Andrei Antanasovich Kanchelskis (Ukrainian: Андрій Антанасович Канчельскіс; Russian: Андрей Антанасович Канчельскис; born 23 January 1969) is a professional football manager and former player. He was most recently the manager of Navbahor Namangan in the Uzbekistan Super League. During his playing career, he won two Premier League titles in England and two Scottish Premier Leagues.
Kanchelskis began his career with his hometown team Zirka Kropyvnytskyi in 1986, before transferring to Dynamo Kyiv in the Soviet Top League, and later to rivals Shakhtar Donetsk. He then moved abroad, signing for English club Manchester United, where he helped the team win their first league championship in 26 years. He moved to Everton in 1995 where he spent 18 months, before transferring to Italian club Fiorentina for a record fee for a Soviet-born player. Following an injury-marred spell in Italy, Kanchelskis moved to Scottish club Rangers, where he won a domestic treble in his first season. After falling out of favour, his career became nomadic, playing for Manchester City and Southampton in England, and Saudi club Al Hilal, before playing in Russia for the first time for Saturn Ramenskoye and Krylia Sovetov, where he played his last games before retiring in 2007. Kanchelskis is the only player to have scored in each of the Manchester, Merseyside, and Glasgow derbies.
After his playing career had finished, Kanchelskis became the general director of Nosta Novotroitsk in 2008, before moving into club management in 2010, managing Torpedo-ZIL Moscow and Ufa in Russia, and then Latvian team Jūrmala in 2014 for three months. In 2016, Kanchelskis returned to management with Solyaris Moscow, and between 2018 and 2020, he had two spells in charge of Navbahor Namangan in Uzbekistan.
Internationally, Kanchelskis represented three different teams. He first played for the Soviet Union in 1989, and scored the nations' last ever goal before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. During 1992, he played for the CIS, a brief association of former Soviet republics, who he represented at UEFA Euro 1992. Following the tournament, he elected to represent Russia rather than Ukraine, the country of his birth. After boycotting the team for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, he returned and played for Russia during Euro 1996, and won his last cap in 1998. Overall, Kanchelskis was capped 59 times, scoring seven goals. In his youth career for the Soviet Union U21 team, he won the European U21 Championship in 1990.
Club career
Early life and career in the Soviet Union
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 debut goal in Federation Cup | |
| first league goal against Dynamo Moscow |
Kanchelskis was born in Kirovohrad in the Soviet Union's Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to a Lithuanian father, Antanas, and a Ukrainian mother.[1] Kanchelskis started his career with hometown team Zirka Kropyvnytskyi, known at the time as Zirka Kirovograd.[2] In 1988, he was called up to the army, and had the choice of two teams to transfer to - Dynamo Kyiv and Dnipro.[2] Choosing Dynamo, he received a salary of 250 rubles per month, and described his time in the army as a "good school of life".[2] At Dynamo, Kanchelskis was coached by the legendary Valeriy Lobanovskyi, who he believes is the best manager he played for.[3] Lobanovskyi favoured a 4–4–2 formation, a system which focussed on getting the ball to the flanks and crossing into the penalty box,[2] which Kanchelskis describes as an "English style of play".[4] Kanchelskis had decided to become a winger having seen Brazilian Jairzinho playing in his youth.[5]
His first goal for Dynamo came on 4 November 1988 at the Republican Stadium, scoring the equalising goal against Dynamo Moscow in a 2–1 victory.[4] Kanchelskis eventually decided to leave Dynamo due to lack of game time, causing upset to his mentor Lobanovskyi, who he admired and respected greatly.[6] He then transferred to Shakhtar Donetsk in 1990, where his salary was increased to 700 rubles per week.[4]
Moving to England with Manchester United
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Every player was a brilliant player, it was a great team, an excellent team. We played more relaxed, because everyone was scared of Manchester United. We play away or at home, it doesn't matter, we knew if we concentrated we could win every game, it's no problem for us. That's why we won trophies.
—Kanchelskis recalling the 1993–94 Double winning team[7]
Kanchelskis signed for Manchester United in a £650,000 deal on 26 March 1991, with United manager Alex Ferguson describing it as a "justifiable risk".[8] Ferguson had discovered Kanchelskis through a VHS tape sent to him by Norwegian agent Rune Hauge,[9] and had been able to personally scout him during a Soviet Union match against Scotland.[10] At the time, Kanchelskis was a rarity in English football, being one of just 11 players in the First Division from outside the British Isles.[9]
He made his United debut in the penultimate league game of the 1990–91 season, a match which United lost 3–0 to Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, with Ferguson resting several first team players due to their participation in the European Cup Winners' Cup Final.[8] During his time with United, he received help settling in from George Scanlan,[11] employed by the club as an interpreter, who he became close friends with and who later helped write his first autobiography.[12] Kanchelskis came into a United squad who finished the season in 6th position, with Ferguson under increasing pressure to win the league championship.[13]
Kanchelskis won the 1991 European Super Cup with United, defeating European Cup winners Red Star Belgrade 1–0.[10] He established himself as a regular member of the United team, playing in 34 out of 42 league games in the 1991–92 season,[13] as United finished second to Leeds United in a title race that they had led for most of the season, before being overhauled during the final few weeks. However, compensation for Kanchelskis and his teammates had come at Wembley Stadium on 12 April 1992 when a 1–0 win over Nottingham Forest gave them their first ever Football League Cup triumph. Kanchelskis scored five league goals that season, finding the net eight times in all competitions.[citation needed] His first United goal was against Sheffield United in a 2–0 league win at Old Trafford on 2 November 1991.
On the opening day of the new Premiership season, Kanchelskis was one of just 11 foreign players starting in the league.[14][note 1] Though he primarily played on the right wing, such was the fluidity of United's attacking play that Kanchelskis could switch wings and be as effective, as against defending champions Leeds early in the season, with opposite winger Ryan Giggs delivering a ball from the right to Kanchelskis, drifting from the left wing to the back post, heading into the goal to score United's first in a 2–0 win.[15] Kanchelskis was a regular in the first half of the season before being replaced for the second half of the season by Lee Sharpe, who returned from a bout of viral meningitis,[8] with Giggs now the favoured choice in Sharpe's previous position on the left flank. Nevertheless, Kanchelskis was a key part of the team who won the first ever Premier League title, scoring three goals in 27 league games appearances, as United's 26-year league title wait came to an end.[8][13]
The 1993–94 season brought more success as United won the Premier League title and the FA Cup, and Kanchelskis was now United's first choice right-winger.[13] 1993–94 was also the first season of squad numbers in the Premier League, and Kanchelskis was issued with the number 14 shirt. Kanchelskis was sent off in the last minute of the League Cup final for deliberate handball; Dean Saunders scored from the resulting penalty, ensuring a 3–1 loss to Aston Villa,[16] a defeat which eventually cost United a domestic treble.[17]
Kanchelskis was United's leading goalscorer in the 1994–95 season with 15 goals in 32 games,[13] but missed the final few weeks of the season due to a hernia,[13] and during that time United surrendered the league title to Blackburn and the FA Cup to Everton. United were also without the suspended Eric Cantona (who was banned for eight months after he assaulted a spectator against Crystal Palace in late January), while Andy Cole was cup-tied for the FA Cup games. His highlight of the 1994–95 season came on 10 November 1994, when he scored a hat-trick for United in their 5–0 home win over neighbours City in the Manchester derby. He had also found the net twice against Blackburn Rovers in a crucial match at Ewood Park on 24 October which United won 4–2. Kanchelskis had played 145 times for United and scored 48 goals in the space of four years, but he had fallen out with manager Alex Ferguson earlier in the season and failed to patch up his differences with the manager. He was placed on the transfer list in July 1995 and on his departure, he was eventually replaced on the right-hand side of United's midfield by David Beckham.