Saturday marks the 70th anniversary of the birth of the famous defender of the Moscow "Dynamo", the club's record holder for the number of games Alexander Novikov.
Alexander Vasilyevich was born on June 14, 1955 in Moscow. Since the age of 11, he has been in the Dynamo children's team, where he got according to the results of the selection under the leadership of Konstantin Beskov and Vladimir Fedin. After Konstantin Ivanovich headed the main squad of the blue and white, Novikov found himself in the group of Yevgeny Baykov, who transferred the future legend of Dynamo from midfield to the center of defense.
– Sasha Novikov from childhood mastered such a difficult technique as a tackle, often, but in moderation he could shine with an acrobatic technique, a blow through himself. I was sure that he would come to the main squad of Dynamo for a long time," recalled Dynamo coach Yevgeny Fedorovich Baykov.
Novikov progressed rapidly and was regularly called up to various youth teams. At the age of 17, he became the main player of the Dynamo double and fell in love with the fans for his uncompromising attitude and strong fighting qualities. In the summer of 1975, Alexander Vasilyevich made his debut for Dynamo in an international commercial tournament, showing himself most clearly in a game with Real Madrid, and in early autumn he played his first official match in the USSR championship, playing all 90 minutes in an away meeting with CSKA Moscow.
Over the next 12 seasons, Novikov was an iron player in the starting lineup of the blue and white and in total played 395 matches for the capital club, 327 of them in the USSR championships. To this day, these figures are a record in the history of Dynamo. As a Dynamo football player, he won the USSR championship (1976), twice won the USSR Cup (1977, 1984), and also played a prominent role in European competitions, twice reaching the semifinals of the Cup Winners' Cup (1978 and 1985).
In the 1980s, Novikov gained fame as one of the strongest defenders of the country. His tie with Sergey Nikulin was one of the toughest in the USSR championship. Coach Vyacheslav Solovyov even came up with nicknames for them: Nikulin – "Braid", Novikov – "Autogen". However, for all the time spent at Dynamo, Alexander Vasilyevich has never seriously injured his opponent.
After the end of his football career, Novikov decided to master the coaching craft and headed Spartak Vladikavkaz, with whom he immediately won silver medals at the first Russian championship (1992) and led the team to European competitions for the first time. Later, Alexander Vasilyevich worked as a head coach and assistant to the head coach of his native Dynamo, he worked a lot with children and young people. In 2020, he returned to the Lev Yashin Dynamo Academy, where he worked as a curator of middle-aged teams.
– Dynamo is my family! I've been here since I was a kid. The club has done a lot for me. And I've always tried for my Club," Novikov said in an interview.