The Stars Of Israeli Soccer: NIKOLAI KUDRITSKIY
(06.11.1962 - 16.03.1994)

"At 4 o'clock the previous morning, one kilometer northern to Raanana, Bnei-Yehuda's star found his death while returning from Haifa, where he participated in the party with his friends from the Ukrainean National team. He crashed into the separation fence and fell out of the car at a speed of 160 km/h, which has been followed by instant death. If fastened by a security belt, he could've stayed alive." YEDIOTH AHRONOTH, 17.3.1994

"When a National team of yours wins, and you score the decisive goal, it's natural to feel very good. But when you get up early in the morning and hear such a thing in the morning news, nothing is left of your good mood.

I saw him before the game, sitting between the few spectators with his friends-players from the Soviet Union, calm and friendly as usual. But who could've thought it had been the last time I saw him?..

I haven't met Nikolai personally, but from my impressions on the field, he had very positive features, both as a man and as a player. He was a very friendly one, no individualist at all. I didn't meet him personally, but nevertheless I feel a great grief and pain about losing a man, a player. It's a great loss to all Israeli football. May his memory be blessed." TAL BANIN, from YEDIOTH AHRONOTH, 17.3.1994

Nikolai Kudritskiy... The best foreign player that has ever played in Israel, the best foreign scorer of Israel (and 6.5 years after his untimely death, only Istvan Salloi was successful in passing Niko here), a man who loved the country and a man whom the country loved. A very modest man, a very friendly one, eager to help to his friends and teammates. Being the central figure between the Russian and the Ukrainean players in Israel, he gave all the interviews only in Hebrew, and was thinking seriously of staying here forever. He loved life, and life loved him. And everything ended in one moment...

Bnei-Yehuda of 1991-92 and 1992-93 didn't have an experienced keeper, its defence was very shaky as well, and the halfbacks also could've been better. Nevertheless, it was the team to threaten the top, giving the great games and catching 2nd and 3rd places, respectively. No defence in the whole League could stop the best ever in Israel, truly European attacking line - Haim Revivo, Niko Kudritskiy and Alon Mizrahi. These 3 scored, for example, 53 out of 66 (!) goals of the team in 1992-1993 - 26 of Alon (the best Israeli scorer), 17 of Niko (the 2nd best Israeli scorer) and 10 of Haim.

Niko, playing in Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk in its best years and included several times into the Soviet National team, arrived at Israel in mid-November, 1991. His first game was against Maccabee Netanya in the Toto Cup, and it took him only 14 minutes to score his first goal, leading his team to 2:2 draw. Totally, he scored 50 goals of Bnei-Yehuda, becoming the 5th best striker of the team ever. Provided it has been done in 85 games, it gives him an average of 0.59 goal per game!

His first National League game was to come a week later, in November 24th, and there he "only" made a goal pass to Haim Revivo, 2:0 at the end against the same Maccabee Netanya. But the next week he scored, enabling his team to breathe lightly - 1:1 in a very difficult game against Hapoel Petakh-Tikwa. Since then, no one of the Israeli keepers, even the best, could feel any security, playing against Niko. He scored against Victor Chanov and Alexander Uvarov, Rafi Cohen and Bonnie Ginzburg, Giora Antman and Yaacov Beladev, Jaroslav Baku and Alexander Zhidkov, Golan Malul and Yaacov Asayag, and so on and so forth...

Being a great player as he was, he was a very modest man nevertheless. We remember how glad he was about Revivo and Mizrahi being successful, and we remember him, never boasting even after the great performances. December 1992, 2:1 against Maccabee Petakh-Tikwa; Kudritskiy gets the ball from Sahar Mizrahi and without stopping, during the run shoots the unstoppable right-foot volley flatly to the right corner of Golan Malul. When asked about this "marvellous goal", he answers embarrassed: "Tishma, ze kaduregel" ("Listen, that's soccer"). Even after the home losses of his team, he was applauded and carried on the shoulders by the crowd. He never faked efforts, and he was the only foreign player (and maybe, the only player at all) never to hear whistles of shame on the Israeli fields from the crowd.

20/02/1993. Nothing like that was ever seen in Israel - there is a double action in Ramat-Gan, Bnei-Yehuda (3) meets Beitar Jerusalem (1 and later the Champions), and Maccabee Tel-Aviv (2) meets Maccabee Haifa (4), the stadium is crowded with 45,000 (!) spectators, and the atmosphere is truly European, unseen before. And the games are European, too. Alon Mizrahi shoots the ball to Yaacov Asayag's post, and Kudritskiy is there to put it in. Ilan Elharar of Beitar equalizes, and Beitar is pressing over and over again. And here comes Bnei-Yehuda - Sahar Mizrahi finds Revivo on the left wing, this finds Alon Mizrahi in the box, and the latter, pressed by Tretyak, makes the wonderful back scissors pass to the center of the box, with Kudritskiy diving to head it home. Beitar seems to have the answer again, but can't score - and then, in the last minute of the game, Uzi Otachi finds Kudritskiy, who passes a defender and from 35 meters arches the ball above Asayag. 3:1, and the crowd is out of its mind, Niko becoming the hero of the month, in the game remembered for years.

The last year hadn't started so successfully for Niko and the team. Niko was suspected to be involved in the "Gamesgate" about selling the matches, and his total innocence was proved only several weeks after his few days' detention. The team, on the other hand, lacked Alon Mizrahi (passed to Maccabee Haifa) and Haim Revivo (passed to Hapoel Tel-Aviv), and Victor Chanov, who came from Maccabee Haifa to be in the net, wasn't as successful and confident as usual. The Oranges became the typical midtable team, and it was only Niko not to let it relegate, scoring up to the moment of his tragic death 20 out of 29 goals of his team - 69%!! He scored some hat-tricks against Hapoel Tel-Aviv and Hapoel Haifa in the victories of his team, and also scored a wonderful free kick against Maccabee Haifa, temporarily equalizing to 1:1 (5:1 at the end to Haifa). But his best match was still to come, and all the Haifa fans made him their hero for the second time.

December 1993. Maccabee Tel-Aviv, having a magnificent series of +13=1-0, comes to the stadium of Shkhunat-ha'Tikwa; Maccabee Haifa, with a series of +11=3-0, wins and waits impatiently for the loss of the leader. And there is a great game of both teams, with Shuli Gilardi, the 2nd keeper of Bnei-Yehuda, making tremendous saves time after time, and Alexander Uvarov doing the great job in the other net. And here is Niko to be knocked down 30 meters from the net in the 2nd half and to send a wonderful bomb from a free kick. Nir Shitrit completed the story later on, Maccabee Tel-Aviv defeated for a first time - 0:2. Rinus Michels, one of the best coaches ever (WC'74 final and EC'88 victory with Holland, remember?), said after visiting the match (he was lecturing in Israel during this week. - M.M.): "Well, I was in fond of the Oranges, since these are the colors of my National team, and I'm glad they won. I mark their keeper and especially their number 9. He is a truly European star".

Niko had several unsuccessful months later, but came back on 12/3/1994, with his 2 goals away against Holon, 3:1 to Bnei-Yehuda. He scored his 20th goal and entered the temporarily list of "10 Best European Scorers" that season, with Alon Mizrahi of Maccabee Haifa already being there. He completed his career with a goal, exactly as he started it in Israel. He perished three days before the game against Maccabee Netanya; the circle was closed.

The day after his death was very hard for all of us. He left after him the widow Victoria (born in 1963) and the daughter Valeria (born in 1990). The house was full of the Soviet players, crying in pain - Alexander Uvarov and Alexander Polukarov, Roman Pets and Sergei Kandaurov, Ivan Getsko and Roman Filipchuk, Sergei Krakovsky and Valentin Moskvin, Valery Kurlianchuk and Oleg Koshlyuk, Vladimir Greshnev and Sergei Tretyak, and his teammates - Victor Chanov, Sergei Gerasimets and Andrei Bal, who played with him before training Maccabee Haifa. Many Israelis came to the grieving house - Giora Spiegel, Maccabee Haifa's manager who brought Niko to play in Bnei-Yehuda; Nir Klinger, Maccabee Tel-Aviv's Captain; and all the teammates. Guy Sharabi: "Nobody will ever put on his number 9. Niko was the symbol of the club, and there is no replacement for him." Sahar Mizrahi: "I should be the forward and score instead of him now, but how can it be possible to play instead of Niko?" Yossi Abuksis: "I feel like I've lost the close relative. He was eating in my house, and I was eating in his. He loved the country and thought to stay here forever. He learnt Hebrew from me, and I learned Russian from him. He was a great player and a great man. We lack you, Niko." Alon Mizrahi came from Haifa and hugged every former teammate of his, unable to say a word.

The coffin had been put on the field for a whole day, several hours before it was delivered to Ukraine. 10,000 people came to Shkhunat-ha'Tikwa's stadium to say farewell to their hero. And when the ceremony started with Zohar Argov's song, "Yam shel' Dmaot" ("Flood of Tears"), the whole stadium stood and wept. All the newspapers were devoted mainly to this tragic event, the greatest sportive disaster to shock the Israeli sport since the tragic death of Avi Ran, the most promising Israeli keeper of Maccabee Haifa, in August 1987, on the Kinneret Lake.

The next week of the National League was played with all players wearing the black bands on their arms. Bnei-Yehuda defeated Maccabee Netanya - 4:2, for Niko - all the money collected from the match, has been passed to Kudritskiy's family. "We're the family, and we'll help you", promised David Tassa, the financial director of Bnei-Yehuda, to Victoria; he kept his word.

Victoria and Valeria Kudritskiy buried Niko in Dnepropetrovsk, and then came to Israel so as to settle here forever. "Nobody in his Motherland", said Victoria to the Israeli TV, "would've helped us in this case as they help us here. Dnepr wouldn't have done for Niko there the things Bnei-Yehuda did here for him and for us after his death. We feel we should stay here, with the people who loved him so much. Thank you, the people of Israel."

We love you, Niko.

6.5 years have passed since Niko's death on A4, close to Raananna. He isn't forgotten, on the contrary. Every year, in March, a special charity game is held in Shkhunat-ha'Tikwa in the name of Niko Kudritskiy, with the best Israeli players participating. A huge painting of Niko in his Orange uniform on a wall stays a feature of Shkhunat-ha'Tikwa stadium. Bnei-Yehuda without Niko, as well as without Haim Revivo and Alon Mizrahi, never became the same.

But I want to refer to the autumn of 1998, when the Soccer events took place, doing nothing with Bnei-Yehuda. Alon Mizrahi, scoring 3 times vs Glentoran of Northern Ireland, shocked the world immensely by scoring twice in the dying minutes in Kiryat-Eliezer and eliminating the empire of Paris Saint-Germain; his two goals vs the Austrian SV Ried brought Maccabee Haifa to the 1/4 finals of European Cups Winners' Cup, and he became "The Best Scorer" of this Cup in 1998-99, ahead of superstars like Tore Andre Flo, Marcelo Salas or Dani. Haim Revivo, already a huge superstar in the Spanish Celta Vigo, made the spectators worldwide gasp for breath with his magnificent winning goal, lifting Celta over Liverpool in Anfield. A bit later on, the goal spree of those players lifted the Israeli National team up to the play-offs vs Denmark, defeating Austria 5:0 on the way there. The names of Haim Revivo and Alon Mizrahi became well-known all over the world.

I saw all those moments of glory. And every time I saw one of the 2 performing their ordinary miracles, I couldn't help thinking: "Wouldn't Niko Kudritskiy be proud of his counterparts?" He's physically dead, but his spirit is still alive. And the two of the brightest stars of the Israeli Soccer ever became such, not the least because at the start of their careers they were playing alongside with Niko Kudritskiy, an extraordinary player and man.