CCCP 1982 World Cup Retro Football Shirt

The 1982 World Cup represented a return to the international fold for a Soviet Union team that, for a combination of political and football-based reasons, had not qualified for the finals of a major tournament for a decade.

Konstantin Beskov's squad was a mix of the two talented club sides of Dynamo Kiev and Dinamo Tbilisi, while Spartak Moscow's keeper Rinat Dasayev and midfielder Yuri Gavrilov ensured the capital had significant representation too.

The combination of several different player blocks and their radically different styles meant the Soviets rarely managed to attain the fluency of old, but the individual quality in the squad was still good enough to earn progress. In the group stages, the Soviets took a deserved lead against mighty Brazil only to narrowly lose out 2-1, then a win against New Zealand and a draw with Scotland secured second place in the group.

In the second round, the Soviet Union and Poland drew their fixture and both defeated Belgium, but as Poland did so by a greater margin, it was them who advanced to the semi-finals at the expense of their Eastern Bloc neighbors.