Oleg Salenko graduated from Smena Olympic Reserve Sports School in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. He was a very promising player, but got a chance to shine only in a single tournament.

He was the top scorer at the 1994 World Cup (together with Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoichkov) and holds the record for the number of goals scored in a single match. He scored one goal against Sweden and five against Cameroon. Another unique feature of this record is that Salenko was the only best World Cup scorer who played for a team that did not make it into the knock-out stage.

Salenko could have never played for Russia’s national team. After all, his father was Ukrainian, and after 1992 Salenko even appeared in the first match of the Ukrainian national team as a captain. However, FIFA did not recognize Ukraine’s match against Hungary as an official encounter, which enabled Salenko to play for Russia’s national team, going on to make eight appearances on its national team. Unfortunately, the match against Cameroon was the last time he played for the national team.