Yuri Kalitvintsev as a football player left a big mark in the history of Ukrainian football. When Grigory Surkis invited the injured Kalitvintsev to Dynamo Kyiv in 1995, many experts and ordinary fans could not imagine how brightly he would play in a team that returned to the European football elite.
Player career start
Yury Nikolaevich Kalitvintsev was born on May 5, 1968 in Volgograd. School years, when players usually learn the basics of football skill, Yuri spent in his hometown. Sports school "Rotor" became for him a native football cradle. Of course, Yuri managed to attend one of the Volgograd secondary schools.
On a professional level, he made his debut in the Volgograd "Rotor" in 1985. At that time, a team from Volgograd played in the first league of the USSR championship. Football players, like all Soviet citizens, were required to serve in the army. Athletes had the opportunity to serve, playing in the composition of the army FC. In the period from 1986 to 1988, Yuri Kalitvintsev held 60 fights for SKA (Rostov), in which he scored 6 goals.
Post-Army Sports Career Period
A successful performance in the army team confirmed the confidence of the coaching staff in the young player. In the three years spent in “Rotor” after returning from SKA, he played 89 fights and scored 20 goals. For a midfielder, this is a very high performance, especially if we take into account the development trends of football at that time when the universality of players was developed only in the best teams.
From 1992 to 1994, Yuri Kalitvintsev played in the Moscow Dynamo. This period of his career left a double impression, because after spending 48 matches in 1992-1993 (scoring 4 goals), Kalitvintsev lost his place in the first team and began the 1994 season with Dynamo-2. At the same time, his personal awards cast doubt on the correctness of the decisions of the coaches, because in 1992 Yuri Nikolaevich became footballer No. 2 in Russia, and in 1994, playing in the double “Dynamo” and the Nizhny Novgorod “Locomotive”, he gets the 3rd place in the list the best football players in the country.
Kalitvintsev and Kiev: fate was the best
During the match Lokomotiv (Nizhny Novgorod) - Spartak (Vladikavkaz) in late 1994, Yuri Kalitvintsev broke his leg. After this injury, by and large, in Russia no one counted on him. Yes, there was an offer from the Moscow Torpedo, but it wasn’t the same Torpedo as in the Soviet years. That is why Yuri Kalitvintsev accepted the proposal of Kiev Dynamo.
According to the commentators of the 1995 Champions League match Dynamo - Panathinaikos, the most important factor in the transition of the Russian to Dynamo was the help of the Surkis brothers in rehabilitation after the fracture. For the Kiev team in 1994-1998, the football player held a total of 105 matches (including 12 matches for duplicate teams). In these matches, he scored 22 goals against opponents. In the seasons 1996/1997 and 1997/1998, Yuri Kalitvintsev was the captain of the main structure of Kiev. In the status of captain, he led the team to the legendary Kiev match against Barcelona, held on October 22, 1997 (Dynamo victory 3-0).
The consequences of the injury made themselves felt, so Yuri could not play at a high level for a long time. In 1999, the midfielder goes to “Trabzonspor” and holds 14 matches as part of this club (1 goal). Kiev “CSKA” was the last club in which Yuri Kalitvintsev appeared as a player. The footballer played 10 matches in 2000 for the army team of Kiev.
Son follows in the footsteps of his father
Today's Odessa “Chernomorets” cannot be imagined without Vladislav Kalitvintsev rented from Dynamo Kiev. The father put a lot of effort into the sports development of his son. Excellent technique, scoring flair, playmaker skills, the ability to execute long and free kicks - all this was transferred to Vladislav from his father.
Yuri Kalitvintsev at one time was an example of fortitude for his younger Dynamo colleagues. Without him, the Kiev club’s success in two consecutive Champions League seasons (1998 and 1999) would hardly have been possible. We hope that Vladislav in his career will not only repeat the successes of his father, but also achieve more.