Red-white Ilyich

Egor Titov turned 50 on May 29

If I were a fan of Spartak, this wonderful midfielder would probably occupy one of the first places in my personal rating. He was like that - dear and beloved - to all fans of the national team. Titov is a whole era. He spent 14 years wearing the diamond jersey, six of which went gold. Thanks to his magical legs and bright head.

He never left for Europe, although he could easily have played in any strong club. Yegor Ilyich captained the Russian national team and scored at the World Championships. There are no compatriot masters like him in our Premier League now. And that makes me sad. But it is joyful that conductor Titov has not changed either externally or internally - he is just as smart and cheerful, modest and good-natured, sympathetic and intelligent. For the anniversary of the devoted Spartak player, Novaya chose short, entertaining facts about his life and career, which should have turned out even brighter...

• Egor could become a hockey player. As a child, he first became familiar with the puck at the courtyard “box” on Voikovskaya. He even had an old hockey stick from Alexander Maltsev himself.

• He was brought to the Spartak football school by his cousin, who was already studying there. The boy spent a long time as a forward and scored an average of two goals per match. But closer to graduation, the coach transferred him to midfield, where Titov became Titov.

• At the age of 13, Egor earned 60 rubles for winning the Vsevolod Bobrov memory tournament. And he gave the entire amount to his parents.

• A year later, at a mini-football competition in Germany, Titov was recognized as the best player and was awarded 200 German marks, with which he bought his father a radio tape recorder.

* The playmaker recalled the advice of his first coach Anatoly Korolev: “You can do everything. Take the ball and beat everyone up.”

• Titov was not a good boy. He smoked and could fight, but after a serious conversation with his father (a master of sports in skating), he forgot about the bad habit.

• After the match, in which the young Spartak players, in front of Romantsev’s eyes, defeated their army peers with a score of 6:0 (Titov scored four goals), Oleg Ivanovich said four words: “I’ll take this guy.”

• Titov realized that he would be a professional football player at the age of 16. When I received my first backup salary.

• While still a teenager, Egor came on as a substitute in top division matches. He turned into the leader of Spartak, in fact, at the age of 20. And he earned his first championship in 1996, spending all 90 minutes in a golden match against Alania Vladikavkaz in St. Petersburg.

• In the same year, he bought his first mobile phone - a Motorola with a long antenna.

• As part of the red and white team, Titov won gold medals six times. According to this indicator, he is second only to Andrei Tikhonov (eight victories) and Dmitry Ananko (nine).

* Titov is a two-time winner of the Russian Cup (1998, 2003). It was his accurate strike in the 28th minute in the battle with Rostov that brought the crystal trophy to Spartak in 2003.

• He was included in the list of “33 best” football players in the country nine times: 1997–2003, 2006, 2007. And among Spartak players this is the best result.

• As part of the Russian national team, the midfielder played 41 matches, in which he scored seven goals. At the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, he scored the winning goal against Tunisia.

• Egor Titov is a member of Grigory Fedotov’s club (114 goals at the highest level in his career). With this result, he is among the top fifty monster goalscorers.

Titov was recognized as the best football player in the country in 1998 and 2000. In addition to the Spartak player, only Lokomotiv player Dmitry Loskov and Zenit player Artem Dzyuba received this award twice.

• Titov had several chances to go to Europe. Bayern Munich offered $10 million for him, but Oleg Romantsev wanted to get twice as much for the midfielder, and the deal fell through. Milan, Aston Villa, Lyon and Ajax showed interest in the Spartak captain. But every time something (or someone?) got in the way...

* Titov played one of his best matches against Arsenal in the Champions League. In the cold December of 2000, Egor brilliantly managed his teammates and upset Gunners goalkeeper Manninger in the 77th minute.

• In 2003, an unpleasant (to put it mildly) episode occurred in the career of the 27-year-old creator: he was caught using bromantane. Later it turned out that almost all Spartak residents were “fed” with this prohibited drug at that time without warning in order to increase their physical endurance... Titov received a year of disqualification and missed the European Championship in Portugal.

• That incident certainly influenced Titov’s future creative path. Although he managed to return to the field after the downtime and again became the leader of Spartak.

* In 2003 and 2007, the red-and-white fans awarded Titov their Golden Boar fan prize as the best player of the season.

• During Euro 2004, Egor Titov commented on meetings paired with Viktor Gusev on Channel One.

• Stanislav Cherchesov asked the veteran from Spartak in 2008, accusing him of a major loss to CSKA (1:5). And as a free agent, the Muscovite moved to Khimki.

• He then played for Lokomotiv from Astana and ended his career in 2012. In Yegor Titov's farewell match, the Spartak stars, reinforced by tennis players Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov, as well as hockey player Ilya Kovalchuk, defeated the Dynamo Kyiv veterans with a score of 5:3.

• In total, Titov played 445 battles for Spartak and scored 106 goals.

• In 2015, Yegor Titov was appointed assistant to head coach Dmitry Alenichev at Spartak. But a year later both left the club.

* It didn’t work out for two friends in the Krasnoyarsk “Yenisei”, where they worked from 2017 to 2019.

• In the Russian television series "Team" Egor Titov played himself.

• He met his future wife Veronica at an early age. They have two daughters - Anna and Ulyana. And in 2022, Yegor Ilyich became a grandfather.

* The hero of the day is very afraid of heights, although he lives in a high-rise building on the 37th floor.

• Today, the Yegor Titov Football Academy operates in the capital, where children from 3 to 14 years old study.