The famous Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi, who was always pushed for the well-known “gap” in his biography, once rightly remarked: “Well, were all the good jockeys in a previous life horses?” Unlike the Italian, the famous Russian coach Boris Ignatiev was a “horse”, but ...
Pony: smart and technical
Boris Ignatiev was not a great footballer. He, who had worked with the national teams of the USSR and Russia of various ages for many years and had an aura of deserts, was asked with a catch: "Tell me, dear Boris Petrovich, would you take yourself the youngest to any team?" Ignatiev did not even hesitate with the answer: "No. Borya was a smart and technical player, but very weak physically."
I must say that Boris was aware of this almost from the first acquaintance with a soccer ball on the streets of his native Moscow. But football is a contagious thing: they dream of being football stars, after all, not only physically gifted guys.
That’s why Boris Ignatiev’s football was in the football school of Moscow Spartak and the double of Moscow Dynamo, where according to Ignatiev himself he was hanging out because he wasn’t considered promising anywhere. I also heard the direct words of the famous football player and coach Vsevolod Blinkov: "Borya - you are great, but you are not strong enough." But Borya only did everything to compensate for this shortcoming: he delved into the essence of the game, competently chose a position, handled the ball skillfully, knew how to give the most accurate pass ... Still, he would have to connect the “game with all his might”, but with them it’s just and deficit. In general, Boris Ignatiev is not a major league player.
The Volga River flows ...
However, this is not a reason to tie with football. In the province, Ignatiev’s talents were very necessary. The team of life for Boris Ignatiev as a football player was the Gorky “Volga”. It was in her that he became the leading player, it was with her that he went to the big leagues. Because 7 matches in the elite for the football player Ignatiev is the top of his career.
Moreover, Gorky (former and future Nizhny Novgorod) almost became the city of his whole life. Here Boris Petrovich met his wife, there were thoughts here to settle permanently.
However, the restless soul wanted more. Realizing that he could not achieve great heights as a football player, Boris thought about his coach’s career quite early. He conducted training notes, monitored the work of trainers.
As part of the brigades of the capital's football “cobblers” dusted up in the second union league until the age of 32, but 27 had already submitted documents to the school of trainers. It was he who saw himself in the future as a coach.
Unfortunately, I’m not impudent
The coaching career of Boris Ignatiev began in Vladimir. Honestly, it can hardly be called successful. And his whole career in clubs. According to Boris Petrovich himself, the work of the head coach in the club is the ability to punch and knock, the ability to speak and force, sometimes rude and impudent. It was the absence of worldly impudence that Ignatiev himself called the reason for the lack of high-profile (by a very Hamburg account) success on the coaching path.
It is not surprising that for the opportunity to work with the junior team of the USSR, where one has to deal with the above listed to a minimum, he grabbed himself with all his might.
In the talent nursery
Probably, this was the best time in the career of a coach. For 13 years, he worked with all the talents of the Soviet Union, contacted with all the coaches of more or less significant teams of the country.
Highest success: USSR national team - European champion among juniors in 1988. The biggest disappointment: the quarterfinals of the 1989 Junior World Cup with Nigeria. 22 minutes before the end of the match, our juniors won with a score of 4: 0, but managed to miss four goals during this time and lose in the penalty shootout.
The most talented players from those with whom Ignatiev worked, said Sergei Kiryakov and Oleg Salenko. The first was not without flaws, but tried to fix them. The second realized that he had a remarkable gift, but for some reason believed that this very gift should not be developed and worked ...
How many people, so many characters, and life situations. You can’t break a young man: you need to be careful about him so that he reveals his talents. It is therefore not surprising that, unlike all of his colleagues in the workshop, the coaches of the Russian national team, there is no list of players offended or insulted by him among the players.
Someone will call it even a drawback (for the legendary Boris Arkadiev, for some reason this is still not considered a drawback), but he is like that - coach Boris Ignatiev, who accepted the Russian team at the time of the generation change after the disappointing European Championship in 1996. But Ignatiev could have completely slipped into the 1998 World Cup through a “junction” with Italians (1: 1, 0: 1) ...
After the national team
After 1998, Boris Petrovich focused more on the role of the second coach and functionary. Although there were, of course, in his life both the return of Torpedo-ZIL to the top division and a trip to China. Much more fruitful was the work with Yuri Semin in Moscow Lokomotiv and Kiev Dynamo. The last while the place of work of Boris Ignatiev was the Moscow “Torpedo”. In January 2018, he left the post of vice president of this club. In general, in the coaching field of Boris Petrovich it’s even incorrect to compare ponies with ponies. Although the pony, as you know, is also a horse.
Dossier
Ignatiev Boris Petrovich.
Soccer player, coach.
Born December 5, 1940 in Moscow.
Football career:
- 1960 - Dynamo (Moscow) - double.
- 1960-61 - “Zenith” (Izhevsk).
- 1962-67 - “Rocket”, “Volga” (Gorky).
- 1968-69 - Dynamo (Makhachkala).
- 1970 - Meteor (Zhukovsky).
- 1971 - Dynamo (Tselinograd).
- 1972 - The Builder (Ufa).
Anthropometry: 175 cm, 72 kg.
Achievements:
- 7 matches (for the “Volga”) in the major league.
Trainer career:
- 1973 - "Torpedo" (Vladimir) - assistant chief.
- 1974-75 - Torpedo (Vladimir).
- 1976-89 - junior (under 18 years old) USSR team.
- 1989-90 - club from the UAE.
- 1990 - Olympic team of Iraq.
- 1990-91 - Olympic team of the USSR.
- 1992-93 - youth (under 21 years old) national team of Russia.
- 1992-96 - Russian team (coaching staff).
- 1995 - Al Ittihad (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).
- 1996-98 - Russian team - 20 games (8 wins, 8 draws, 4 losses, goals 30:17).
- 1998-2000 - Torpedo-ZIL (Moscow).
- 2001 - "Shandong Luneng Taishan" (Jinan, China).
- 2002 - “Alania” (Vladikavkaz) - trainer-consultant.
- 2004 - Saturn (Ramenskoye).
- 2007 - Saturn (Ramenskoye) - assistant chief.
- 2009, 2010-12 - Dynamo (Kiev) - assistant to the chief.
- 2009-10 - Lokomotiv (Moscow) - assistant to the chief.
- 2012-13 - Torpedo (Moscow).
Achievements:
- Honored Trainer of the RSFSR (1976).
- Junior (under 18 years old) USSR national team - 1988 European champion.
Functional career:
- 2003-04 - Lokomotiv (Moscow) - sports director.
- 2005-06 - Dynamo (Moscow) - sports director.
- 2014-18 - Torpedo (Moscow) - Vice President.
Personal life:
Currently retired. Son Gennady lives in Germany. Two grandchildren - Camil and Alexander.