In 1968 Mr Besov, founded the Smena football school, (which later became the Zenit Academy) and for 37 years was its director. Under his leadership players as Oleg Salenko, Dmitry Radchenko, Vladislav Radimov, Vyacheslav Malafeev, Igor Denisov, Vladimir Bystrov, Andrei Arshavin and many others all became great players.

Dmitry Nikolaevich, we cannot express our gratitude enough for all you have done for our club and for Russian football, we wish you many more years of life and the best of health!

Every year we will continue to play the Dmitri Besov Cup in your honour! Happy birthday!