By the age of twenty, Eduard Streltsov has everything one can dream of: talent, fame and love. He is the rising star of Soviet football. The whole country, with bated breath, expects victory from the national team at the upcoming World Cup where Streltsov is to face the great Brazilian football player Pelé. However, two days before the departure of the team, the sportsman’s enemies manage to destroy his career. When the door to big sport seems to be closed for good, Streltsov has to re-enter the field and prove that he is a true champion who is worth everybody’s love.
Acting
Alexander Petrov's physical transformation from cocky prodigy to hollowed survivor.
Production
Stadium sequences that somehow make Soviet concrete feel electric.
Costume
Period kits that scream 1950s USSR—gray, glorious, and gloriously inaccurate.
Director
Ilya Uchitel
Alexander Petrov
Eduard Streltsov
Victor Dobronravov
Artemov
Efim Petrunin
Ivanov
Vitaliy Khaev
Maslov
Stasya Miloslavskaya
Alla
Vasily Kortukov
Levin
Aleksey Kolgan
Brezhnev
Ruslan Bratov
Nikita Simonyan
Daniil Steklov
Nikolay Tischenko
Aleksandr Yatsenko
Postnikov Yury Dmitrievich
Asya Domskaya
Marina
Maksim Emelyanov
Vaska
Vladimir Bolshov
Gavriil Dmitrievich Kachalin
Nadezhda Markina
Sofya Frolovna, Streltsov's mother
Anvar Khalilulaev
Shustikov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Streltsov was real: banned from 1958 World Cup, imprisoned under false rape charges, returned to win Olympic gold in 1980. The film softens his actual wild-child reputation.
Director Ilya Uchitel is son of famed documentarian Viktor Uchitel, making this state-funded mythmaking oddly personal. The real Streltsov died in 1990, never seeing his rehabilitation complete.
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