Dark Goals by Luciano Wernicke

Author:Luciano Wernicke [Wernicke, Luciano]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781989555927
Publisher: Sutherland House Books
Published: 2022-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Professional Amateurism

THE STORY, SURELY MORE fabulous than true, asserts that Joseph Stalin telephoned the Ratina Stadion dressing room. The footballers of the Soviet team, who made up the nation’s first Olympic contingent since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, rested after a disastrous first half against Yugoslavia, which had ended with the Soviets facing a brutal 3-0 deficit. According to an article by journalist Alexandra Guzeva published on the Russia Beyond website, Stalin, the president of the council of ministers of the Soviet Union, hurled insults at his players and threatened them with severe punishment if they lost the game against “those Nazis from the clique of Tito.”

The link between Iósif Vissariónovich Dzhugashvili, alias Stalin (whose name translates to “made of steel”), and Marshal Josip Broz (nicknamed Tito, a moniker that some say was given to him during the Spanish Civil War by a Republican comrade who couldn’t pronounce his name) had noticeably deteriorated in the years following World War II when the two communist leaders fought against the Axis powers. Tito had broken relations with the Kremlin and was flirting with Western nations, an act seen as a despicable betrayal by Stalin. The Olympic match, played on July 20, 1952, corresponding to the round of sixteen of the soccer tournament of the Helsinki Games, had become more politics than sport. The Russian players, fearful of being deported to a Siberian concentration camp or suffering an even worse punishment, returned to the field with renewed vigour. Despite having been down four goals at the fifty-nine-minute mark, they managed a 5-5 draw.

Did Stalin really call the dressing room after the first half? In times when cell phones did not exist, it seems a stretch to believe the leadership in Moscow could have communicated with a small stadium located 170 kilometres north of Helsinki. According to an article by journalist Axel Vartanyan, published by the Moscow newspaper Sport Express, Stalin addressed his footballers and coach Boris Arkadiev through other means: a telegram sent to the Soviet embassy in the Finnish capital. Vladimir Novoskoltsev, special correspondent for the official newspaper Pravda, assures us that “a telegram signed by IV Stalin arrived at our embassy, ​​in which the leader explained to our footballers the responsibility that fell on them. They were given a political task. The telegram was a reminder of the relations that had developed then between the USSR and Yugoslavia. The game went beyond the realm of sports and acquired the importance of a factor of public policy.”

Avtandil Chkuaseli, a Georgian player on that Soviet Olympic team, admitted many years later in an interview that, before going on the pitch, the footballers had to read Stalin’s two-page telegram. “I remember very well that, before the start of the match, a telegram signed by Stalin was shown to us, the players. ‘We believe in you, you must win.’ The match had to be won by all means. But that acted on us not so much in an encouraging way, but in a depressing way.

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