View source for Viktor Kanevskyi

{{short description|Ukrainian footballer}}
{{About|the Ukrainian footballer|the Russian ballroom dancer|Victor Kanevsky (dancer)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}}
{{Family name hatnote|Izrailyovich|Kanevskyi|lang=Eastern Slavic}} 
{{Infobox football biography
| name = Viktor Kanevskyi
| image = Viktor Izrailyovych Kanevskyi.JPG
| fullname = Viktor Izrailyovych Kanevskyi
| height = {{height|m=1.76}}
| birth_date  = {{Birth date|1936|10|3|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Kyiv]], [[Ukrainian SSR]], [[Soviet Union]]
| death_date        = {{death date and age|2018|11|25|1936|10|3}}<ref name=upl_kanevskyi>[https://upl.ua/ua/news/view/2605 Passed away: Viktor Kanevskyi (Не стало Віктора Каневського)]. [[Ukrainian Premier League]]. 25 November 2018</ref>
| death_place       = [[Bristol, Connecticut]], U.S.
| position = [[Forward (association football)#Striker|Striker]]
| youthyears1 =              | youthclubs1 = [[FC Dynamo Kyiv|Yuny Dinamovets Kyiv]]
| years1 = 1952              | clubs1 = [[FC Arsenal Kyiv|FC Mashynobudivnyk Kyiv]] 
| years2 = 1954–1964         | clubs2 = [[FC Dynamo Kyiv]] 
| years3 = 1965–1966         | clubs3 = [[FC Chornomorets Odesa]]
| caps1 =                    | goals1 =   
| caps2 = 195                | goals2 = 80  
| caps3 = 22                 | goals3 = 6 
| nationalyears1 = 1958–1962 | nationalteam1 = [[Soviet Union national football team|USSR]]
| nationalcaps1 = 5          | nationalgoals1 = 0 
| nationalyears2 = 1956      | nationalteam2 = [[Ukraine national football team|Ukraine]]
| nationalcaps2 = 4          | nationalgoals2 = 0 
| manageryears1 = 1965      | managerclubs1 = [[FC Metalurh Zaporizhia]] 
| manageryears2 = 1966–1971 | managerclubs2 = [[FC Metalist Kharkiv]] (Avanhard)
| manageryears3 = 1973      | managerclubs3 = [[FC Pakhtakor Tashkent]] (assistant) 
| manageryears4 = 1973–1977 | managerclubs4 = [[FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk]]
| manageryears5 = 1983–1986 | managerclubs5 = [[FC Dynamo Irpin]]
| manageryears6 = 1987      | managerclubs6 = [[SC Tavriya Simferopol]]
}}

'''Viktor Izrailyovych (Illich) Kanevskyi''' ({{langx|uk|Віктор Ізраїльович Каневський}}, {{langx|ru|Виктор Израилевич Каневский}}; 3 October 1936 – 25 November 2018) was a [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] and [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] football player and coach.  He was Jewish.<ref>[http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Sport/Jews_in_Sport_in_the_USSR The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sem40.ru/sport/24439/ |title=Спорт - Центральный Еврейский Ресурс. Сайт русскоязычных евреев всего мира. Еврейские новости. Еврейские фамилии |access-date=15 October 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204122606/http://www.sem40.ru/sport/24439/ |archive-date=4 December 2010 }}</ref>

==Biography==
Since his early years Kanevskyi was involved in various sports including ice skating, volleyball as well as football.<ref name=rabinerse/> During his student years he played for Kyiv's junior volleyball team.<ref name=rabinerse/> He also was invited by Dynamo's scout and junior team coach Mykhailo Korsunsky for try-outs.<ref name=rabinerse/>

Due to hardship in the postwar years, Kanevskyi started to work before his 16th birthday as a carver at the [[Kyiv Arsenal]].<ref name=rabinerse/> At the factory he was making engravings on photo cameras in Kyiv.<ref name=rabinerse/> As a hobby he also played for a factory team, Mashynobudivnyk (predecessor of [[FC Arsenal Kyiv]]) that was coached by Livshyts.<ref name=rabinerse/> During that period Kanevskyi also played for Ukraine's junior team.<ref name=rabinerse/> After he worked as a mechanic at the Kyiv factory [[Transsignal]] and was forced to forget about playing.<ref name=rabinerse/>

In 1953 Kanevskyi received an invitation to play for [[FC Dynamo Kyiv]].<ref name=rabinerse/> Kanevskyi appeared in Dynamo along with such players as [[Valeriy Lobanovskyi]], [[Oleh Bazylevych]], [[Valentyn Troyanovskyi]], and others,<ref name=rabinerse/> with whom later in 1961 he became [[Soviet Top League]] winners and the first non-Moscow team to ever become Soviet League champions. Yet his first year in the club was not successful and in 1955 Kanevskyi played only one game. He later played in football competitions of the Kyiv city garrison for some military detachment team which served as a farm-team of Dynamo.<ref name=rabinerse/> At some point Dynamo's head coach [[Oleg Oshenkov]] wanted to let Kanevskyi go.<ref name=rabinerse/>

Due to being sick, in 1958 Kanevskyi was not able to go with Dynamo on a tour of [[Egypt]].<ref name=rabinerse/> That same year the head coach of CDSA [[Vsevolod Bobrov]] invited him to join the Army team.<ref name=rabinerse/> Kanevskyi even arrived in [[Moscow]] and picked an apartment, but soon changed his mind.<ref name=rabinerse/> In 1960 Kanevskyi became a team captain and stayed in this position until he left the club.<ref name=rabinerse/>

Kanevskyi participated in the [[1962 FIFA World Cup squads#Soviet Union|1962 FIFA World Cup]] in [[Chile]], about which he stated that it was of lower level in comparison to the [[UEFA Euro 1996]] in [[England]].<ref name=rabinerse/> Among the brightest highlights Kanevskyi mentioned about his meeting with [[Pelé]], receiving a good monetary bonus and traveling back to Moscow by way of [[Paris]].<ref name=rabinerse/> He also said that was able to receive an autograph from Pelé, while sitting next to him at the [[1962 FIFA World Cup Final|Brazil – Czechoslovakia final game]].<ref name=rabinerse/> After the championship, [[Konstantin Beskov]] was placed in charge of the [[Soviet Union national football team]] and Kanevskyi was removed from the team.<ref name=rabinerse/>

In 1965 Dynamo received a new head coach, [[Viktor Maslov (footballer, born 1910)|Viktor Maslov]], after which Kanevskyi was replaced with [[Anatoliy Puzach]].<ref name=rabinerse/> Kanevskyi explained that he had a chronic condition since 1957, [[gallstones]] in the liver, and was regularly visiting a sanatorium in [[Karlovy Vary]].<ref name=rabinerse/> Therefore, after the coming of Maslov, Kanevskyi felt that he would not be able to compete in the senior team.<ref name=rabinerse/> After leaving Dynamo, for about two or three months he worked as a head coach in [[Zaporizhia]], but [[Yuriy Voinov]] who coached the newly promoted [[FC Chornomorets Odesa]] invited his former teammate to help with a team at the higher league.<ref name=rabinerse/>

In 1966 Kanevskyi decided to retire.<ref name=rabinerse/> After deciding to coach, Kanevskyi was advised to change his patronymic name Izarailyovych as it was not "blending with a policy of the CPSU and the Soviet state."<ref name=rabinerse/> His coaching career started out in [[Kharkiv]].<ref name=rabinerse/> During a reorganization of the Soviet football competitions in 1970 Kanevskyi was able to keep [[FC Metalist Kharkiv]] at the second tier when at first Class A 2nd Group became Class A 1st Group and then First League. In 1968 and 1969 his team placed among the top three. Kanevskyi said that the club had good support from a factory director and had a contemporary stadium with "a visor."<ref name=rabinerse/> In transit through [[Chernivtsi]] where he spent about two months, Kanevskyi moved to [[Tashkent]] where he was invited by [[Vyacheslav Solovyov (footballer)|Vyacheslav Solovyov]] to be his assistant.<ref name=rabinerse/> In 1973 [[FC Pakhtakor Tashkent]] gained promotion to the [[Soviet Top League]] and Kanevskyi received the honorary title of Merited Coach of Uzbekistan (Uzbek SSR).<ref name=rabinerse/> In 1973 [[Valeriy Lobanovskyi]] asked Kanevskyi to take over his team, [[FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk]], as he was leaving for [[FC Dynamo Kyiv]].<ref name=rabinerse/> With Dnipro he reached the semifinals of the [[Soviet Cup]] and for four years was a manager in the [[Soviet Top League]].<ref name=rabinerse/> In 1987 with [[SC Tavriya Simferopol]], Kanevskyi was able to gain promotion to the [[Soviet First League]].<ref name=rabinerse/>

From 1979 Kanevskyi worked in the [[Football Federation of Ukraine]].<ref name=rabinerse>[[Igor Rabiner]]. [http://rusteam.permian.ru/players/kanevsky.html From Izrailevich to Ilyich and back]. Rusteam.permian.ru (from [[Sport-Express]]). September 1996</ref> That same year the [[Football Federation of the Soviet Union]] received a personal invitation for Kanevskyi to coach [[Algeria national football team]].<ref name=rabinerse/> With him were supposed to depart [[Stanislav Zavidonov]] and [[Evgeni Rogov]] (the last two eventually did leave).<ref name=rabinerse/> With travel arrangements in place and a week to go, Kanevskyi was told that he was not going anywhere without any explanation.<ref name=rabinerse/> That was a last straw for him.<ref name=rabinerse/> Kanevskyi was appointed a senior coach for the Ukraine republican junior football team for the Pereprava tournament in [[Sukhumi]] where his team placed first.<ref name=rabinerse/> Yet when the federation still would not grant him the title of Merited Coach of Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR), Kanevskyi decided to act.<ref name=rabinerse/> He made an official request at the party organization about emigrating from the country.<ref name=rabinerse/> After a big scandal, Kanevskyi was excluded from the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]].<ref name=rabinerse/> In about two weeks he was called to the chief of OVIR (Office for Visas and Registration) along with the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs who announced that he wouldn't leave as he did not have sufficient degree of kinship.<ref name=rabinerse/> Later the secretary of the city party organization asked Kanevskyi to withdraw his request, promising to reverse all restrictions and reinstate him in the party, but Kanevskyi refused.<ref name=rabinerse/>

For the next few years, Kanevskyi felt he was being followed.<ref name=rabinerse/> His name was forbidden to be mentioned in print media. In historical materials commemorating the first big victories of Dynamo Kyiv, the Kanevskyi surname was not mentioned as he never captained in the club nor being on the Soviet team's roster at the [[1962 FIFA World Cup]].<ref name=rabinerse/> Kanevskyi was even removed from the photo of the 1961 Dynamos' winning squad.<ref name=rabinerse/> For a few years he was without a job, but later with his brother worked in construction at first building the Palace of Culture in [[Chernihiv Oblast]] and later in [[Moscow]] a cooperative house.<ref name=rabinerse/>

In 1983 there was a new club established in [[Irpin]] [[FC Dynamo Irpin|Dynamo]] as a farm club of [[FC Dynamo Kyiv]]. With the help of [[Valeriy Lobanovskyi]], Kanevskyi was appointed its head coach.<ref name=rabinerse/>

In 1988 there appeared information that anybody was allowed to emigrate from the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=rabinerse/> Kanevskyi only waited four months after filing his request and on 15 November 1988 he and his wife left the country, traveling to [[New York City|New York]] through Austria and Italy.<ref name=rabinerse/> After arrival in the [[United States]], Kanevskyi was able to find a job as a coach at a sports school in [[New York City|New York]] held by Russian emigrants, where he headed the football department.<ref name=rabinerse/> Later he opened his own football school.<ref name=rabinerse/>

== Professional football player career ==
===Clubs===
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:100%; text-align: center;"
|-
!rowspan="2" width="100"|Club<ref name=upl_kanevskyi/>
!rowspan="2"|Season
!colspan="2"|League
!colspan="2"|Cup
!colspan="2"|Total
|-
!width="40"|Apps
!width="40"|Goals
!width="40"|Apps
!width="40"|Goals
!width="40"|Apps
!width="40"|Goals
|-
|rowspan="11"|'''[[FC Dynamo Kyiv|Dynamo]]'''
|1954
|–||–||–||–||–||–
|-
|1955
|1||0||–||–||1||0
|-
|1956
|12||4||–||–||12||4
|-
|1957
|13||5||2||0||15||5
|-
|1958
|18||8||1||0||19||8
|-
|1959
|19||2||–||–||19||2
|-
|1960
|23||7||–||–||23||7
|-
|1961
|26||18||1||0||27||18
|-
|1962
|23||7||1||0||24||7
|-
|1963
|34||14||2||0||36||14
|-
|1964
|27||15||6||5||33||20
|-
!colspan="2"|Total Dynamo
!196!!80!!13!!5!!209!!85
|-
|rowspan="2"|'''[[FC Chornomorets Odesa|Chornomorets]]'''
|1965
|17||6||–||–||17||6
|-
|1966
|5||0||–||–||5||0
|-
!colspan="2"|Total Chornomorets
!22!!6!!–!!–!!22!!6
|-
!colspan="2"|Grand total
!218!!86!!13!!5!!231!!91
|}

===International===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"
|-
!rowspan=2|National team
!rowspan=2|Year
|-
!Apps||Goals
|-
|rowspan=3|[[Soviet Union national football team|Soviet Union]]
|1958||1||0
|-
|1961||2||0
|-
|1962||2||0
|}

==Managerial statistics==

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|-
!rowspan="2" |Team
!rowspan="2" |League
!rowspan="2" |From
!rowspan="2" |To
!colspan="5" |Record
|-
!P!!W!!D!!L!!Win %
|-
|align=center|[[FC Metalurh Zaporizhia|Metalurh]]
| [[Soviet First League|Class A 2nd Group]]
|align=center colspan=2|1965
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|align=center|[[FC Metalist Kharkiv|Metalist]]
| [[Soviet First League|Class A 2nd Group]]
|align=center|1966
|align=center|1969
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|align=center|[[FC Metalist Kharkiv|Metalist]]
| [[Soviet First League|First League]]
|align=center|1970
|align=center|1971
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|align=center|[[FC Bukovyna Chernivtsi|Bukovyna]]
| [[Soviet Second League|Second League]]
|align=center colspan=2|1972
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|align=center|[[Pakhtakor Tashkent FK|Pakhtakor]]
| [[Soviet First League|First League]]
|align=center colspan=2|1973
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|align=center|[[FC Dnipro|Dnipro]]
| [[Soviet Top League|Top League]]
|align=center|1973
|align=center|1977
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|align=center|[[FC Ros Bila Tserkva|Dynamo]]
| [[Soviet Second League|Second League]]
|align=center|1983
|align=center|1986
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|align=center|[[SC Tavriya Simferopol|Tavriya]]
| [[Soviet Second League|Second League]]
|align=center colspan=2|1987
{{WDL|0|0|0|0}}
|-
|}

==Honors==
;As player
* [[Soviet Top League]] 
** Winner (1): 1961
** Runners-up (1): 1960
* [[Soviet Cup]] 
** Winner (1): 1964

;As manager
* [[Soviet First League]] 
**Runners-up (1): 1968 (Metalist)
* [[Soviet Second League]] / Championship of Ukraine
**Winners (1): 1987 (Tavriya)

==International career==
Kanevskyi made his debut for the [[Soviet Union national football team|USSR]] on 30 August 1958 in a friendly game against [[Czechoslovakia national football team|Czechoslovakia]]. He participated in the [[1962 FIFA World Cup]].

In 1956 Kanevskyi played four games for [[Ukraine national football team|Ukraine]] at the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150317095809/http://vla-glubokov.narod.ru/spart56.htm Football at the 1956 Spartakiad of the Peoples of USSR]</ref>

==Anti-Semitism in Soviet Football==
Kanevskyi pointed out several instances of anti-Semitism during his playing and coaching career in the Soviet Union.

One time Kanevskyi head-butted [[:ru:Федотов, Анатолий Иванович|Anatoliy Fedotov]] who played for an [[Almaty]] team for calling him names.<ref name=rabinerse/> After that Kanevskyi was suspended for a game.<ref name=rabinerse/>

Kanevskyi also mentioned that even after being the Dynamos' captain for six years and winning one season, he was the only one who did not receive the title of Merited Master of Sports.<ref name=rabinerse/>

Later when Kanevskyi was coaching, he never received the title of Merited Coach of Ukraine, while in [[Uzbekistan]] he received a similar title for a single season as an assistant coach.<ref name=rabinerse/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{in lang|ru}} [http://www.rusteam.permian.ru/players/kanevsky.html Profile]

{{USSR Squad 1962 World Cup}}
{{Navboxes
|title=Viktor Kanevskyi managerial positions
|list1=
{{FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhia managers}}
{{FC Metalist Kharkiv managers}}
{{FC Bukovyna Chernivtsi managers}}
{{FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk managers}}
{{FC Ros Bila Tserkva managers}}
{{SC Tavriya Simferopol managers}}
}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanevskyi, Viktor}}
[[Category:1936 births]]
[[Category:2018 deaths]]
[[Category:Footballers from Kyiv]]
[[Category:Soviet men's footballers]]
[[Category:Soviet Union men's international footballers]]
[[Category:Ukrainian men's footballers]]
[[Category:1962 FIFA World Cup players]]
[[Category:Soviet Top League players]]
[[Category:FC Arsenal Kyiv players]]
[[Category:FC Dynamo Kyiv players]]
[[Category:FC Chornomorets Odesa players]]
[[Category:Jewish footballers]]
[[Category:Soviet Jews]]
[[Category:Jewish Ukrainian sportspeople]]
[[Category:Soviet football managers]]
[[Category:Soviet Top League managers]]
[[Category:FC Metalurh Zaporizhzhia managers]]
[[Category:FC Metalist Kharkiv managers]]
[[Category:FSC Bukovyna Chernivtsi managers]]
[[Category:FC Dnipro managers]]
[[Category:FC Ros Bila Tserkva managers]]
[[Category:SC Tavriya Simferopol managers]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Men's association football forwards]]
[[Category:20th-century Ukrainian sportsmen]]