On Thursday, the renowned defender of Moscow Dynamo Eduard Mudrik turns 85 years old.
Eduard Nikolaevich was born on July 17, 1939 in Starobelsk in the family of Nikolai Mudrik, a master of athletics. Later, his father became executive secretary of the Moscow Regional Council of Dynamo, and the family moved to Mytishchi. There, Dynamo players often prepared for matches, so Eduard had an opportunity to watch his idols from early childhood.
His father wanted to make him a decathlete, but his heart was drawn to the field. Mudrik learned the basics of football in the youth team Vympel, and his first coach was Vasily Pavlov, multiple champion of Moscow as part of Dynamo and winner of the first USSR championship.
At the age of 17, the talented defender finally joined the youth team of the white-blue team and three years later made his debut in the main team, winning gold medals of the championship with it in his first season. However, he only managed to fully establish himself in the starting lineup in the second half of 1962, and Mudrik played the «golden» season of 1963 completely.
In the 1960s, Mudrik was considered one of the best extreme defenders in the country, standing out for his excellent physical shape and a fine sense of position that allowed him not only to effectively take away balls but also to join attacks successfully.
Eduard Nikolayevich played 8 matches for the USSR national team, and only in one of them did the team concede more than one goal — in the final of the 1964 European Cup, in which Soviet players lost to the Spaniards (1:2) at the Santiago Bernabeu.
In total, over 10 seasons as part of Dynamo, Mudrik played 184 matches (23 of them as captain) and scored 6 goals. A complicated fracture of the arm he received at the beginning of 1967 in a friendly match in Marseille significantly reduced his career.
After the end of the 1968 season, he had several offers from other teams, but Eduard Nikolayevich remained loyal to his home club and ended his career. In the 70s and 80s, he was engaged in administrative activities in the structure of the Moscow City Council “Dynamo”, and later was responsible for working with veterans of the team at the club.