Ramaz Shengelia

Ramaz Shengelia (Georgian: რამაზ შენგელია; 1 January 1957 – 21 June 2012) was a Georgian and Soviet footballer who played as a striker.

Born in Kutaisi, Shengelia started career in his hometown club Torpedo Kutaisi in 1968. He spent four seasons for the club, scoring 29 goals in 75 games in the Soviet First League. Shengelia became the top scorer of the club twice.

After the successful spell in the second strongest team in Georgian SSR, he was invited to Dinamo Tbilisi in 1977. The head coach of the Tbilisi-based club, Nodar Akhalkatsi arrived to Kutaisi in order to monitor the performance of Shengelia and his other teammate Tamaz Kostava. Both of them eventually signed for Dinamo for the following season.

During the debut years, Shengelia has to compete for the starting place with Revaz Chelebadze. However, Shengelia found his place in the team and became the top scorer of the club during 1978 season. Dinamo won the championship for the second time in history, while Shengelia was nominated as Soviet Footballer of the Year ahead of Oleg Blokhin (Dynamo Kyiv) and Georgi Yartsev (Spartak Moscow).

The season of 1981 was the most successful for Shengelia. Dinamo won UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, after defeating Carl Zeiss Jena in the final. Shengelia scored 4 goals during the tournament. At the end of the season he finished 7th in Ballon d'Or nominees. Two of his teammates were also the nominees for the title, as Aleksandre Chivadze finished 8th, while David Kipiani was 11th in the final ranking. Shengelia was again named Soviet Footballer of the Year in 1981.

During the following season, Dinamo lost in the semifinal of UEFA Cup Winners' Cup to Standard Liège. However, Shengelia became the topscorer of the tournament with six goals.

Shengelia retired from football in 1988, but he came out of retirement a year later, joining the Swedish club IFK Holmsund with his teammate Tengiz Sulakvelidze. Holmsund competed in the second tier of the championship. During the only season with the club, Shengelia scored 2 goals in 13 appearances.

Shengelia played in 26 games scoring 10 goals for the Soviet Union national team, including performance at the 1982 FIFA World Cup (five appearances, one goal). He also represented his country in five FIFA World Cup qualification matches.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Shengelia worked in the Georgia national team as an assistant of Aleksandre Chivadze. Later was invited to Georgian Football Federation by his former coach and then-president of the federation Nodar Akhalkatsi.

Shengelia died of a brain haemorrhage in Tbilisi in June 2012, at the age of 55.

The football stadium in his hometown Kutaisi is named after him.

Scores and results list Soviet Union's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Shengelia goal.

Dinamo Tbilisi

• Soviet Top League: 1978
• Soviet Cup: 1979
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup: 1980–81

Soviet Union U21

• UEFA European Under-21 Championship: 1980

Individual

• Soviet Footballer of the Year (2): 1978, 1981

• Soviet Top League top scorer: 1981 (23 goals)

• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup top scorer: 1981–82 (6 goals)

• UEFA European Under-21 Championship top scorer: 1980

• Grigory Fedotov club member

• Merited Master of Sports (1981)

• The best 33 football players of the Soviet Union: 1st (1981); 2nd (1978, 1979, 1980); 3rd (1977)

• 1981 – 7th

• Ramaz Shengelia at National-Football-Teams.com

• Profile in Russian

• Pachkoria, Tengiz. In Memoriam. The star of Dinamo Tbilisi Ramaz Shengelia. Georgia online. (Distributed by Ukrayinska Pravda)