Nastya

Yury Zharov has gone from an unknown athlete to a man whose name is heard beyond the country’s borders. But the higher the stakes, the less room there is for error. In the third book of the series, the game finally goes beyond sports — now it is played against the backdrop of world politics, war, and decisions on which the future of entire nations depends.

The early 1950s. International trips, the Korean War, exhibition matches concealing intelligence work, pressure from allies, and fear of a new weapon capable of changing the course of history. The football stadium becomes a stage for the great game of the powers, and the athletes become pawns forced to smile under the gaze of others’ interests.

In Zharov’s life, Nastya appears — a feeling that cannot be entered into any report or directive. She becomes both his support and his most vulnerable point at the same time. When an atomic mushroom cloud erupts over Pyongyang, and the Soviet football team survives by a miracle, the hero clearly understands: the familiar world is over, and it is no longer possible to pretend that this is just a game.

“Nastya” — the third book in the “Forwarding Goalkeeper” series — is a novel about love and responsibility, about a person caught between sport and war, about the moment when a personal choice collides with catastrophe on a global scale. The story reaches the point after which there is no way back.