Dmitri Kirichenko

Dmitri Sergeyevich Kirichenko (; born 17 January 1977) is a Russian football coach and a former player who played as a striker.

As of 10 March 2014, he is the 3rd all-time top scorer in the Russian Premier League (129 goals), and the 5th player by league appearances (377).

Club career Kirichenko started his career playing for small clubs such as Lokomotiv Mineralnye Vody, Iskra Novoaleksandrovsk and Torpedo Taganrog. In 1998, he joined Rostselmash, following impressive performance for Taganrog club during the previous year.

He became one of the most promising Russian strikers during the next years, and joined CSKA Moscow in 2002. With the army men Kirichenko managed to become the league top scorer in 2002 (along with his teammate Rolan Gusev), won the Russian Premier League twice, and got the Russian Cup.

In 2005, he left for FC Moscow. Playing for the new team, he repeated his success, becoming the top scorer again.

He played for Saturn from 2007 to 2010. In 2008 in the first match of his team in the UEFA Intertoto Cup, in the victory 7–0, he scored 4 goals. He did not play in the second match of that round. At the next round he scored a goal at the first match in a 1–0 victory against 2007 German champions VfB Stuttgart. With 5 goals at total he became the top scorer of the UEFA Intertoto Cup 2008.

In 2011, after Saturn were dissolved due to financial problems, Kirichenko returned to Rostov, the club where he had made a name for himself back in the 1990s.

International career He played for his country at Euro 2004, scoring in the second minute against Greece as Russia defeated the eventual European champions 2–1 in a consolation match as Russia were already eliminated. The goal stood as the fastest goal ever in a European Championship until Nedim Bajrami of Albania scored against Italy in 23 seconds at Euro 2024.

Managerial career He was appointed the caretaker manager of FC Rostov on 6 August 2016 following the resignation of Kurban Berdyev. His caretaking spell ended on 9 September 2016.

He was appointed the caretaker manager of FC Ufa on 7 November 2018. Ufa won their first game under his management against FC Spartak Moscow, but in the next 6 games the club only achieved 2 draws and 4 losses, and on 27 March 2019 Kirichenko left Ufa by mutual consent.

Career statistics

Club Source:

International

Honours CSKA Moscow Russian Premier League: 2003 Russian Cup: 2001–02 Russian Super Cup: 2004; runner-up: 2003 UEFA Cup: 2004–05