Anatoliy Banishevskiy

Anatoliy Banishevskiy

Personal information
Full name	Anatoliy Andreyevich Banishevskiy
Date of birth	(1946-02-23)23 February 1946
Place of birth	Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan, USSR
Date of death	10 December 1997(1997-12-10) (aged 51)
Place of death	Baku, Azerbaijan
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s)	Striker
Youth career
	Neftçi
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1963–1978	Neftçi	288	(121)
International career
1965–1972	USSR	50	(20)
Managerial career
1984–1987	Automobilist Mingachevir
1987–1988	Burkina Faso (youth)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Anatoliy Andreyevich Banishevskiy (Azerbaijani: Anatoli Andreyeviç Banişevski; Russian: Анатолий Андреевич Банишевский; 23 February 1946, in Baku – 10 December 1997, in Baku) was an Azerbaijani footballer who played as a forward. Throughout most of his playing and coaching career, Banishevskiy was committed to his originally domestic club, Neftçi. He is widely considered the greatest Azerbaijani footballer of all time. He played for the Soviet Union national football team, winning 51 caps and scoring 20 goals. Banishevskiy played for the Soviet side in the 1966 FIFA World Cup,^[1] as well as in European Championship 1968 and 1972. His club team was Neftçi, and he scored 136 goals in Soviet Top League competition.^[1] The striker was unofficially named Azerbaijan's Player of the Year three times-in 1966, 1967, and 1978.^[2]

In November 2003, as part of the celebration of UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player for Azerbaijan by the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan as the country's most outstanding player over the past 50 years.