115 years since the birth of Mikhail Yakushin

Mikhail Iosifovich was born on November 15, 1910, in Moscow. The Yakushin family lived on Samarsky Lane, next to the Union Stadium, where the football and hockey players of the Union Sports Society trained. Neighboring boys, including the future footballer Yakushin, watched the various clubs' practices and matches with great interest, and even formed teams, kicking a ball around in the yard from morning until night.

"My mother was not very supportive of my football activities, as she was worried about my shoes, which were damaged in the intense sports battles. But my father, a printing press worker by birth, supported me and closely monitored my athletic success. He encouraged and consoled me when, as happened quite often, I returned home with a black eye or a swollen cheek," Mikhail Iosifovich later recalled.

In 1920, Yakushin was accepted to the Union youth team, where he progressed through all levels of youth football, and within eight years, he made it to the adult Sovtorgsluzhushchie team, which played in the Moscow championship. He also played hockey and represented the capital's national hockey team. In the winter of 1925, Yakushin donned a Dynamo uniform for the first time, not as a footballer, but as a hockey player, when he played for the sports society's third team. After working as a land surveyor in the Ural region, where he was assigned after graduating from technical school, and serving in the army, Mikhail Iosifovich returned to normal life and joined Dynamo in the fall of 1933. This time, for the long haul.

"As soon as I joined the Dynamo team, I immediately became convinced of the high standards, strict discipline on the field and at home, well-organized training and education programs, and excellent conditions for improving my game." "Finally, the camaraderie that reigned within the team and the excellent selection of players. All of this contributed to my growth as a football and hockey player. "On such a team, and alongside such masters as Fyodor Selin, Vasily Pavlov, Vasily Smirnov, and Sergei Ilyin, it was impossible to play poorly," Yakushin said years later.

After playing briefly for the white-and-blues' second team, Yakushin joined Dynamo's main squad in early 1934 and was also named to the Moscow and USSR national teams. It was at Dynamo that he established himself as a versatile athlete (he also played bandy, where he achieved outstanding success, winning the national championship and the USSR Cup eight times, scoring over 300 goals, and ice hockey, where he became the USSR champion). He was capable of playing in several positions and became one of the best players of the pre-war Soviet Union.

Many clubs wanted to acquire the talented footballer, but Yakushin remained loyal to the white-and-blues. He always dreamed of playing for Dynamo and in 1935 turned down Nikolai Petrovich Starostin's offer to join Spartak. But "you can't buy a gypsy," as Mikhail Iosifovich later recalled.

After playing for Dynamo for ten years and scoring 45 goals in 105 matches, Yakushin retired from playing in 1944 and immediately took over as head coach. He learned the ropes of coaching from the legendary Boris Andreevich Arkadyev, who led the White-Blues during the Great Patriotic War. Mikhail Iosifovich approached coaching with a solid resume: two-time Moscow Championship winner (1934, 1935), champion and top scorer of the USSR National Football Championship among city teams (1935), three-time USSR Champion (1936, 1937, 1940), and USSR Cup winner (1937).

In Yakushin's first season as coach, Dynamo became USSR Champions, finishing one point ahead of the Moscow Army Men. In the autumn of that same year, 1945, the white-blues embarked on a famous tour of Great Britain, a successful performance which significantly increased the international prestige of Soviet football.

Yakushin coached Dynamo twice: from 1945 to 1950 and from 1953 to 1960. He led the team to six USSR championship titles (1945, 1949, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959) and one USSR Cup (1953), becoming the most successful coach in the club's history. A striking feature of his coaching talent was his ability to develop talented players. Leonid Solovyov, Vasily Kartsev, Vladimir Savdunin, and Alexey Khomich all emerged at Dynamo under his leadership.

It was Yakushin who introduced the 4-2-4 formation and the "false nine" to the football world, although in his later years he admitted that he disliked talk of tactical formations. For his football wisdom and extensive knowledge, athletes and coaches nicknamed him "Cunning Mikhey."

After Dynamo, Yakushin spent several years on the coaching staff of the USSR national team, coaching Tbilisi Dynamo three times, and serving as head coach of Uzbekistan's Pakhtakor and Moscow's Lokomotiv. In 1967, the USSR national team enjoyed a brilliant season under his leadership and was ranked first among European national teams by the weekly magazine France Football.

In 1975, Yakushin decided to end his career, after which he worked for the USSR Football Federation. He wrote for the magazine "Football. Hockey" as a football columnist. From 1993 until his death, he served on the board of directors of Dynamo Moscow.

"Yakushin was a master of strategy, the team's brains, essentially the team's conductor. He was a man who thought not only for himself but for the entire team. If you take the attack — Semichastny, Pavlov, Smirnov, Yakushin, and Ilyin — it was a stellar team," said Honored Coach of the USSR Gavriil Kachalin about Yakushin the player.

Mikhail Yakushin died on February 3, 1997, in Moscow at the age of 86. For his outstanding achievements in sport, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and the Certificate of Honor of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. A street near the VTB Arena, in the area of ​​the Dynamo metro station, is named in his honor, and on the 102nd anniversary of his birth, a memorial plaque was installed on the facade of the building at 4 Sadovo-Triumfalnaya Street in Moscow, where Yakushin lived from 1952 to 1975.