Ihor Belanov
| ● The file | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1960, Odesa, Soviet Union |
| Golden Ball | 1986 — the last from the eastern bloc |
| Dynamo Kyiv | Cup Winners' Cup + Super Cup 1986 |
| European final | Hat-trick, missed penalty, trophy — all in one match |
Belanov's 1986 was Lobanovskyi's second laboratory masterpiece: Dynamo Kyiv's Cup Winners' Cup, taken with a final in Lyon in which Belanov scored a hat-trick and missed a penalty — still the only man to do all three in a European final. The Super Cup fell next, this time to a Barcelona side managed by Venables. For a club from the Soviet league to beat Europe's professional aristocracy twice in a year was the eastern game's last towering statement before the wall came down; the Ballon d'Or that followed, the USSR's third, was its formal recognition.
At the 1986 World Cup he was the Soviet blade in a team that played some of the tournament's most modern football, eliminated by Belgium in a match the round of sixteen had no business hosting. His award stands as a curtain: no player from behind the Iron Curtain has won since, and none will now — the era closed with him holding it.