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Mihail SokolovskiyFootball player
Date of Birth: 15.11.1951
Country:  Ukraine |
Content:
Biography of Mikhail Sokolovsky
Mikhail Sokolovsky was a football player who played until the age of thirty-six. One could argue, as is often the case in such situations, about his admirable ability to endure and manage his strength, train properly, and lead a healthy lifestyle. It is quite likely that all of this played a role. However, it seems to me that fate extended Sokolovsky's life on the football field because he was essential, extremely necessary, to his team, "Shakhtar".
Country: USSR/Ukraine
Position: midfielder, coach
Born: November 15, 1951
Clubs played for: Avangard, Kramatorsk in 1970, SKA Kiev in 1971, SK Chernihiv in 1972, Metallurg Zaporozhye in 1973, Shakhtar Donetsk from 1974 to 1987, Kristall, Kherson in 1988, total matches in D-1: 400, 87 goals.
In the USSR Cup: 63 matches, 11 goals.
In the UEFA Cup: 18 matches, 5 goals.
Played 10 matches for the USSR youth national team (1976-1977).
Achievements:
Team:
Silver medalist of the USSR championship in 1975, 1979.
Winner of the USSR Cup in 1980, 1983.
Winner of the Season Cup in 1983.
Individual:
Holder of the "Loyalty to the Club" award - 400 matches in the USSR championship.
Member of the Grigory Fedotov Club - 103 goals.
Shakhtar's record holder for the number of matches played in the USSR championships (400).
Shakhtar's top scorer in the USSR championships (87 goals).
Coach of Shakhtar in 1995-1996.
A Unique Player for Shakhtar
Players of his position - playmaking midfielders, distributors - in this club since its establishment in 1936 can be counted on one hand. Konkov. Sokolovsky... and then you have to strain your memory, ask for hints, consult reference books.
At first glance, this seems strange and does not match the team's reputation. After all, it has won the Cup multiple times and has been a contender in the championship. How did they manage without players of this respected specialty, like distributors and dispatchers?
For Donetsk's Shakhtar, formerly known as "Stakhanovets" until 1946, it had its place not only in the final standings but also in our perception of how teams play and how they look. Shakhtar, of course, had its years of hardships, having to leave the top league and climbing back up as mentioned earlier. As long as I can remember as a fan, which is as long as Shakhtar has existed, it has remained unchanged in my eyes. No, of course, it changed, but only in those seasons when Alexander Ponomaryov led the attack, when Valeriy Lobanovsky and Oleg Bazylevych played for the team, or when Vitaliy Starukhin, later followed by Viktor Grachev, took charge. However, the variations created by extraordinary forwards, due to their special inclinations, did not transform Shakhtar or make it unrecognizable. Shakhtar remained the same, with its broad shoulders, agility, patience, hard work, simplicity, from generation to generation. And it's a good thing because for an attentive football enthusiast, hearing the word "Shakhtar" brings to mind a special kind of game and battle, movements that may be anonymous but unmistakably Donetsk, miner-like. Can our imagination conjure up an appropriate image for the name of any other team? If you start checking yourself with other teams, you'll be surprised to find emptiness, a blank page, nothing of their own, nothing unique. Yet, they were in the top league!
Imagination and associations are nice and interesting, but football is not a simple matter. It has so much terminology that it can be considered a small science. And for Shakhtar's style of play, there is a definition - fast and powerful. It seems unnecessary to decipher. However, there is a hidden condemnation in this definition: what kind of game is it where speed and power are everything? There is a loud exposure that says, "No need to hide and pretend, 'hit and run,' that's your clever fast and powerful tactic!"
Let's try to understand. In a small book about Shakhtar published in Donetsk, I came across a quote: "Shakhtar's style of play is reminiscent of the English club West Bromwich Albion, which skillfully uses power tactics, possesses rational (typical for northern teams) technique and long passes, allowing them to attack sharply. The game of the miners leaves a coherent impression." These words were written by my senior comrade Martyn Ivanovich Merzhanov in 1964, and the fact that this review appeared in the book indicates that it satisfied the compilers, undoubtedly devoted fans of Shakhtar, sensitive to compliments.
Merzhanov hit the mark, there is a resemblance between Shakhtar and English football. And it's not imitation or borrowing. It is worth remembering that modern football began in England, and today, over a century later, English teams are closer to the origins than their countless followers who have developed the game according to their own taste, with tricks, evasions, tricks, and intricate passing patterns. I believe that Shakhtar represents the original, fundamental football from which various, both magnificent and untrustworthy, branches have emerged. If you blindly follow any direction, without discernment, with bad means, you can easily turn the combination game into empty fuss, into a patchwork craft, into vegetarian exhaustion, into nonsense. I have seen English teams, both clubs and national teams, in different years, in perfect form and even in disorder, disarray, and primitiveness, in that same "hit and run" style. However, in both states, there was no doubt about their belonging to one school, one style. And so it is with Shakhtar.
It is funny to think that a fast and powerful style completely excludes passing and playmaking. That is impossible. But they are not in the spotlight, they perform a service, supporting role, not as visible as mazes and crosswords for convinced tacticians. However, a calculated, polite, inviting pass is used more or less frequently and is always on par with goal attempts. It is valued equally and admired by the audience.
Mikhail Sokolovsky, who spent 14 seasons with Shakhtar, was the player who kept the team's overall game in check, preventing it from descending into blind "hit and run." Perhaps, without realizing it, he defended his team's right to uniqueness. If the team can establish itself as unique, Sokolovsky played a crucial role in that. Then the concept of a master who fits and corresponds to the team emerges. In the best times of Dynamo Kyiv, Spartak Moscow, Moscow Dynamo, and Torpedo, this sorting naturally occurred. People would say, "Kyiv could use this player," "A Spartak player," "It wouldn't hurt for that guy to try in Torpedo...". However, when the team is not in order, it turns out that any player, even if trained and skilled, cannot achieve the desired harmony. No matter how you shuffle them, these first-comers, even though trained and skilled, cannot achieve the magic of agreement. Shakhtar also has its own players behind its prosperity. Who are they? Besides the characteristic traits we have already discussed, I would mention another mandatory attribute - inconspicuous usefulness.
I understand inconspicuousness as complete focus on one's job, where there is no room in one's thoughts for distractions, wasting time on extraneous matters, on drawing attention from the stands. If the forwards Starukhin and Grachev occasionally deviated from Shakhtar's discipline, they were still in a privileged position, and their freedoms stood out precisely because they went against what we knew about this team for decades. Perhaps there are reasons to interpret this inconspicuousness as good behavior, as good manners. In any case, whenever I watched matches involving Shakhtar, I always knew in advance that there should be audacity from them, simulation, demonstrative outbursts, and arrogance. I can't explain my long-standing sympathy for this team, despite the fact that it often loses rather than wins on Moscow stadiums and seems weaker than the capital's opponents if we judge by justice.
Sokolovsky can be considered the ideal, classic example of a Shakhtar player. Despite being more talented than most of his teammates, better at passing and shooting, and even serving as a captain, he strictly followed the team's regime. He was, in the best sense of the word, inconspicuous, intuitively understanding that Shakhtar would suffer if its players wanted to stand out individually.
I have no doubt that he would have excelled in another, more prominent club, which would have made him one of the heroes of all stadiums, not just in Donetsk. However, fate decided otherwise, without temptations and temptations, and he was able to give himself fully to Shakhtar, displaying his understanding of the game and his human constancy. I believe that for some football fans, and certainly for the discerning ones, Sokolovsky's "hundred" holds a unique value. It marked the end of a complex career for a master who did not seek personal recognition but rather rooted for Shakhtar with all his soul. He was even given the expressive nickname - "brigadier" by the fans.
Ask Dynamo Kyiv or Spartak Moscow fans which seasons they remember, and they will mention the ones when their teams became champions, while the ones when they finished second or third will be shrugged off with a wry smile. Sokolovsky, in his interviews (he only had a few), insisted on mentioning that his team was twice a silver medalist, once a bronze medalist, and won the Cup twice. He himself was honored three times as one of the "33 best" players. I included these details here because I felt Sokolovsky's pride in them. However, he is proud more for Shakhtar than for himself. Anyone would agree that the sergeant's "chevrons" of a player in this team are no less honorable than the championship "stars" of fellow members of the Fedotov Club - Buryak, Cherenkov, Kondratyev, Rodionov, and Protasov. And if we measure football labor (though it's not easy to do so), then it should be considered more honorable.
When I wrote an essay about Vitaliy Starukhin for the first edition of "Forwards", Sokolovsky was not mentioned. This gap must be filled. It is known that one of Sokolovsky's regular tactical tasks was to assist his center-forward (they played together for eight seasons) in scoring goals. And here is the result, which surprised me. The recognized top scorer Starukhin scored 84 goals in the championships, while his assistant, apprentice Sokolovsky, scored 87. Even if we consider Sokolovsky's explanation - "I scored a lot from his 'headers' (referring to lowering the ball with his head to the feet of his partner, a rare move) and the fact that Starukhin played fewer matches, the closeness of the final numbers and the proximity in the Club with mathematical accuracy confirms the impression of Sokolovsky's inconspicuous usefulness, with impeccable tactical execution of the challenging role he took upon himself.
