Ivan Sergeyevich Zlobin (; born 7 March 1997) is a Russian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays for Portuguese club Famalicão as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

Club career

Early career

Born in

Tyumen Tyumen ( ; rus, Тюмень, p=tʲʉˈmʲenʲ, a=Ru-Tyumen.ogg) is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is situated just east of the Ural Mountains, along the Tura ( ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, Zlobin began playing at hometown club FC Tyumen from the age of six. After impressing in a youth tournament at 12, he was approached by the Konoplyov football academy,

Lokomotiv Moscow FC Lokomotiv Moscow (, ) is a Russian professional association football, football club based in Moscow. Lokomotiv have won the Russian Premier League on three occasions; the Soviet Cup twice; and the Russian Cup (football), Russian Cup a record ...

and

Krasnodar Krasnodar, formerly Yekaterinodar (until 1920), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city stands on the Kuban River in southern Russia, with a population of 1,154,885 residents, and up to 1.263 millio ...

, and opted for the first of those. When

Roman Abramovich Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich (born 24 October 1966) is a business oligarch and politician. He is the former owner of Chelsea F.C., Chelsea, a Premier League football club in London, England, and is the primary owner of the private investment com ...

withdrew funding from the

Tolyatti Tolyatti or Togliatti ( , ; , ), known before 1964 as Stavropol, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Samara Oblast, Russia. It is the largest city in Russia which is neither the administrative center of a federal subjects of Rus ...

-based centre, Zlobin moved to

CSKA Moscow CSKA Moscow () is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. It was created in 1911 in the Russian Empire on base of OLLS (Skiing Society, founded 1901). Later, during the Soviet Union, Soviet era, it was the central part of the Armed Forces (sports ...

. Though second choice to Ilya Pomazun, he won all five league games he played (conceding only one goal) and defeated

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...

in the

UEFA Youth League The UEFA Youth League is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2013. In its current format, it is contested by the under-19 teams of the clubs competing in the UEFA Champions Le ...

. Injuries removed him from play in early 2015. Zlobin joined Portuguese club União de Leiria in October 2015, aged 18. He was one of several Eastern European players transferred to the club by agent and investor Alexander Tolstikov.

Benfica

In January 2016, Zlobin was loaned out to Benfica, where he played for their under-19 team before signing a permanent five-year contract on 25 June that year. On 28 November, he made his professional debut with the

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players who are under contract to a club but who do not regularly play in matches for the club's primary team. Reserve teams usually include players who are part of the larger first-team squad but ...

as a starter in a 1–0 home loss to

Fafe Fafe (), officially the City of Fafe (), is a city and municipality in the northern Portuguese district of Braga. The population in 2021 was 48,502, in an area of approximately . The city itself had a population of 15,703 in 2011. The present ma ...

LigaPro The Liga Portugal 2 (), also known as Liga Portugal Meu Super for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division of the Portuguese football league system. At the end of each season, the two top-finishing teams are promoted to the top-tier ...

. In his first season, he was second-choice to André Ferreira, but still trained with the first team, where manager Rui Vitória likened him to Lev Yashin. On 29 January 2019, Zlobin was called to the bench for Benfica's 5–1 home

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

win over Boavista, as regular back-up Mile Svilar was injured. Three days later he was promoted to the club's main team, alongside three other reserve players. He made his first-team debut in a goalless home draw to Vitória de Guimarães in the

Taça da Liga The Taça da Liga (), known outside Portugal as Portuguese League Cup, is an annual club football competition organised by the Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (LPFP) for teams competing in the top two tiers of Portuguese football – the ...

on 25 September.

Famalicão

Zlobin signed for fellow top-flight club Famalicão on 22 August 2020, on a five-year deal. He made his debut in the season opener on 18 September, a 5–1 home loss to his previous club. Brazilian Luiz Júnior then took his place as the starting goalkeeper. On 26 February 2022, two days after the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, Zlobin posed for photographs at the '' Estádio Municipal 22 de Junho'' in

Vila Nova de Famalicão Vila Nova de Famalicão (), also known as Famalicão, is a Portuguese town in the Braga District and the sub-region of Ave (intermunicipal community), Vale do Ave. The population of ''Vila Nova'' was created in 1205 with the charter given by the K ...

with a Ukrainian fan and the

flag of Ukraine The national flag of Ukraine (, ) consists of equally sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow. The blue and yellow bicolor flag was first seen during the 1848 Spring of Nations in Lemberg (Lviv), the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lo ...

Honours

Benfica *

Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira The Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira (; English: Cândido de Oliveira Super Cup, or simply Portuguese Super Cup) is an annual Portuguese association football, football match played since 1979 between the winners of the top-tier league (Primeira L ...

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

Benfica 5-0 Sporting Lisbon
Soccerway

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zlobin, Ivan 1997 births Living people Footballers from Tyumen Russian men's footballers Men's association football goalkeepers PFC CSKA Moscow players U.D. Leiria players Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players S.L. Benfica B players S.L. Benfica footballers F.C. Famalicão players Russia men's youth international footballers Russian expatriate men's footballers Russian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal 21st-century Russian sportsmen