Oleg Romantsev

Oleg Ivanovich Romantsev (Олег Иванович Романцев; born 4 January 1954) is a Soviet/Russian former international footballer and coach.

Romantsev was acclaimed for his success with Spartak Moscow, whom he led to a record eight domestic league titles, and his work with the Russian national team.

He is considered by some observers to be the finest coach in the history of Russian football.

Oleg Romantsev was born on 4 January 1954 in the selo of Gavrilovskoye, Spassky District, Ryazan Oblast, situated about 150 miles southeast of Moscow.

The son of a road construction manager, Romantsev's family led a peripatetic existence, living in various places including the Kola peninsula, Altay, and Kyrgyzstan before settling in Krasnoyarsk in the early 1960s where, at age 12, the young man worked as a loader's assistant at a house-building factory on a salary of 40 roubles.

Having initially harboured a passion for trains, Romantsev found himself turning to football for support after his father walked out on the family, leaving his mother to support him and his brother and sister alone.

Romantsev joined a local youth team named Metallurg where he played as a striker and within two years was appointed the team's captain.

His performances there earned him an invite to play for Avtomobilist, another Krasnoyarsk team, at the Siberia & Far East Youth Championship where he scored seven goals in four games.

He stayed with Avtomobilist after the tournament where he helped them to third place in the USSR Youth Championship.

In 1971, Romantsev was promoted to the senior team of Avtomobilist, who at the time were competing in the Soviet Second League.

He marked his debut for the senior team with a goal and scored twice on his second appearance, later becoming a first team regular.

Romantsev eventually converted from a striker to a left-back and came to the attention of clubs such as Dynamo Kiev, who had begun to take note of the young defender's abilities.

In 1976, Avtomobilist played a friendly against the club which would ultimately define Romantsev's footballing career – Spartak Moscow.

After impressing Spartak representatives during the match, Romantsev was offered terms and joined soon after.

Initially disillusioned with life at the Soviet powerhouse club – he spent just two matches there before returning to Krasnoyarsk citing an "unprofessional atmosphere" – he was convinced to return to the fold in 1977 after Konstantin Beskov, who was tasked with returning Spartak to the Top League after their relegation in 1976, persuaded him to rejoin.

Romantsev had not accepted the offer outright and dismissed Beskov's approach but was eventually persuaded after spending time speaking with Beskov, who was also the manager of the Soviet Union national team, as part of the squad for the qualifiers for the 1978 World Cup.

Romantsev would go on to play 180 matches for the club, scoring six goals in the process.

He was appointed club captain in 1979, and held the position until injuries brought about the end of his playing career in 1983, at the age of just 29.

In his time as a player with Spartak, Romantsev won the 1979 Soviet Top League, the 1977 Soviet First League title and finished runner-up in the Soviet Top League in 1980, 1981 and 1983.

Romantsev made nine appearances for the Soviet Union national team.

He also played six matches and scored one goal for the bronze-winning team at the 1980 Summer Olympics.

A year after the end of his playing career, Spartak Moscow's founder Nikolai Starostin offered Romantsev a coaching role at Krasnaya Presnya – a little-known Moscow club in the Soviet Second League.

It was here that he first crossed paths with future Russia star Aleksandr Mostovoi, then a 16-year-old central midfielder.

The two quickly forged a close relationship that was to continue long into their professional careers.

In an interview with UEFA's Dmitri Rogovitski, Mostovoi said: "He was a very inexperienced coach back then but we quickly forged a close relationship. He became my father in football, it was thanks to him that I grew into a serious player."

Romantsev would ultimately spend three years in charge of Presnya, before spending several months in charge of Spartak Ordzhonikidze (now Spartak) in 1988.

Later that year, Romantsev returned to the club where he made his name as a player, and where he would spend the bulk of his managerial career, as he took up the post of Spartak Moscow manager.

At the time, it was considered a surprise move.

Mostovoi recalled of his arrival: "His appointment was unexpected. I was abroad with the youth international team and when we returned home for training, [former Spartak manager Konstantin] Beskov was gone and Romantsev was there in his place. I asked him without thinking, "What are you doing here?' He said that he was our new coach." Romantsev's impact was hard-felt and immediate – Spartak claimed the Russian title in his debut season of 1989, only their second since Romantsev himself had captained the team in 1979.

Under Romantsev, Spartak pioneered a style of football that was based on "short passing and quick thinking".

He began to develop a reputation as a disciplinarian who obsessively analysed and scrutinised the performances of his team and his opponents.

"Romantsev would set about his task as manager with an obsessive zeal, often pouring (sic) over his squads' every mistake, usually ignoring any positives from their performances."

He trained his players hard, implementing notoriously harsh sessions known as "sbori" that were described as being akin to "a Special Forces regime."

The authority that Romantsev wielded over his players was exemplified by star midfielder Yegor Titov's explanation for why he never left Spartak despite arousing the interest of Bayern Munich, "Honestly? I was afraid to go to Oleg Romantsev’s office and tell him I was leaving."

Romantsev displayed a similarly harsh demeanour towards the press.

One anecdote recounted a journalist approaching him for an interview as Romantsev was smoking near the team bus only to be rebuked with the message, "What?! Can't you see I'm talking to the doctor?"

Spartak dominated Russian football under Romantsev in the 1990s, using a system whereby the club discovered young players from across the former USSR, developed their talents to the full and then, availing of the newfound freedom to do business with the West following the fall of Communism in Europe, proceeded to sell them on to Western European clubs for a significant profit.

A string of future Russian internationals passed through Spartak's doors during this time – Valery Karpin, Dmitry Alenichev, Viktor Onopko, Igor Shalimov, Dmitry Radchenko and Sergei Rodionov all came and went with the money from their sales funding the next iteration.

Under his tenure, Spartak also reached the semi-finals of all three major European competitions (the 1990–91 European Cup, 1992–93 European Cup Winners' Cup and the 1997–98 UEFA Cup) – a run that saw them eliminate sides such as Real Madrid, Liverpool and Diego Maradona's Napoli.

By the end of Romantsev's time at the club, Spartak had won nine league titles (three successively from 1992 to 1994, and six in succession from 1996 to 2001) as well as four Russian Cups.