Soviet and Russian football coach and official Valeri Nepomnyashchiy, whose playing and coaching career began in Turkmenistan, is celebrating his 83rd birthday. He was born on August 7, 1943, in Slavgorod, Altai Krai.

Nepomnyashchy's connection with Turkmen football began during his school years, playing for the republic's schoolchildren's team and then for the university team. He graduated from Turkmen State University in 1969. During his military service in Samarkand, he played for the local “Spartak” team in his third year, where he suffered an injury that later led to a diagnosis of a curvature of the ureter and a third-degree disability. At 25, Nepomnyashchy retired from playing.

Nepomnyashchy's coaching career is closely linked to Turkmenistan. From 1970 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1988, he served as head coach of the football school of the Turkmenistan Sports Committee, and in 1979 and 1982–1983, he headed Ashgabat's “Kolkhozchi”. It was during this period that his coaching style, which he later brought to the international level, was formed.

The turning point came in 1988: while attending advanced training courses in Moscow, Nepomnyashchy expressed his willingness to work abroad, after which he received offers from Algeria, Tunisia, and Suriname, which were always rejected. He ended up going on a business trip, hoping to coach a youth team, but upon arrival, he discovered the position of head coach of the Cameroon national team was vacant. A contract was signed for two years.

The following season, the team, trained by the Turkmen coach, passed the qualifying round for the 1990 World Cup in Italy. At the tournament itself, the Cameroonian national team was one of the biggest surprises: in the opening match, the "indomitable lions" defeated the reigning world champions, Argentina, with Diego Maradona leading the way. François Omam-Biyik's decisive goal gave the African team victory, despite the fact that the Cameroonians finished the match with nine men. The team subsequently reached the quarter-finals of the tournament – the first time in the history of the World Cup for an African team.

Following his success with Cameroon, Nepomnyashchy coached clubs in Türkiye, South Korea, China, Japan and Uzbekistan, as well as Russia's “Tom”, “Baltika” and CSKA, where he served as an advisor to the club's president on sports issues. At the same time, the coach himself has repeatedly emphasized that he retains the warmest memories of the years spent in Turkmenistan, where his path in big-time football began.