Sunday marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the legendary Dynamo Moscow striker, the best scorer in the club's history, Sergei Solovyov.
Sergey Alexandrovich was born on March 9, 1915 in the town of Sokol, Volgograd province. He started playing football in the Red Star team of a local paper mill. After serving in the army, he received an invitation to join the team of masters of the Leningrad Dynamo. For a long time he doubted whether it was worth leaving his native Falcon, where he was born, graduated from school, got a profession and had a stable job at the factory.
As a result, Sergei Alexandrovich decided to move and got a ticket to big football at the age of 24, and the next season he took the field in a T-shirt of the capital's Dynamo. He made his debut for the blue and white on May 5, 1940 in an away match with the Moscow Wings of the Soviets, and for the first time distinguished himself in his fifth game, and immediately made poker in the gates of Stalin's Stakhanovets. In his first season as a member of the club, he scored 21 goals and became not only the best scorer of the team, but also of the USSR championship.
— He came to us at the age of 25 and immediately became the leading striker. It was a ram-type forward, powerful, with high speed. Maybe, in comparison with his partners, he looked less technical, but he sensed the situation subtly and always knew where he needed to rush. Receiving the ball, Sergei Solovyov became unstoppable. He hit the goal smartly and accurately and was always ready to strike, – this is how Mikhail Yakushin described the forward's style of play.
After the Great Patriotic War, Solovyov continued to attack the opponents' gates with the same efficiency. In the first post-war championship of the USSR he scored 18 times, and in the famous British tour he scored the most important goal in the match with Arsenal, equalizing the score at the beginning of the second half. In 1948, he scored 25 goals, and in the match with Torpedo, he set a record for the rate of fire by scoring a hat-trick within three minutes – and all this at the 34th year of his life!
One of the teammates of the famous striker Vsevolod Blinkov compared him to a jet engine with an unlimited supply of fuel. As it turned out, this reserve was very large – the striker eventually played up to 37 years.
Sergei Alexandrovich's achievements in Dynamo speak for themselves – three-time champion of the USSR (1940, 1945 and 1949), winner of silver (1946, 1947, 1948 and 1950) and bronze medals of the championship (1952). As part of Dynamo, he played 233 matches and scored 152 goals, which is the best result in history.
In addition to football successes, Solovyov played ball hockey wonderfully, and his powerful throws and sharp jerks made him one of the best hockey forwards in the country. In this sport, he won gold medals at the 1951 and 1952 national championships. He was also one of the pioneers of ice hockey in the country, becoming the champion of the USSR in 1947.
After completing his sports career, Sergei Alexandrovich graduated from the school of coaches at the State Central Institute of Physical Culture and coached youth and youth club teams of Dynamo Moscow until the end of his life (in 1954-1967).
— In life, he was a simple and direct person, and then he worked with Dynamo club teams as honestly as he played, – Yakushin noted.
