Unknown & Known Gullit
Rasim Movsumov
I am going to tell you a story that happened 32 years ago.
There was still a country called the USSR - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics included also the Azerbaijan SSR in 1987.
These were the times when I was still a schoolchild and counted the days and hours to the start of an upcoming match involving Neftçi Baku, the main football team of our republic.
It was a childhood that brought tears to our eyes when our parents banned us from watching football on TV when we had homework. When we thought the world was falling apart when our favorite team was defeated.
It was a happy moment for me when Neftçi Baku beat Dinamo Tbilisi 3-0, Kairat Almaty 6-0, Dynamo Kyiv 3-1 in the 1987 Soviet Top League and was ranked 9th in the final standings. I was optimistic regarding the upcoming season. I read the football news with interest in the press.
It was the end of December, and 1988 was close. I bought a new issue of the Idman, the only sports newspaper in Azerbaijan at that time and I looked at the articles before I got home.
There was a little information on the back page that the Dutchman Ruud Gullit had been awarded the Ballon d'Or, as the 1987 European Footballer of the Year. I heard his name the first time. I have no doubt at that time most Soviet fans did not know who Gullit was.
Before Gullit the 1986 Ballon d'Or Award had been won by Igor Belanov who I knew from USSR national team and Dynamo Kyiv.
In general, it is relatively easy for journalists who are participating in the election to choose the best player in even-numbered years, when a FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championships takes place.
In other words, the best players of these prestigious tournaments usually win the Ballon d'Or. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, the Englishman Kevin Keegan got the Award in 1978, but he did not play at the FIFA World Cup, and the Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko won in 2004, although he did not participate at the UEFA European Championship of the same year.
It is difficult to choose the best players for the Ballon d'Or in odd-numbered years. In these years the European club competitions in Spain and Italy, England and Germany leagues are the main tournaments.
Years later I searched for the above-mentioned issue in my archive. For accuracy, I remembered the publishing date of the newspaper: December 30, 1987.
The news, titled 'France Football Magazine Laureates', reported that the 25-year-old Gullit won the vote with 106 points ahead of Paulo Futre from Portugal (91 points) and Emilio Butragueño from Spain (61 points).
Previously he played for the Dutch clubs HFC Haarlem, Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven, and now for the Italy's AC Milan.
He also won the 1987 World Soccer Magazine World Footballer of the Year Award leaving far behind the famous Argentine Diego Maradona in the poll.
That is all. No any information about his position - whether he was a goalkeeper or defender, midfielder or striker, and no information about his other achievements. There was not even a photo of the man.
Of course, I wanted to know more about the new winner of the Ballon d'Or. But how?
The Azerbaijani Idman/Sport newspaper was published three times a week in Azerbaijani and Russian.
It hardly covered foreign football, mainly introducing material from the Soviet Telegraph Agency TASS. I can say the same thing regarding Sovetsky Sport, and its weekly supplement Football-Hockey, which were published in Moscow, the capital of the USSR.
Football-Hockey is a separate topic. It was a newspaper with 16 pages in A4 format and although it was published on Sundays, it got to places far from Moscow one or two days later.
They said its total circulation was also more than 1 million copies, but finding it in Baku and other areas of the Soviet Union was difficult.
People lined up in front of the newsstands in advance or bought it from an acquaintance of the seller, often with a tip. By the way, the newspaper was worth 15 kopecks, or $ 0.22 at the then exchange rate.
The France Football Magazine was an inaccessible dream for me in 1987. Foreign sports magazines, which were distributed in the USSR, such as Stadion (Czechoslovakia) and Képes Sport (Hungary) did not reach my place of residence. Soviet fans bought them for photos and posters of famous footballers, clubs and national teams, not for reading.
In short there was a real lack of information. 21st century children are more fortunate in this regard. There was no internet or satellite antenna in 1987, only a few television channels and international matches to watch.
As I recall, the Soviet Central Television broadcast only matches of the USSR national team, the Soviet clubs in the European Cups, as well as the FIFA World Cups and UEFA European Championships.
On the other hand, Gullit and his teammates were also at fault as to why then I did not know them. I watched on TV the matches of the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, the last major tournament of that time and "the Oranje" were absent.
The Netherlands national team came second in a qualifying group with Hungary (1-2, 1-0), Austria (0-1, 1-1) and Cyprus (1-0, 7-1).
They also missed the chance to go to Mexico in the play-off against Belgium (0-1, 2-1, Belgium qualified thanks to away goals).
It turns out after this failure the national team captain's armband was entrusted to Gullit.
After finishing as the runners-up in the 1974 and 1978 FIFA World Cups, the Dutch experienced a generational change and missed both the 1982 FIFA World Cup and Euro 1984.
At the same time, Gullit neither played against Soviet teams with the Netherlands nor with his club in the European Cups, though he did get such a chance in the 1985-86 UEFA Cup, but missed the PSV Eindhoven vs Dnipro matches due to a red card.
Who is this Gullit? I found the answer to this question in 1988. A tall and physically fit, fast and highly skilled player, of Suriname origin with long and unusual hair.
Not just a player, he was a perfect player. They say that his first coach was a woman. He was also active in his life outside of football: he was an amateur musician and a fan of the legendary Nelson Mandela, a freedom fighter against apartheid.
1988 can be called the year of the Oranje. I watched the UEFA Euro 1988 matches on TV with interest. Then the Netherlands led by Gullit won the European Championships for the first time.
Unfortunately, in the final, they 2-0 beat the USSR, my favorite team and I was highly disappointed. The match remained in my memory and started very quickly - at 3:30 pm local time, Gullit scored the first and then Marco van Basten scored an historical goal, as well as Belanov's missed penalty kick.
As a result, the first three places in the vote for the 1988 Ballon d'Or were taken by Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard. They were all players of same national team (the Netherlands) and the same club (AC Milan). This is the only time so far in the history of the Award by France Football Magazine in 62 years!
My interest in the Ballon d'Or Award grew in those years, and I became a fan of it. I was eagerly awaited a new winner every time.
True, I had no chance to win it as a player, but now I have a direct connection to the world-renowned award. I have been a jury member of the Ballon d'Or since 2000 thanks to a suggestion of the France Football Magazine and I represent Azerbaijan in the poll.
However, when I started my Ballon d'Or adventure, Gullit had just finished his playing career, and he failed to get a vote from Rasim Movsumzadeh.
Gullit appears in the FIFA 100, UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll, and World Soccer 100 Players of the Century lists. He is also in the A.C. Milan Hall of Fame and Italian Football Hall of Fame. Nevertheless, very few famous players have become successful coaches.
Gullit started coaching at Chelsea and won the FA Cup in his debut season in London. Then success turned away from him. He coached at Newcastle United, Feyenoord, LA Galaxy and Terek Grozny, but did not achieve noticeable success.
We can see Gullit as a presenter at FIFA events in recent years. Moreover, I was lucky enough to see him live on August 30, 2012 in Monaco. Gullit was one of the presenters who conducted the draw for the UEFA Champions League group stage and I was a jury member of the UEFA Award.
No, he was not the Gullit of my childhood - whom I didn't know when I heard that he was chosen as the best player and whose photo when I saw it the first time so attracted my attention with his unusual appearance.
On stage he was a shorthaired man in a suit, something similar to the Hollywood star Denzel Washington. Two days later, he was supposed to celebrate his 50th birthday.
Rasim Mövsümov
Ballon d'Or Award Juror
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