Borussia Mönchengladbach seemed to have pulled off a real transfer coup when they won European Footballer of the Year 1986 in Igor Belanov. But things turned out differently.
It’s not often that a player with the title “European Footballer of the Year” appears in the Bundesliga. Robert Lewandowski was one of them – the last one before him was Franck Ribéry, but you have to go back to 2013 for that.
On top of that, the two are the only professionals in this millennium who have fulfilled both criteria – i.e. appearances in the Bundesliga and Europe’s Footballer of the Year. Consequently, one can certainly speak of a coup when Borussia Mönchengladbach was able to lure Igor Belanov, who had been voted Europe’s best three years earlier (then still the Ballon d’Or), to the Lower Rhine in 1989.
The winger also won the European Cup in 1986 with Dynamo Kyiv against Atletico Madrid and therefore came to Germany with great advance praise. “I can only congratulate you on this transfer,” said foal icon Günter Netzer at the time. Belanov’s services cost two million marks.
Culture shock shaped Belanov’s start in Gladbach
However, adjusting to life in the West was much more difficult for the beacon of hope than many assumed. Key word: different country, different customs. First of all, he only arrived in his new homeland in October, as he wanted to finish the season in the former USSR. As a result, he missed ten matchdays and Borussia remained goalless in six of those games.
5,000 fans welcomed their new star, who promised at his presentation that he would “score ten more goals this season”. But his debut was delayed, due to a muscle injury, he only appeared for Gladbach on the 16th match day – and presented himself far from his top form.
A brief ray of hope were four games with four goals at the beginning of the second half, but eight goalless matches followed and Belanov was increasingly classified as a transfer flop. But soon nobody was talking about his achievements, because together with his wife he caused a scandal off the pitch: the two were caught in the act of stealing.
A shop detective found the couple suspicious and called the police, who found unpaid goods worth 2,000 marks in Belanov’s car. Even if his wife denied the crime and loudly World even said that “this dirty affair was foisted on them”, they had to spend a night in the cell.
As a former world star, Belanov was relegated to the third division with Braunschweig
Meanwhile, the couple’s private rooms were searched and more stolen goods were found. Among other things, they are said to have stolen items such as furs and bracelets. As a result, the Belanovs were sentenced to a fine of 24,000 marks. There was no sign of remorse, however.
“Igor couldn’t understand that he, the Russian star, was so resented for the stealing,” commented Helmut Grashoff, who had hired Belanov as Gladbach manager, later.
His off-field missteps and poor performance on the field ultimately isolated the former hopeful in the Fohlenelf. Belanov became increasingly unpopular and let his frustration out on matchday 30 when he picked up the red card for a violent kick after 16 minutes against HSV and was banned until the end of the season.
In the following season he only found himself twice in the starting line-up for Borussia, then in the winter he fled to Eintracht Braunschweig in league two. With the lions, the once world-famous offensive player was relegated to the third division in 1993. He even played one more season there before he ended the chapter in Germany after five years and returned home.
Belanov fights in the Ukraine war
There Belanov, born in Odessa and now 62 years old, joined the Ukrainian army in the spring of 2022 to fight against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
“I beg you to stop the bloodshed of our people immediately!” he wrote Facebook. Ukrainian cities turned into ruins.
“Our grandfathers and fathers didn’t build them for fighting, but for happy people to live there!”
