Georgian footballer and manager From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Kipiani (Georgian:დავით ყიფიანი; 18 June 1951 – 17 September 2001) was a Georgian and Soviet footballmidfielder and manager, who played for the USSR national team. Kipiani principally played as a playmaker and is considered one of Georgia's greatest players. He was known for his elegant style of play, dribbling ability and passing range.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Kipiani on stamp of Georgia, 2004
Quick Facts Personal information, Date of birth ...
David Kipiani
Kipiani in 1981
Personal information
Date of birth
(1951-06-18)18 June 1951 According to Birth certificate (modified) (1951-11-18)18 November 1951
Kipiani was born in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR. He started playing for the 35th School during the early stages of his career.[7] Kipiani was invited to play for Dinamo Tbilisi in 1967. Due to injuries, he was only able to participate in a single appearances for two season. So, Kipiani went to play for another Tbilisi-based club, Locomotive Tbilisi.[7]
After a successful season with Locomotive, Kipiani was invited back to play for Dinamo again by Gavril Kachalin.[7] Meanwhile, while playing for Locomotive, Kipiani worked with his future manager Nodar Akhalkatsi, under whose managing he later became one of the key figures of Dinamo Tbilisi, which were among the powerful and successful clubs – presented not only at the highest level of Soviet football but internationally by the end of the 1970s and early 1980s.[7][8] It was a time of the most significant results in the national championship[9] along with the local[10] and international recognition and notable achievements at various prestigious football tournaments.[11][12][13]
During the period between 1975 and 1982 – Kipiani was one of the prominent and unanimously recognized leaders of Dinamo Tbilisi, alongside players such as Manuchar Machaidze, Aleksandre Chivadze, Vladimir Gutsaev and Ramaz Shengelia. Georgian team's impressive success against such great football clubs like Liverpool,[14]Inter Milan,[15][16]Napoli,[17]West Ham United,[18]Feyenoord and others was mainly determined by their obvious personal and professional talent, unique playing abilities and individual skills, great vision of the game, by their exemplary and complete interactions on the football pitch, where Kipiani was probably the most important, illustrious and exquisite player among others.[19][20][21][22][23]
Kipiani was capped 19 times for the Soviet Union, between April 1974 and May 1981, scoring seven goals. He made his international debut under manager Konstantin Beskov, in a friendly international match on 17 April 1974 in Zenica, when he was a second-half substitute for Vladimir Fedotov. Kipiani has scored his first international goal just after five minutes into his debut for the Soviet team, which became the only goal of the match and Soviet Union beat Yugoslavia 1–0.[24][25][26] He played his last national team game on 30 May 1981 in a 1982 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Wales.[27][28][29]
Kipiani was not given a chance to play in the World Cup finals. Many think his peak was in 1982, but missed the Spain World Cup and quit playing altogether due to a severe leg injury sustained against Kuban Krasnodar on 26 April (Round 4).
Gorgodze, Giorgi (27 October 2016). "Davit Kipiani – The "Moving Feast" of Football". georgiatoday.ge. Archived from the original on 8 November 2016. Retrieved 7 June 2018. The legendary Russian goalkeeper Lev Yashin wrote: David Kipiani is the most illustrious figure in Soviet football; he is simply unparalleled. The intelligent Kipiani, with his exquisite manner of playing, is able to see his teammates excellently and has the capacity to resolve the most difficult of issues on the football field.
FC Dinamo Tbilisi, Media Centre (18 June 2015). "Davit Kipiani – 64". FC Dinamo Tbilisi. fcdinamo.ge. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2018. Today is the birthday of Dinamo's legendary number 10 player – Davit Kipiani. He played in Dinamo Tbilisi in 1971–1982 years and in 351 matches he scored 126 goals. Davit Kipiani was the champion of Soviet Union, double owner of Soviet Cup, owner of Cup Winners' Cup, the best footballer of Soviet Union, winner of Europe Youth championship. He played in European team as well. He won Georgian championship for six times, Cup for three times and Super Cup for two times as the head coach of Dinamo Tbilisi. Today legend of our club would turn 64 years old.
Moñino, L. J. (9 September 2012). "Diálogos en la tumba de Kipiani. El cementerio georgiano acoge conversaciones entre exjugadores del Dínamo de Tblisi". El País. Archived from the original on 8 October 2017. Retrieved 4 June 2018. Se producen frente a la lápida de David Kipiani (Tbilisi, 1951), el mejor jugador de la historia de Georgia, un predecesor, en los finales de los años 70 y principios de los años 80, de la elegancia fría de Zidane, según cuentan en los corrillos futboleros que ayer se montaron alrededor del hotel de concentración de la selección española en la capital georgiana.
Khashig, Inal (11 February 2017). "15 soccer players that the Caucasus is proud of". jam-news.net. Archived from the original on 18 February 2017. Retrieved 5 June 2018. David Kipiani. Although Kipiani was not frequently involved in the USSR national team (only 19 games and 7 goals), but his fantastic performance in Tbilisi 'Dinamo', for which he played from 1971 till 1982, made him the Georgian and Soviet Football legend. David Kipiani was the brilliant star of already stacked team of 'Dinamo Tbilisi', that won the prestigious UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in May 1981. After finishing his playing career, he became a coach. On 17 September 2001, Kipiani died in a car accident at the age of 49.
Breitner84 (15 October 2009). "David Kipiani". pesstatsdatabase.com. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2018. Many think, David Kipiani was the best Georgian midfielder and one of the best Georgian coaches.
Rainbow, Jamie (19 January 2013). "Soviet giants have enjoyed mixed fortunes since the Iron Curtain fell". World Soccer. worldsoccer.com. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2018. The domestic football league of the old USSR was a vast, vibrant, and powerful competition, containing as it did clubs such as the Moscow giants Dynamo, Spartak, CSKA – and occasionally Torpedo – as well as influential teams from the republics, like the Dynamos of Kiev, Tbilisi, and Minsk. Evidently, the league would have been exceptionally strong and closely contested – it was so strong, in fact, that it rose to second place in UEFA's league rankings.
Schöggl, Hans; Stokkermans, Karel and RSSSF (15 August 2013). "Football Tournament at the Spartakiads of Peoples of the Soviet Union 1979". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Archived from the original on 30 September 2022. Retrieved 4 June 2018. Multi-sports event for teams from the Soviet Union, held (roughly) every four years, usually in pre-olympic years. (Below only the summer tournaments are listed; in addition seven winter spartakiads were held between 1962 and 1990, none of them featuring a football tournament.)
Steinberg, Jacob (16 December 2011). "Alvin Martin: 'Scousers and cockneys get on. It's the mickey-taking". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 6 July 2018. Retrieved 13 August 2019. Of course, you qualified for the European Cup Winners' Cup and then played against Dinamo Tblisi. Was that the most difficult game you've ever had? Yeah. I think we played them at a stage where we hadn't lost at Upton Park for 10 months so we were pretty formidable at home. All of a sudden, we were playing this Georgian side who had a mid-season break and hadn't played any football for six weeks. I think we went in there thinking these are there for the taking. They had players like David Kipiani in midfield and Aleksandr Chivadze, who was the captain. Ramaz Shengelia was another one. After about 20 minutes we thought, "Whoa, whoa, what's going on here?" They just totally outplayed us and gave us a footballing lesson. We lost it 4–1. We were sitting in the back afterwards. There were about eight or nine of us in there and none of us really spoke. We just sat shocked and numb because we couldn't believe what had happened to us. There was a degree of naivety and complacency, which we proved when we won 1–0 in the return leg. We were an emerging side but they were a completely different level to anyone we'd ever met.
Brooking, Trevor (25 September 2014). My Life in Football. Simon & Schuster. ISBN978-1471130465. Archived from the original on 20 February 2024. Retrieved 13 August 2019– via Google Books. Tbilisi were an outstanding team and the fact that the Russian domestic season had only just resumed after their winter break meant we had not seen them play. We had to settle for some film clips of their epic 4–2 aggregate triumph against Liverpool in the European Cup the previous season and their 5–0 aggregate win over Waterford in the Cup Winner's Cup a few months earlier. Technically they were a wonderful side and in the first leg at Upton Park attacked us with breathtaking pace. It was an education to watch them and I was hugely impressed by the movement and individual skills of players such as Aleksandre Chivadze, Vitali Daraselia, David Kipiani and Ramaz Schengeliya. They remain one of the finest European teams I've seen and it was a shame that a broken leg ended Kipiani's career prematurely.
McCracken, Craig (7 September 2015). "How Dinamo Tbilisi enthralled British football fans in the midst of the Cold War". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2018. By schooling Liverpool and West Ham in the art of fast, passing, composed football, the Dinamo Tbilisi side of the 1970s and 1980s captured the hearts of young British fans who were unaccustomed to watching such expressive play
Veth, Manuel (21 December 2017). "Dinamo Tbilisi vs Carl Zeiss Jena – 1981 Cup Winners' Cup Final Remembered". futbolgrad.com. Archived from the original on 26 December 2017. Retrieved 5 June 2018. One can only imagine the modern football hipster galvanising over the limitless talent of Georgian playmaker David Kipiani, striker Ramaz Shengelia or the tactical abilities of Carl Zeiss Jena defender Lothar Kurbjuweit. Kipiani and Shengelia were part of a Dinamo Tbilisi side that dazzled spectators in the Soviet Union.
"Yugoslavia 0–1 USSR — April 17, 1974". Soccerway. Archived from the original on 13 June 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2018. International Friendly, Bilino Polje Stadium, Zenica, Attendance: 30,000
"Yugoslavia 0–1 USSR — April 17, 1974". footballfacts.ru. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2018. International Friendly, Bilino Polje Stadium, Zenica, Attendance: 30,000
"David Kipiani – USSR". coleka.com. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2018. Panini Football Sticker Albums – Argentina 78 World Cup.
"David Kipiani – USSR". sticker-worldwide.de. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2018. Espana 82 No. 395 Panini sticker David Kipiani.
Hughes, Rob and International Herald Tribune (19 September 2001). "Georgian Legend Kipiani Dies in Car Crash; Striker Herrlich Returns After Brain Surgery: As One Star Is Lost, Another Finds Hope". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 October 2017. Retrieved 4 June 2018. After the most numbing seven days many of us have known, what personal compassion is there left for a single tragic death of a sportsman, or for that matter what joy might we share with a player returning to action after brain surgery? As the European soccer games pick up the threads, we have both those extremes. The death of David Kipiani in a car crash in Georgia on Monday took from us a man who was the equivalent in his day of an East European Zinedine Zidane.
Balitskiy, Andrei; Dryomin, Mike and RSSSF (11 July 2013). "Soviet Union 1978 (Championship)". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2019. Dinamo Tbilisi won the Soviet Union champions title second time in 1978. In those years glorious players were in Dinamo: D. Gogia, V. Koridze, A. Chivadze, S. Khinchagashvili, D. Mujiri, T. Kostava, N. Khizanishvili, P. Kanteladze, G. Machaidze, M. Machaidze, V. Daraselia, D. Kipiani, V. Gutsaev, R. Shengelia, R. Chelebadze.
"Dinamo Tbilisi won the Soviet Union champions title second time in 1978". Georgian Football Federation. Georgian Football Federation. 12 July 2016. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 4 June 2018. Dinamo Tbilisi won the Soviet Union champions title second time in 1978. Dinamo Tbilisi: D. Gogia, V. Koridze, A. Chivadze, S. Khinchagashvili, D. Mujiri, T. Kostava, N. Khizanishvili, P. Kanteladze, Gocha Machaidze, Manuchar Machaidze, V. Daraselia, D. Kipiani, V. Gutsaev, R. Shengelia, R. Chelebadze.
"The first Crystal Cup". FC Dinamo Tbilisi. fcdinamo.ge. 3 September 2014. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2018. September 3 of 1976 is an important date in the history of Dinamo Tbilisi. Our team won the Soviet Cup for the first time. Before that our team competed for the Crystal Cup for five times and failed. Before the final Dinamo beat Metalurh Zaporizhya with penalty shots – 5–4, defeated Zenit Leningrad in 1/8 final with the score – 3–0, won against Karpaty Lviv – 2–1 and defeated Shakhtar Donetsk in semi-final – 2–0. The final match was held in Moscow at Luzhniki stadium and 45 000 supporters attended it. Our team competed with Ararat Yerevan. Dinamo won the match with big score – 3–0. The goals were scored by Davit Kipiani on 27th minute, Piruz Kanteladze (penalty) on 64th minute and Revaz Chelebadze on 68th minute. Davit Kipiani became bombardier of the tournament with 5 scored goals. Dinamo: Gogia, Khizanishvili, Kanteladze, Khinchagashvili, Ebralidze, Chivadze, Manuchar Machaidze (C), Chelebadze, Gutsaev, Kipiani (Tsereteli 75'), Kopaleishvili. Head coach: Nodar Akhalkatsi
"Second Crystal Cup". FC Dinamo Tbilisi. fcdinamo.ge. 11 August 2015. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2018. In 1979 Dinamo Tbilisi played one more triumph season after the last successful one. Nodar Akhalkatsi's team won Soviet Crystal Cup for the second time. On August 11 the match between FC Dinamo Tbilisi and FC Dynamo Moscow at Luzhniki Stadium finished without goals. Our team beat the rival 5–4 on penalties. In the beginning Nikolai Gontar saved his team from Davit Kipiani's and Vladimer Gutsaev's penalties. On the other hand Otar Gabelia repelled Aleksandr Makhovikov's and Aleksei Petrushin's penalties. After that Manuchar Machaidze, Aleksandre Chivadze, Vitali Daraselia, Ramaz Shengelia and Tengiz Sulakvelidze kicked successfully. Gabelia repelled the last penalty of Valeri Gazaev. Before the final our team defeated FC Dynamo Leningrad 2–1, FC Zorya Voroshilovgrad 5–0, FC SKA Rostov-on-Don 2–1, FC Torpedo Moscow 3–0, FC Uralmash Sverdlovsk 2–0, FC Krylia Sovetov Kuybyshev 2–0 and PFC CSKA Moscow 2–1 in additional time. Dynamo Moscow 0–0 (4–5 pen.) Dinamo Tbilisi. Dinamo Tbilisi: Gabelia, Sulakvelidze, Chivadze, Khinchagashvili, Mujiri (Kikalashvili 61), Daraselia, Manuchar Machaidze (C), Koridze (Kipiani 46), Gutsaev, Gocha Machaidze, Shengelia. Coach: Nodar Akhalkatsi
Kahl, Sebastian (8 October 2017). "Who Was David Kipiani? (Talks and writes about football history)". medium.com. Archived from the original on 1 June 2019. Retrieved 5 June 2018. USSR Player of the Year 1977. As a player he never left his native Tbilisi. And for all intents he was a one club man. A 14-year career with Dinamo Tbilisi was only briefly interrupted, in 1970, by a loan move across town to Lokomotiv. After establishing himself at the senior level Kipiani returned to Dinamo and came to dictate their play for the following decade. In 1977 he was voted Soviet Footballer of the Year.
