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I will focus on the Soviet aspect of football, because that is what is most accessible to me (resource & language wise), but I hope people from Spain, from Holland, from Hungary, from Brazil, from England, etc. will do the same. Because modern football is a hybrid of all of these progressions.

More talking later, for now just brief:

-Viktor Maslov introduced pressing in the 60s, and seeing Brazil's introduction of 4-2-4 at the 1958 World Cup, he introduced use of 4-4-2 and "Total Football", several years before Johan Cryuff.

-Maslov became a mentor to Valery Lobanovsky (who as a player pioneered "bending" the ball), which helped Lobanovsky became one of the most influential managers in history

-Lobanovsky's assistant coach at Dynamo Kiev was Yuri Morozov, who's final job was in Saint Petersburg. Before his death, he recognized a 20 year old player in the reserve team and gave this player, named Andrei Arshavin, his first chance in the Zenit first team during an Intertoto Cup game in England.

-Lobanovsky died in 2002 just days before the 2002 World Cup, this was reported on the news in many languages. His good friend Morozov died a year later.

*Link to Zenit-Real (CL leg 1) below*