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Aleksandr Mostovoi

Personal information
Full name	Aleksandr Vladimirovich Mostovoi
Height	1.77 m (5 ft 10 in)
Position(s)	Attacking Midfielder
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of September 6, 2006

Aleksandr Vladimirovich Mostovoi (Russian: Александр Владимирович Мостовой) (born August 22, 1968 in St.Petersburg, USSR), known as "The Czar", is a former Russian attacking midfielder, who earned fame playing for Celta Vigo in Spain.

Earlier Life

Mostovoi has graduated the college as electricity expert and sport academy in Moscow provides coach with university education. Alexander Mostovoi has been married twice - he married his first wife in 1991; she was Portuguese. Mostovoi is also a citizen of Portugal. His second wife, Stefani, was French, and has had 2 children with him.

Club career

Mostovoi began his club career in the Soviet Elite League with Spartak Moscow in 1987 and played with the club until 1991. He moved to Portugal's Benfica in 1992, and played one season there, then one season for France's Caen and two for Strasbourg. Mostovoi's big break came when he signed for Celta Vigo in 1996 for 325 million pesetas (circa 1,950,000 euros). He made his debut for the Galician side in a 2-0 home defeat against Real Betis. His creative play and key goals made him a cult figure at Balaidos as the club rose to near the top of La Liga standings year after year. He was nicknamed The Tsar of Balaídos by the Celta fans. However, Mostovoi couldn't help the freefall that hit Celta in the 2003-04 season, knocking it down to the Segunda División. He moved to Deportivo Alavés for the second half of 2004-2005 season, after which he retired.

Mostovoi was named Strasbourg 'player of the century' in a poll conducted by the club in 2006.

Statistics

Club

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1988-1989||rowspan="4"|Spartak Moscow||rowspan="4"|Soviet Top League||27||3||-||-||-||-||27||3 |- |1989-1989||11||3||-||-||-||-||11||3 |- |1990-1991||23||9||-||-||-||-||23||9 |- |1991-1992||27||13||-||-||-||-||27||13 |- Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1992-1993||rowspan="2"|Benfica||rowspan="2"|Portuguese Liga||9||0||-||-||3||0||12||0 |- |1993-1994||0||0||-||-||0||0||0||0 |- Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1993-1994||SM Caen||Ligue 1||15||3||-||-||-||-||15||3 |- |1994-1995||rowspan="2"|RC Strasbourg||rowspan="2"|Ligue 1||29||6||4||1||-||-||33||7 |- |1995-1996||32||9||3||1||6||2||41||12 |- Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1996-1997||rowspan="7"|Celta Vigo||rowspan="7"|Primera División||31||5||6||1||-||-||37||6 |- |1997-1998||34||8||3||1||-||-||37||9 |- |1998-1999||33||6||1||0||7||2||41||8 |- |1999-2000||26||6||1||0||7||2||34||8 |- |2000-2001||30||9||6||2||7||2||43||13 |- |2001-2002||30||10||0||0||1||3||31||13 |- |2002-2003||27||5||0||0||4||1||31||6 |- Template:Football player statistics 388||28||-||-||13||3||101||31 Template:Football player statistics 49||0||-||-||3||0||12||0 Template:Football player statistics 476||18||7||2||6||2||89||22 Template:Football player statistics 4211||49||m||n||m||n||26||10 Template:Football player statistics 5384||95||24||6||48||15||m||n |}

National Team

Mostovoi played for both the Soviet national team (three goals in 15 caps) and the Russian national team (10 goals in 50 caps). He is known for his temper, and has had trouble with coaches, which led to Mostovoi being sent off the team by Georgi Yartsev during Russia's trip to Euro 2004. He played in the Euro 96 and the 1994 World Cup. He was a squad member for the 2002 tournament, but he did not play due to injury.

Mostovoi's exclusion from the Euro 2004 Russia squad was made by Georgi Yartsev after Russia's loss to Spain - 0-1. Supposedly, Mostovoi talked with the media after the match and gave an interview saying that Yartsev was not a good coach and did not understand anything. This was proven false, after Mostovoi recently gave an interview and explained what happened 2 years ago at the European Championship. Mostovoi merely said that Yartsev overworked the players during practice, so that they didn't have the necessary energy to play well in matches. Yartsev, however, believed Mostovoi was lying that he knew nothing about the insults of Yartsev, and the coach sent home one of the most experienced Russian players. Morale dropped after Yartsev's rage, and Russia lost to Portugal in the next match.

Honours

Club

• Spartak Moscow
  • Soviet Top League: 1987, 1989
• Benfica
  • SuperLiga: 1994
  • Taça de Portugal: 1992
• Celta Vigo
  • Intertoto Cup: 2000
  • Copa del Rey
    • Runners Up: 2001

External links

• Izvestia birth place of A. Mostovoi
• Bio at Rusteam Template:Ru icon
• Alexander Mostovoi's international record on RSSSF
• Aleksandr Mostovoi's career stats