Vitaliy Denisov

Vitaliy Gennadyevich Denisov was born on 23 February 1987 in Tashkent. He is an Uzbek and Russian defender who came through the Pakhtakor youth school, finished his football education at Moscow's Akademika and signed for CSKA Moscow in 2003. Although he did not play in a match, CSKA won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and Denisov became the first Uzbek footballer to win a European cup; he also won the Russian Cup (2004-05, 2005-06). In 2006 he was loaned to Spartak Nizhny Novgorod.

In 2007 he joined Ukraine's Dnipro and made over 160 appearances up to 2012-13. In January 2013 he signed for Lokomotiv Moscow, winning the Russian Premier League (2017-18) and the Russian Cup (2014-15, 2016-17); he was named the Premier League's best left-back for 2013-14 and appeared several times on its list of the 33 best players. He then played for Krylia Sovetov (2018, loan), Rubin Kazan (2019), Rotor Volgograd and Tom Tomsk (2020) and Baltika Kaliningrad (2021). He returned to Uzbekistan in 2022 with Sogdiana, played for AGMK in 2023 and joined Bukhara in January 2024.

He debuted for Uzbekistan on 22 February 2006 in a 5-0 win over Bangladesh, played four games at each of the 2007 and 2015 AFC Asian Cups and, as of January 2019, had 72 caps and one goal. He was named Uzbekistan Footballer of the Year in 2013.