Vyacheslav Malafeev Said Goodbye to Petrovskiy

After ROSGOSSTRAKH Russian Football Championship MD 29 match against Lokomotiv Vyacheslav Malafeev accompanied by his children Maxim, Alex and Xenia went around the pitch of Petrovskiy in the lap of honour under the applause of supporters.

Trainee of Smena School, future champion of the country, UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup holder, Vyacheslav had his first show in the main squad on 7 June 1999 in the away match against Alania.

For 17 years the goalkeeper played 442 matches for the Blue-White-SkyBlues (163 of them with clean sheets) and became the second player in the club history who had so many matches after Anatoly Davydov. Together with Zenit Malafeev won four champion titles, the Cup and Supercup of Russia, League Cup, UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup, and he was repeatedly chosen as the Best Goalkeeper of Russia.

Vyacheslav had his first show in the National Team of Russia on 19 November 2003 in the return leg play-off match against Wales for qualification to European Championship. Malafeev spent 90 minutes on the pitch and had his sheets clean in the most important game of the qualification cycle. The game ended 1:0 for Russia who qualified to the main tournament of Europe after 8-year interval. Russian supporters still remember this game due to the perfect performance of Vyacheslav and emotional outburst of Vadim Evseev after the final whistle.

In total Vyacheslav played 29 matches for the main team of the country.

Russian Football Premier League would like to wish to Vyacheslav Malafeev good luck and a lot of new wins!