Ivan Provedel’s first appearance for Inter at San Siro against Fiorentina will carry a family memory from Moscow with it. The goalkeeper grew up hearing stories from his maternal grandfather about Lev Yashin, the great Soviet No. 1 who once lived on the same street.
Only later did Provedel understand that the man in those stories was Yashin: the only goalkeeper to win the Ballon d’Or, a Dynamo Moscow institution and a reference point for generations of keepers. His grandmother recalled seeing a man in a hat while taking out the rubbish during the week. It was Yashin.
Quick facts
- Provedel is set for his Inter debut in the lunchtime meeting with Fiorentina at San Siro.
- Yashin played twice at San Siro, first on 1 November 1966 with the Soviet Union.
- He won five Soviet league titles, three domestic cups, the 1960 European Championship and Olympic gold in Melbourne in 1956.
- Provedel has scored twice in his senior career, for Juve Stabia in Serie B and Lazio against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League.
- Yashin ended his playing career in 1971, aged 41, after a farewell match in Moscow attended by 100,000 people.
For Inter, the occasion is a new step in Provedel’s career; for the player, it also returns him to the stadium where Yashin left part of his own history. The Meazza museum houses the Dynamo Moscow shirt worn by the man known as the Black Spider, who died in 1990 at the age of 60.
Yashin’s first Milan appearance came in an international friendly in 1966. Italy, led by Helenio Herrera and Ferruccio Valcareggi, won 1-0 through Aristide Guarnieri’s only goal for the national side. Guarnieri later remembered Herrera telling him that scoring against Yashin meant he was capable of anything.
Three years earlier, Yashin had saved a Sandro Mazzola penalty. Mazzola recalled being drawn into the goalkeeper’s presence, seeing him move to the right but still failing to place the kick in the opposite corner. “That shot went exactly where he wanted it to go,” Mazzola said.
Provedel has one distinction that even Yashin did not possess: goals. His two senior strikes reflect a past as a forward, first with Juve Stabia in Serie B and later in the Champions League for Lazio against Atletico Madrid, on his debut in Europe’s leading club competition.
His Lazio story had already been shaped by an unexpected opening. On 14 August 2022, he entered the match after eight minutes when Luis Maximiano was sent off following a reckless challenge outside his area. Basic made way, Provedel took the gloves, and he did not surrender the place again.
At Spezia, he was called “the lighthouse keeper”. His own description was simple: he tried to provide as much light as possible and stop what could be stopped. The phrase suited a goalkeeper whose route has repeatedly turned on taking the moment when it arrives.
Yashin’s second visit to San Siro, on 31 August 1971, belonged to his long farewell to football. He had formally left the game on 27 May at Moscow’s Lenin Stadium, where 100,000 spectators watched a Dynamo Moscow side face a World XI. Demand for tickets had reportedly reached almost 700,000.
Pelé, Eusébio, Bobby Charlton, Gerd Müller and Franz Beckenbauer were among the figures present for that farewell. It took place during the Brezhnev era and the Cold War, yet football made room for a tribute that crossed borders. In Italy, Yashin later shared the stage with Gianni Rivera and Mazzola.
Provedel grew up searching for old footage and photographs of that world while listening to his grandfather’s recollections. Now, at the same stadium where Yashin once stood, his Inter chapter begins with a piece of goalkeeping history close at hand.
