page_title: Eduard Streltsov
section_title: Amateur play
hierarchical_section_title: Eduard Streltsov / Career / Release and return to football / Amateur play
caption_attribution_description: English: Leonid Brezhnev Portrait Čeština: Portrét Leonida BrežněvaItaliano: Ritratto di Leonid Brežnev
context_page_description: Eduard Anatolyevich Streltsov was a footballer from the Soviet Union who played as a forward for Torpedo Moscow and the Soviet national team during the 1950s and 1960s. A powerful and skilful attacking player, he scored the fourth-highest number of goals for the Soviet Union and has been called "the greatest outfield player Russia has ever produced". He is sometimes dubbed "the Russian Pelé".
  Born and raised in east Moscow, Streltsov joined Torpedo at the age of 16 in 1953 and made his international debut two years later. He was part of the squad that won the gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and came seventh in the 1957 Ballon d'Or. Early the next year his promising career was interrupted by a rape scandal. The 20-year-old Streltsov was accused of raping a woman shortly before the 1958 World Cup; told he could still play if he admitted his guilt, he confessed, despite inconclusive evidence against him. He was instead convicted and sentenced to twelve years in the Gulag system of forced labour camps.
  Streltsov was released after five years in the camps and in 1965 he resumed his career with Torpedo Moscow.
context_section_description: Streltsov was released on 4 February 1963, five years into his twelve-year sentence, and owing to the ban from professional play began to split his time between work at the ZiL factory and the study of automotive engineering at the attached technical college. After failing to patch up his differences with Alla, he married Raisa Mikhailovna in September 1963. He started to play for the amateur factory team, which caused it to attract large crowds, both at home and away. When the ZiL side travelled to Gorky for an away match late in the 1964 season, the team's coach received orders from above not to play Streltsov, something which spectators noticed immediately when the match started; during the first half, they began to riot and threatened to burn down the stadium, chanting Streltsov's name. Worried that the angry crowd might go through with this, the Gorky factory chief ordered the ZiL coach to send Streltsov out for the second half. On stepping onto the field, the former Gulag prisoner received a standing ovation.
  With Streltsov in the team, ZiL topped the factory league after winning all 11 matches. Although he was not allowed to play for Torpedo, Streltsov attended matches at his old club throughout the season. In October 1964, Khrushchev was replaced as the Communist Party's First Secretary by Leonid Brezhnev, who shortly after taking office received a letter signed by tens of thousands of people, including heroes of Socialist Labour and national and regional Supreme Soviet members, requesting the reversal of Streltsov's professional ban. Some party members were wary of a potential comeback, fearing that Streltsov's inclusion in a Torpedo squad that regularly travelled to Western Europe could lead to an international incident, but Brezhnev repealed the ban, arguing that as a free man Streltsov should be able to use his trained profession. He was cleared to return to Torpedo before the 1965 season.
caption: First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev (pictured in 1967) helped Streltsov to return to professional football.
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