1962
LEV YASHIN was six foot two. He wore a midnight blue blazer with j silver buttons and white gloves that made his hands look enormous. He pussyfooted down the sidewalk as gently and as silently as a thief in the night.
Yet in truth, there was no need for silence on this day. It was fiesta-time in Arica and a city was at play.
Coloured searchlights criss-crossed the sky and a procession wiped away the last remnants of reality.
Thirty-foot giants waggled their heads grotesquely and a float of bathing belles tilted up, tumbling the girls into the arms of the crowd. On nights such as this, men locked up their daughters. Some of the wise ones locked up their wives as well.
By tradition, carnival masks were worn and never removed before the following dawn.
And somehow with their iden-tities hidden, all things would seem suddenly possible to the women of Arica.
But there was one girl in Arica that night whose identity would never be hidden by a mere mask.
Gilda Godoy, golden girl of the millionaire playgrounds, face or no face, would have, so to speak, stood out in any crowd.
Tonight, fittingly she was Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, and riding on the float of honour.
But this Aphrodite was a hunt-ress too, the playgirl eternal, and seeing the Russian team watching on the pavement edge, she smiled and moved their way.
Yashin just had time to admire the lush rounded curves of this leggy, golden-haired lovely before she deliberately missed her step.
And fell, with a small cry,straight into his arms.
He caught her with the ease a mother catches a falling babe.
For a brief second, she felt his mighty arms tighten around her and then he was putting her down, gently, apologetically as though the fault had been his and his alone.
She gave him a smile, soft and alluring.
The smile became bold, be-witching. It bounced off Yashin like a lapping wave off a rock.
A practical man, there was just one thought in his mind. The float, deprived of its goddess, was moving slowly past. To him, the solution was clear.
Without a word, he picked her up and put her back on her throne, as gently as an old maid stroking a cat.
South American fiestas, lovely girls, left him unmoved.
But these fanatics were able to crack this nerveless man
The float disappeared slowly from sight, bearing an Aphrodite who was for once bothered, be-wildered and in no way grateful for the gallantry of Yashin.
Gilda Godoy felt distinctly let down. She began to wonder whether she was maybe slipping in more ways than one.
But then, of course, she didn’t know Yashin very well.
He was the Iron Man of an iron team and just about as unflappable as a fellow can be.
Earthquakes, forest fires, floods, tempests and hurricanes were strictly old hat to this one.
Corruption, larceny and sud¬den death barely raised a breeze. And one would have expected him to greet the end of the world with a shrug and a yawn.
He was the most famous goal-keeper of the day. For years, he had been the rock around which the Russian team revolved.
And now, on this the eve of the 1962 World Cup, their hopes were once again built around him.
If you had asked them how they could be so sure the black- clad Lion would triumph in Chile, they would have shaken their heads in wonder that anyone could ask such a question.
Other players might slip and slide when the big days came, but not Yashin.
Weren’t the high dramas sweet wine to the Lion? Hadn’t he always reserved his greatest dis¬plays for the occasions when they were needed most?
A lesser man, for instance, might have experienced the odd tremor before the opening match against the Titoists from Yugo-slavia.
There was, after all, little love lost between the two camps.
But to Yashin, it was literally just another game.
Even when the promised vio-lence flared up and Dubinski, Russia’s right back, was carried off with a broken leg, Yashin was in no way worried
The nine other members of the Russian team looked to him that day and they didn’t look in vain.
With the Jugoslav inside- forward trio of Sekularac, Jerko- vic and Galic on the warpath and the Russian rearguard, beginning to bend, the Lion took over.
There was nothing acrobatic or dramatic about his performance.
With those giant magnetic hands, he made goalkeeping look the easiest art of all.
And if you hand’t seen the Jugoslavs constantly shake their heads in baffled bewilderment, you might never have sensed the greatness of his performance.
Only once, midway through the second half, did this nonchalance fade.
Galic had fired in what looked like a certain goal, only to see it once again miraculously saved by the Lion.
But the ball rebounded to the feet of Jerkovic.
With Yashin still on his knees by the near post, the goal gaped open wide. And Jerkovic rifled in a shot towards the far post.
Then incredibly there was Yashin taking off like a bolt out of the blue.
He collected the ball in full flight, hit the ground hard with one shoulder, rolled, somersaulted and there he was on his feet with the ball still held safely in those big hands.
After that, the Jugoslavs seemed to accept the fact that no one would beat him on this day, and no-one did.
So Russia ran out winners by two goals to nil against the one side they feared in this qualifying group, and the road to the quarter¬finals lay open wide.
All of a sudden, Lev Yashin found himself the idol of Chile.
He celebrated the victory over Uruguay by visiting the Santana Restaurant.
As he walked through the doors, the band struck up a fanfare and the diners rose to their feet, applauding.
It was heady stuff and yet Yashin moved through it all with his familiar oceanic calm.
Perhaps the thing which 'sur-prised the Chileans most was the reaction of Yashin and his fellow Russians to the girls of Arica.
And in another place and at another time, he’d maybe have looked them over with a more enquiring eye.
But Lev Yashin had come to Arica to win a football match or two and that one ambition filled his mind to the exclusion of all else.
It was this brand of dedication, reasoned the Latins, that made him the great unflappable.
In the quarter-finals, Russia met Chile who had come through on a wing and a prayer.
The two teams came into the stadium and walked straight into a world gone mad.
Drum majorettes thrilled the cheering crowd, while firecrackers and thunderflashes exploded to create a nightmare of sound.
To Yashin, it seemed more like a battlefront than anything else and, for the first time, he was touched by doubt.
For he knew how a World Cup game can leave its mark on the reputation of a man. The crowds will remember it when all the others have passed into limbo.
Make a mistake in a normal game and there will be a thousand games and a thousand chances to redeem it.
But World Cups tend to be final and irrevocable. No second chances here. And for a goal¬keeper, the last line of defence, mistakes loom mountain high.
Yet for Yashin, the game began well enough. In the opening min-utes, he took the ball off the toe of Landa and, seconds later, palmed a shot from Ramirez with all his old assurance.
His fears began to look a little foolish and yet that hubbub, that constant chant of “Chee Chee Chee Lay Lay Lay” still worried him.
With ten minutes gone, Chile were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box and their outside- left, Leonel Sanchez, came up to take it.
He shot and Yashin dived, too soon, too far. The ball flew over his arched back and into the net.
From that moment on, poor Yashin moved through a night¬mare from which he couldn’t awake.
He fumbled high balls that he would once have treated with con-temptuous ease. He was so ner¬vous that he made the whole defence jittery.
His mind saw the dangers, but his body just wouldn’t obey the commands.
The Russians equalised with one from right-winger Chislenko in the twenty-sixth minute.
They fought. How they fought. But on this day they couldn’t carry the man who had once carried them.
And when Yashin blundered again and let in Rojas, the battle had been won and lost.
The Chilean left-half had shot from no less than 35 yards.
In a moment of terrible panic, Yashin had first hesitated and then dived too late and too low.
So Chile ran out surprise win¬ners by two goals to one. At the end, Yashin walked off the pitch, ashen-faced and stunned by his own personal disaster. He walked alone.
Two days later, a sad giant flew home to Russia.
He’d seen a different way of life, a different world . . . fiestas, golden girls dancing in the streets, rioting crowds, gun totin cops, gay, gay men and warm, warm women.
But it wasn’t these things that filled his mind . . .
Just the two goals he’d given away at Arica