Yuriy Valeryevich Nikiforov (alternate spelling Valeriovych; , uk, Юрій Валерійович Никифоров; born 16 September 1970) is a professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

coach and a former player who played mainly as a central defender.

Club career

Born in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

, Ukraine, Soviet Union, Nikiforov started playing professionally with hometown's FC Chornomorets. After one year with

FC Dynamo Kyiv Football Club Dynamo Kyiv (, ) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Kyiv. Founded in 1927 as a Kyivan football team of republican branch of the bigger Soviet Dynamo Sports Society, the club as a separate business entity was offici ...

in which he appeared solely for the reserves he returned to his first club, playing in the inaugural edition of the Ukrainian Premier League. In early 1993, Nikiforov moved to Russia with FC Spartak Moscow, being an instrumental defensive unit as the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

side won three out of four Premier League titles, with the player also netting regularly. His first abroad experience came with Sporting de Gijón, to where he arrived at the same time as former compatriot Dmitri Cheryshev (he would also share team with another Russian while in Asturias, Igor Lediakhov). After Gijón's relegation from La Liga, Nikiforov played five years in the Netherlands, starting with PSV Eindhoven which he helped to consecutive Eredivisie accolades. For 2002–03, the 32-year-old signed with lowly RKC Waalwijk also in the Dutch top level, with the club finishing in a comfortable ninth place. He finished his career in Japan, after one year with Urawa Red Diamonds.

International career

Nikiforov played four times for the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1992, as the national team that rose from the ashes of the Soviet Union took part in that year's UEFA European Championship – he did not make the squad for the finals. His debut came on 25 January in a 1–0

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

with the United States, in Miami. After briefly representing Ukraine, also in that year, Nikiforov switched to Russia, with which he would participate in two FIFA World Cups –

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

and

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

– as well as UEFA Euro 1996 (eight matches in total, but with the national side always exiting in the group stage). In

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, Nikiforov was part of the Russian squad that won the Legends Cup.

Coaching career

After retiring, he became a coach, following his former PSV teammate

Dmitri Khokhlov Dmitri Valeryevich Khokhlov (russian: Дмитрий Валерьевич Хохлов, born 22 December 1975) is a Russian football manager and a former player. He is an assistant coach with Sochi. He played as a holding midfielder or playmak ...

as an assistant to FC Kuban Krasnodar and FC Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Premier League. On 12 August 2022, he was hired as an assistant to Valeri Karpin in the Russia national football team.

Personal life

Nikiforov's older brother,

Oleksandr Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

, was also a footballer. He too represented Chornomorets (four different spells), and coincided with Yuri from 1989–90.

Career statistics

Club

National team

Honours

Club

Chornomorets Odesa * Ukrainian Cup (1): 1992 Spartak Moscow * Russian Football Premier League (3): 1993, 1994, 1996 * Russian Cup (1): 1994 PSV Eindhoven * Eredivisie (2): 1999–2000, 2000–01 *

Johan Cruyff Shield The Johan Cruyff Shield (, ) is a football trophy in the Netherlands named after Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff, also often referred to as the Dutch Super Cup. The winner is decided in one match only, played by the winner of the national footbal ...

(3):

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

Country

Soviet Union * FIFA U-16 World Cup (1):

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

* UEFA European Under-18 Championship (1):

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

Russia * Legends Cup (2): 2009, 2010

References

External links

RussiaTeam biography and profile
*

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nikiforov, Yuriy 1970 births Living people Ukrainian emigrants to Russia Naturalised citizens of Russia Footballers from Odesa Soviet footballers Ukrainian footballers Russian footballers Association football defenders Soviet Top League players Soviet Second League players Ukrainian Premier League players Russian Premier League players Russian Second League players FC Dynamo Kyiv players FC Chornomorets Odesa players SKA Odesa players FC Spartak Moscow players FC Spartak-2 Moscow players La Liga players Sporting de Gijón players Eredivisie players PSV Eindhoven players RKC Waalwijk players J1 League players Urawa Red Diamonds players Soviet Union under-21 international footballers Soviet Union international footballers Ukraine international footballers Russia international footballers Dual internationalists (football) 1994 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 1996 players 2002 FIFA World Cup players Russian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Spain Russian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate footballers in the Netherlands Expatriate footballers in Japan Russian expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands Russian expatriate sportspeople in Japan Russian football managers Russian expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in Kazakhstan Russian expatriate sportspeople in Kazakhstan