Anatoli Bashashkin

Anatoli Bashashkin was not the kind of defender who existed only to win collisions and clear his lines. Strong, stern and physically imposing, he also had a level of comfort on the ball that made him stand out in early Soviet football. From the centre of defence, he could break pressure with long passes and turn a recovery into the first act of a counterattack, giving his game a more constructive edge than the usual old-school stopper label suggests. At CDKA and CDSA Moscow, he became a key figure in one of the dominant Soviet sides of the late 1940s and 1950s, while his national-team career carried both honour and political cruelty. Captain of the USSR in 1952, Olympic champion in 1956, Bashashkin was a defender of authority, strength and distribution. More defensive libero than blunt marker, and much more interesting than the dusty label of “central defender” allows.