Arrival in football at age 4 and CSKA debut at age 16

The leadership of Igor Akinfeev in the list of the most loyal players in the top 10 national championships in Europe did not come as a big surprise for fans of the army, because the goalkeeper has been serving CSKA faithfully for about 30 years.

However, this achievement, of course, was a nice bonus for the goalkeeper, because he was ahead of such world football stars as Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos, Marcelo and Giorgio Chiellini.

Akinfeev stands for the main structure of CSKA for 17 years and 3 months. The second in the ranking was the defender of the French “Saint-Etienne” Loic Perrin (16 years and 9 months). The third place is occupied by Messi, who also took the first steps as part of Barcelona 16 years ago. The fifth line went to Juventus defender Chiellini (14 years and 9 months), the sixth to Ramos (14 years and 7 months), and the tenth to Marselo, another Real Madrid footballer (13 years and 3 months).

At the same time, in addition to Akinfeev, there was only one goalkeeper in the top 10 - goalkeeper of the Belgian “Sylte-Waregem” Sammy Bossut, who gave his team almost 14 years.

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However, Transfermarkt only calculated the time spent in the main team. If we take into account the time spent by Akinfeev in the Sports School of CSKA, he gave the army team 30 years. Little Igor, at the age of four, was led by his father to play football, although recruitment to the team was carried out only from six. The child immediately took a place at the gate. Since then, “post number one”, a confident young man has not left his years.

Akinfeev's professional career also developed rapidly. At the age of 16, he was first attracted to training with the main team of CSKA. Head coach Valery Gazzayev was not afraid to trust a very young goalkeeper.

“I probably will remember all my life those five to seven minutes of our first conversation with Gazzaev in Arkhangelsk. He said: “You have a chance, so everything is in your hands. Are you 16 years old? I don’t look at age, the only thing that matters to me is how you will play in your 16 years, ”Akinfeev recalled in an interview with R-Sport.

Already in March 2003, the debut of a talented football player for CSKA in the Premier League Cup match with Zenit took place. And in late May, Igor held the first match in the national championship. In the guest game with Wings of the Soviets, he not only played for “zero”, but also took a penalty from Andrei Karjaki.

Akinfeev looked so confident at the gate that he ousted the more experienced Veniamin Mandrykin from the base and at the end of the year won the championship with the team. The following year, the CSKA made his debut in the Russian national team and even went with her to the European Championship in Portugal. And soon Igor became the main one in the national team.

Two knee injuries and 20 trophies

If a young soccer player in the national team occasionally lost competition for one reason or another, then his status in CSKA was not even discussed. When Igor was healthy, he invariably took a place at the last frontier. However, he was never truly close to leaving his native club. At different times, the media wrote about the interest in Akinfeev from Arsenal and Manchester United, but the goalkeeper himself did not seem to want to leave.

“I have a current contract with CSKA, this is my native club, and today I am satisfied with everything. And the topic of my departure to Europe is simply tired of discussing. I can repeat it for the thousandth time: there is no specificity in it and there wasn’t, ”the goalkeeper admitted in an interview with Sport-Express.

Akinfeev can be criticized as much as he wants to leave for Europe, but he made his choice and remained faithful to CSKA at a time when most players regularly change teams.

Yes, and in the leadership of the army did everything possible to save their leaders. CSKA in the era of Eugene Giner has always been considered a family club. It is no coincidence that Sergei Ignashevich gave 14 years red-blue, 17 - Alexei Berezutsky and 16 - his brother Vasily. The coaches stayed here for a long time: Gazzaev, Leonid Slutsky, Victor Goncharenko.

As for Akinfeev, CSKA always supported him. With the native team, the goalkeeper suffered two severe knee injuries that did not make him weaker, and gross errors, after which he returned only stronger.

There were no problems with the titles. With CSKA, Igor won the UEFA Cup, six times became the champion of Russia and the owner of the Cup of the country, seven times he raised the Super Cup above his head. Any player can envy such a track record.

In gratitude for his bright career, Igor remained loyal to the club even in the most difficult moments for him. For example, in 2018, when a number of leaders left the team, and the Berezutsky and Ignashevich ended their careers. The goalkeeper, on the contrary, extended the contract until 2022 to help Goncharenko build a new young team. 

“The chip of the current team is youth. She adds peppercorns to this CSKA. You look at today's guys and you see: at some moments they are really children. Raging, fooling around. But this has its own coolness. I have never played in such a team before, ”the Championship quotes Akinfeev.

Record holder for the number of matches for CSKA and the leader of the Club Lev Yashin

The 34-year-old goalkeeper does not intend to end his career after the expiration of the current contract. According to the athlete, he is going to play until the age of 40-42, despite two knee injuries.

"Everything is fine. There are preventative procedures that I'm used to. I’ll torture everyone with my game, ”explained Akinfeev on the program“ Football of Russia ”on the TV channel“ Russia 24 ”.

This means that Igor will update and rewrite many more records. Currently, the asset of the bronze medalist of Euro 629 matches in CSKA in all tournaments. But for more than a year the footballer missed because of knee injuries. If not for them, player statistics could be even more impressive.  

However, now Akinfeev is the absolute champion of the army club in the number of matches. The closest pursuer to complete Ignashevich’s career. he is 88 points ahead.

But in the list of the main “guardsmen” of the championships of Russia, Sergey holds the lead. The ex-CSKA defender has 489 matches, and the goalkeeper has 449. In addition to Ignashevich, he is inferior to Sergei Semak (457) and Dmitry Loskov (453) in this list. However, Igor has several seasons ahead in order not only to break out into the leaders, but also to be the first in history to cross the mark of 500 games.

But in the Lev Yashin Club for domestic goalkeepers, who spent one hundred or more matches, the old-timers of the army team were out of reach for a long time. In it, Akinfeev took first place in 2015 and since then has only increased the lead over the legendary Rinat Dasaev. Moreover, in December 2018, Igor was the first in the history of domestic football to hold the 300th match in his career to zero.

At the moment, he has 313 such meetings. He confidently leads in the number of “crackers” in the national championship - 208, European competition - 38 and in the national team - 47. According to the latest indicator, the 34-year-old player is ahead of both Dasaev and Lev Yashin himself.

However, there are a couple of records in Russian football that Akinfeev did not beat. For example, by the number of matches to zero in a single season of the championship of Russia. This achievement belongs to CSKA coach Sergei Ovchinnikov, who, in the 2002 Lokomotiv gold championship of the country, kept his goal intact in 20 meetings. Igor's best result is 19 in the 2016/17 season.  

Finally, the longest “dry series” in the national championship belongs not to the bronze medalist of the Euro, but to Nikita Medvedev. She is 952 minutes. The best result of Akinfeev (764 minutes) in this rating takes only sixth place.