Vyacheslav Malafeev

Vyacheslav Malafeev is a goalkeeper of Zenit St. Petersburg. He was born on 4 March 1979 in St. Petersburg (former Leningrad), Russia.

At the age of six, Vyacheslav started to play football in Smena football school and graduated from it in 1997. The young player was invited to Zenit-2 and began his performance for Zenit in 1999.

The keeper’s début came in the match against Alania Vladikavkaz, when first-choice goalkeeper Roman Berezovsky was sent off after he insulted a referee. Malafeev did not manage to use that chance and become a regular, but he was capped for the Russia Olympic squad soon after and made his first appearance for it on 4 September 1999 in the match against Armenia. In 2001 Vyacheslav strolled to the bronze medal of the Russian Premier League.

Two years later, Malafeev with his club won the silver medals, and the footballer was awarded the Goalkeeper of the Year, thus getting on the list of top 33 Russian players.

Another year later, the team’s performance did not impress, but in 2007 Vyacheslav made 24 appearances and conceded only 27 goals, which helped him to get the Goalkeeper of the Year award one more time as the club won the golden medals of the RPL.

On 6 December 2011, Malafeev kept clean sheet in the match against Porto, which meant he did not concede in 159 games, and also set a new record for the Russia national squad, giving the go-by to Sergei Ovchinnikov. At the end of 2001, Vyacheslav got on the list of the world top keepers.