Not every champion football player has a path to success littered with roses and happy occasions. Most of them did not possess any outstanding talents at all in childhood. A lot of things were decided by the love of football and hard work. Even the crooked fate straightened under the pressure of such hard workers and stubborn people as Sergei Vedeneev.
Stubborn Serge
I saw the future major league footballer in the eleven-year-old player at the pioneer camp of the Leningrad Optical and Mechanical Plant, the legendary Zenit footballer and coach Stanislav Zavidonov. His team of the Youth Sports School “Zenit” was visiting this camp on a friendly-sporting visit, and the friendly match was the crown of the guest's stay. The story doesn’t remember the result of the game, it only remembers that the coach liked the okay boy of the “campers”. Than? No, not feints and dribbling, nor goals scored, but endurance, reliability, perseverance.
Seryozha Vedeneyev did not refuse to receive the offer to study at the Zenit youth sports school.
It would seem that the track has gone: at 17 in the Zenit take. But fate-villain intervened: expulsion. According to Vedeneev himself, it was not held according to the sporting principle. The head coach of “Zenith” German Zonin sent the understudy Vedeneev to serve the balls during the training match of the main team, but he didn’t go ...
They took to the second team of Leningrad - Dynamo, who in those years was in the first union league. But there is trouble. Very soon, a number of veterans were expelled from the Zenith and settled in Dynamo. Youth had to move out of the team. Until the real service in the army. So Vedeneev went to guard the northern borders of the Soviet Union in the Murmansk region. As a result, a year and a half without a soccer ball.
He returned without real hope of being in big football. But the love of the game did not pass, he quenched it in the matches of the championship of Leningrad. And then the legend of Leningrad football remembered him again ... There is no Zavidonov, but Alexander Fedorov, who was invited to work in the Uzbek city of Karshi with the local team “Karshistra”, who played in the second league. So the coach called the St. Petersburg landing, which included Sergei Vedeneev.
They are sent to such a wilderness only because of hopelessness, and even veterans who seek to earn money in their declining years. However, it was in Karshi that the Vedeneev gained confidence in himself and hope returned to Zenit.
Returning home, Sergei himself asked to try in the double of “Zenith”, which charmed the coach Vadim Khrapovitsky. The guy was left, and a year later (1980) he made his debut in the major league in an important match against the Moscow “Spartak”, and yet it was difficult to earn the trust of such a fastidious coach as Yuri Morozov.
Invisible hero
Despite the fact that Vedeneev did not belong to the category of those who are always in the spotlight, in Zenit he was in fact the most indispensable. The defensive (back) midfielder or front defender played in the period from 1981 to 1985 more matches for “Zenith” than anyone else.
On the conscience of Sergei and the first “gold” “Zenith” in the championships of the country. Vedeneev Sergey Gennadevich in “Zenith-84” is an integral part of that romantic team squeezed into first place in the dispute of the capitals of the Soviet republics: Kiev, Moscow, Minsk, Tbilisi. Leningrad, of course, is not a province, but look, what other city of Russia had a team that was the champion of the Union? No. Only Leningrad. Yes, almost all the players are native Leningraders!
Sergey Vedeneev also played one match for the national team. True, the Olympic. However, Sergey would still not have gotten to the Olympics-84 because of the famous boycott, although the USSR team in Los Angeles was selected.
Broken face "Kuusysi"
Champion “Zenith” could not stand the test of the first after the “gold” failures. The team fell apart due to internal showdowns. The crown of the collapse was a loss at an early stage of the Champions Cup to the Finnish club-champion from the small town of Lahti. The name Kuusyushi is today a synonym for the concepts “Melde” and “Kosice” from the more modern history of Russian clubs in European cup competitions.
Formally, the peak of Sergey Vedeneev’s career ended on this. In one of the matches, the defender shrugged off the sinless Finnish striker so much that he cut an eyebrow. Blood gushing from the fountain led to prolonged disqualification and descent from high orbit.
Years to a hundred to play?
Then there was a short period in CSKA, the first and second league. Both Soviet and Russian. Vedeneev played for a long time, up to 40 years. What he sees not his uniqueness, but the misfortune of Russian football of that period. It’s not normal when the “grandfather” plays better than the 18-year-old “granddaughters”. But such were the realities of the 1990s. And the fact that he played, it was only out of love for the game and hopelessness, because making money in the early and mid 90s was a problem for most Russians, but at least something ...
Later Sergey Vedeneev tried himself as a coach. Unfortunately, Lokomotiv, Petrotrest and Dynamo could not stand the financial problems.
View from Vedeneev
Today Sergey Vedeneev is a trainer at the Zenit-84 private football school, as well as an expert in a number of sports media. The direct, without a bluff, view of the current football reality of Sergei Gennadievich is liked by readers and viewers. He will remain the same in the memory of those who saw the 1984 Zenith with their own eyes. After all, the Vedeneyev’s field was just that: reliable, hardy, and persistent.
Dossier
Vedeneev Sergey Gennadievich.
Soccer player
Born 08/05/1957 in Leningrad.
Amplitude: defender, midfielder, coach.
Anthropometry: 177 cm, 68 kg.
Career:
- 1976 - Dynamo (Leningrad);
- 1978 - "Karshistroy" (Karshi);
- 1980-86, 1988-89 - “Zenith” (Leningrad) - 189 games, 3 goals;
- 1983 - Olympic team of the USSR - 1 game;
- 1987 - CSKA (Moscow) - 5 games;
- 1987 - “Wings of the Soviets" (Kuibyshev) - 16 games;
- 1988 - Daugava (Riga) - 15 games, 1 ball;
- 1989-91 - Kirovets (Leningrad) - 72 games, 6 goals;
- 1994 - Smena-Saturn (St. Petersburg) - 29 games;
- 1996-97 - Dynamo (St. Petersburg) - 31 games, 1 goal.
Vedeneev Sergey - coach:
- 1990-91 - “Kirovets” (Leningrad) - playing coach;
- 1992-93 - Lokomotiv (St. Petersburg);
- 1999 - Dynamo (St. Petersburg) - in the coaching staff;
- 2003-04 - Petrotrest (St. Petersburg).
Achievements:
- USSR champion in 1984.
- Master of Sports of the USSR (1982).
Personal life: married. Has a daughter and a son. Son plays for the youth team "Red Guard" (St. Petersburg).