich graduated from the House of Journalists and became a photojournalist for the weekly "Football".
As a journalist, he worked at world championships, European and Olympic Games. His last major competition was Euro 1976 in Yugoslavia. In parallel, he was engaged in organizing a children's tournament "Leather Ball", created on the initiative of Lev Yashin.
– Football is beautiful in itself. But if you came to him only to glorify yourself, and not your team, then leave. You will turn it into a boring craft. When I feel that the team has outgrown me, I will leave immediately. We have no right to be ballast for the team. Because we are not her, but she makes us masters, – Khomich said.
