Oleg Salenko

Name: Oleg Anatolyevich Salenko

DOB: 25/10/69

POB: Leningrad, Soviet Union

Position: Striker

Clubs: Zenit St Petersburg, Dynamo Kiev,
Logrones, Valencia,
Rangers, Istanbulspor, Cordoba,
Pogon Szczecin.

International Caps: 9 full caps (one for Ukraine, eight for Russia)

The archetypal foreign flop: arriving with fanfare and a big
fat paycheck and leaving via the back door with only the cleaning lady taking
notice.

Salenko was born in Leningrad,
Soviet Union. For those who don’t know, the
city is now St Petersburg in Russia and the break up of the former USSR
occurred shortly before Salenko was about to enter his career prime. For this
reason he has the distinction of having represented three different nations at
international level. He made four appearances for the under-20s side of the
USSR in his early days with Zenit Leningrad (Zenit St Petersburg) and later
made one appearance for the Ukrainian national side in the confusion of the
post Soviet break-up. This was at the time when his potential as a goalscorer
was beginning to shine through at Dynamo Kiev. By the time he moved onto Spain, with
Logrones, in 1993 the dividing lines were sharper and he was to be considered
for the Russian national team. A call-up would come later that year following a
blistering start to the most impressive point in his club career, netting 28
times in one-and-a-half years playing in the Spanish top flight.

The next year he indelibly etched his own name into the
football record books, being the first man to score five goals in a single
World Cup match. The highlights video available on YouTube does offer up some
clues as to how this happened; the defending is dreadful for just about every
goal, with one of them a tap-in laid onto a plate by a teammate, one a
deflection and another a penalty. However, there were plenty of world class
strikers throughout the years who would have played against desultory defences
worse than that of the Cameroon
rearguard that day, but the greats of world football history couldn’t match
that feat. Gerd Muller, Pele, Just Fontaine, Ronaldo, Gary Lineker, Miroslav
Klose: non of these players scored five in one game; Oleg Salenko did.

He notched one other in the tournament – another penalty in
a 3-1 defeat to Sweden
– and finished joint-top scorer despite his team exiting at the group stage;
another distinction he possesses exclusively. This honour and his form from the
previous campaign coupled to earn a move up the Spanish table with Valencia. However,
the move was not as kind as his previous Spanish home and he finished with only
seven goals in 25 appearances. It’s not the worst strike-rate but the greater
responsibility providing more than just a poacher’s threat didn’t fit his
style. Despite the loss in form it didn’t dissuade Rangers from snapping him
after one frustrating season at the Mestalla.

The £2.5million transfer received some fanfare at the time,
but in hindsight the Rangers support should perhaps had been more skeptical.
This was a period in which the Ibrox club were all conquering in the Scottish
Premier Division and the signings made before that summer were conducted with
the aim of extending their stay in the Champions League past the group stage.
He may have been able to call himself a World Cup Golden Boot winner but he had
struggled in a team that had badly underachieved the season before; a team
Rangers would have fancied beating in that era.

Salenko’s record at Rangers, similar to his Valencia days,
isn’t that bad; netting eight goals in 18 appearances in all competitions. Once
again it was his limitations outside the penalty area that made him expendable.
His running style was somewhat awkward and it accentuated this particular
weakness in his game, often moving as if he was 20 years older than everyone
else on the park. There was no doubting his abilities as a natural finisher but
most goals had to be laid on a plate for him due to his often incapability of
keeping pace with the hectic Scottish game.

He was out the door in January the next year in a swap for
Peter Van Vossen – which, again in hindsight, might have left Rangers thinking
they could have done with keeping the Russian after all. Istanbulspor was the
club happy to make the switch, riding themselves of a player so stereotypical
Dutch in his inabilities to play as part of a team, but they would eventually
be disappointed with their capture after a promising start. This time it would
be injury that caused the problem. After scoring 11 goals between January and
the summer, he would go on to make only three appearances over the next two
seasons due to lengthy spells in the treatment room. Eventually the club gave
up on the ageing and permanently crocked Salenko and he was released at the end
of the 1998/99 season.

In a bid to recreate past glorious he returned to Spain in 1999, signing with small club Cordoba. Unfortunately he
couldn’t shake the injury problems and any replication of his Logrones form was
never likely to happen. The striker was released early from his contract and
took some time out to try and regain his full fitness.

After the short hiatus from the sport he joined Polish club
Pogon Szczecin but retired for good after a single game which told him all he
need to know about his condition. Sadly, he was only 31 when he quit and had
played less than 100 games in the seven years after USA ’94.

Where is he now? After retiring from playing he returned to
the game in 2003 with his once adopted homeland to become manager of the
Ukrainian beach football team, which is surely an oxymoron if ever I’ve heard
one. Unfortunately he didn’t do tell well in the job but still has a keen eye
on Ukrainian football in his occasional punditry work, where he has been known
to faint on camera.

Show: Fainting Pundits