Gavriil Kachalin

Gavriil Kachalin was a Russian football player and coach, born in Moscow on 17 January 1911 and died there on 23 May 1995. He began playing in 1928 with Volny Trud, then played for Gomel clubs and, between 1936 and 1942, for Dynamo Moscow, where he played 36 Soviet Top League matches and won the league title in 1937 and 1940 and the Soviet Cup in 1937. As a coach he led the Soviet Union national team to its greatest results, winning the 1956 Olympic gold medal and the 1960 European Football Championship, and he also coached it at the 1958, 1962 and 1970 World Cups, where the team was eliminated in the quarter-finals each time. He also coached Dinamo Tbilisi to its first Soviet Top League title in 1964, with third place finishes in 1971 and 1972.