Igor Akinfeev named Goalkeeper of the Year for the 11th time – Kommersant

According to the results of the 2022/23 season, CSKA goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev received the Lev Yashin Goalkeeper of the Year award for the 11th time, which has been awarded since 1960. Initially, the competition was held by the Ogonyok magazine, which since 2009 has been part of the Kommersant publishing house. The award ceremony took place yesterday at the home stadium of the army team before the cup match with Fakel Voronezh. The prize was presented to Akinfeev by Vladimir Zhelonkin, editor-in-chief of the Kommersant newspaper.

At the end of the season, the best goalkeeper is determined by fans voting on the Kommersant website, and specialists – coaches, functionaries, current players and winners of the prize of previous years, who are interviewed by the Kommersant editors. In addition to 37-year-old Akinfeev, this time 26 other players claimed the honorary prize, but the captain of CSKA, who won the Russian Cup with his club last season and became the silver medalist of the Russian championship, won the competition with a huge advantage. According to the results of the fans’ voting, the soldier collected 22,193 votes (Matvey Safonov from Krasnodar, who took second place, had 4338 votes), and 14 people voted for him out of 21 specialists.

Previously, Akinfeev was recognized as the best goalkeeper in the country following the results of the seasons 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2016/17, 2017/18. He is the champion of the competition. Spartak’s goalkeeper Rinat Dasaev, who was named goalkeeper of the year six times between 1980 and 1988, is second in terms of the number of awards.

Evgeny Fedyakov