Slutsk national football team coach biography. Leonid Slutsky became the first Russian coach in England. What did Vitesse say?

Where they truly love football and know how to take care of it. This is true, without any hints. During his contract with CSKA, Slutsky communicated with dozens of foreigners - from Brazilians to Ivorians. Naturally, Leonid Viktorovich also found a common language with Europeans without any problems. So Slutsky should not have any particular difficulties in Europe - he is a sociable person, of a European mindset and always ready to learn.

Apparently, the owner of the Dutch Vitesse, a citizen of the Russian Federation, thinks the same Alexander Chigirinsky. The Russian media have been actively discussing this team’s interest in Slutsky lately. An average club in a quality championship, where passivity in attack is equated to a mortal sin. Why not start a European career in relatively calm conditions?

Championship team head coach

This is the first English league, in case anyone doesn't know. “I would be extremely interested in trying my hand at a foreign club if someone needs me. But the thing is this: the leading clubs, naturally, are not interested in me. And teams of a lower level will not even apply, since CSKA constantly plays in the Champions League and its coach seems unattainable to them. But, in general, I’m ready for the English Championship,” Slutsky’s words dated last summer.

Now there is also information that some Championship clubs are interested in Leonid Viktorovich. And it doesn’t matter which team. There is no need to be ashamed of the English First Division - its level is not much inferior to the Russian one, and just one successful year, and you are a participant in the best league in the world. nuclear submarine

It’s not for nothing that, say, a Champions League winner works in the Championship Rafael Benitez. If he does it himself, then why not Slutsky enter the Championship?

Slutsky does not need to be shy about the English first division.

Head coach of the Premier League team

And why, in fact, not. No one is saying that tomorrow, at the same time, Chelsea and Manchester City will be kicked out. Conte With Guardiola to argue for Slutsky. It is clear that the English top clubs do not need a Russian coach. Except for internships.

However, teams from the bottom of the table may turn their attention to Slutsky. He is quite well known in Europe - no matter how sarcastically some fans talk about CSKA's game in the Champions League, Slutsky, for example, beat Manchester City away. And almost beat Manchester United at Old Trafford.

English functionaries remember such things and never forget them. Of course, the appointment of Slutsky to a conditional “Watford” or “Middlebrough” will become a sensation. But there is nothing impossible about this - after all, in the Premier League there is now a boom in coaches from all over the planet. And, by the way, the same Middlesbrough held a training camp in... Marbella in the winter. Playing on the same fields as CSKA. If also by other representatives of Middlesbrough, what prevented Slutsky from establishing contact?

The Russian national team is an average team, we need to understand this a long time ago.

Head coach of the national team

Not Russia. Slutsky is also an extremely ambitious person. And the wound left after Euro 2016 will probably bother him more than once. Something like this is simply not forgotten in six months. Slutsky himself said that he is a club coach, and his work with the Russian national team partly proved this. Plus, Leonid Viktorovich admitted that some things that were effective in CSKA did not bring success in the national team.

I can’t believe that Slutsky is not at all interested in proving to himself: “I can coach the national team. Train successfully." The Russian national team is an average team, we need to understand this a long time ago. Therefore, the options with, say, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia are no worse than the domestic one. And in many ways it’s better. Especially if Slutsky is offered calm, systematic work with the national team. The whole cycle, several years, and not an urgent rescue operation for Russia Euro 2016.

Captain of the KVN team

Leonid Viktorovich is a multifaceted person. He loves football, but he is not only interested in how to deliver the ball into the goal. But also many other things in life. For example, he loves KVN - he has watched it hundreds of times (including live), sat on the jury and himself showed a little of his humorous skills.

After working as the head coach, Slutsky will not be able to be just a KVN player.

Now there will be time to do this not only occasionally. And it’s quite complete. Well, Slutsky knows how to speak, knows how to joke, knows how to make people listen to him. Hardly any stage fright. Therefore, Leonid Viktorovich has all the skills to participate in KVN. But after working as a head coach, he can hardly be just a team player. But reflecting on the tactics of performances and the quick transition from home to stage is Slutsky’s calling.

Leonid Slutsky is a coach and, for a very short period, a football player who represented first the USSR and then Russia. He is still quite young for a coach - he was only 45 years old. When Slutsky was a football player, he played as a goalkeeper. Slutsky is a coach who is one of the most famous in Russia.

Brief career as a football player

Slutsky is a coach known to every person in Russia, but how many people remember him as a player? Most likely, practically no one, and there are reasons for this. The fact is that Leonid’s career did not work out at all due to a domestic injury. He was born on May 4, 1971 in the city of Volgograd in the Soviet Union and began playing sports while still in school. As a result, he ended up in the sports academy of the newly formed Zvezda club from Gorodishche. There he worked until 1989, when he was offered professional contract- after all, Slutsky was already eighteen years old. He quickly began to get into shape, got into the starting lineup and even played 13 matches in professional level, when a career-fatal incident occurred. Leonid's neighbor asked him to remove a scared cat from a tree, and the boy could not refuse. However, it all ended disastrously - a branch broke off near Slutsky, he tried to grab another, which also broke off. As a result, he landed on his knee, falling from the height of the third floor. At that time, medicine could not do much about it, and Leonid’s career came to an end. Doctors said that he would not be able to bend his leg at all, but persistence young man allowed him to slowly and painfully develop the leg so that it could be used further. Naturally, he could no longer be a player, but he set himself a goal - to become a coach. It is in this role that Slutsky is known to everyone - he turned out to be a very good coach.

Beginning a coaching career

How was Coach Slutsky born? The biography of a football player fits in one paragraph, but the biography of a coach is much more impressive. When Leonid was 29 years old, he began to practice coaching activities. His first place of work was the modest Olimpia from his native Volgograd, where he got a job as a youth coach, but it quickly became clear that Slutsky was capable of more. Therefore, he worked there for the entire year 2000, and then began to obtain a professional license. As a result, by January 2002 he was eligible to coach professional clubs - and thus began his road to the top.

"Uralan"

The first club that Slutsky coached was Uralan, but even there he did not immediately begin full-fledged activities. First, he was appointed coach of the club's youth team, and he worked in this position for almost two years - in October 2003, the current coach of the club was fired, and Slutsky was given a chance. He took over the team and coached it until the summer of 2004 - during this time, Uralan, unfortunately, did not improve much. In 25 matches under the leadership of Slutsky, the club played 24 matches, of which only six were won. 23 points in 24 games was far from the most impressive figure, so Leonid moved to another club, namely Moscow.

Transfer to Moscow

Naturally, Slutsky did not immediately receive the position of head coach: during his first season at the club, he coached the Moscow reserve team, but in the summer of 2005 he was promoted to the position of head coach. He has been at the helm of this club longer - a little more than two years. During this time, he managed to achieve impressive results: out of 95 matches, he managed to win 44, which was the beginning of his ascent to the top. This result was the best not only for Slutsky, but also for Moscow, which qualified for the Eurocups for the first time in history. However, long before the end of the season, the club's management decided to terminate the contract with the coach for unknown reasons. Therefore, in the winter of 2007, Slutsky was forced to look for a new place of work.

The new club with which Leonid Slutsky signed a contract in December 2007 was Krylya Sovetov - this is the first team that the coach led immediately, without starting with a double. Slutsky's results here were not as impressive as in Moscow, but still quite impressive - in 22 of 59 matches they won, and the club managed to qualify for the Europa League. After two years at the club, Slutsky wrote a letter of resignation in October 2009. It was then that information began to appear in the press that Leonid Slutsky was the coach of CSKA. Within a couple of weeks it became clear that this was true.

Top career

So, in October 2009, Leonid Slutsky once again changed his club registration. The CSKA coach, as soon as he was appointed to his position, immediately set the highest goals for himself and his players. In his first season, he took second place in the Russian Championship, in the second he won the Russian Cup, in the third he took third place in the championship, and only in his fourth year at the helm of the club was he able to win the Russian Championship. In the same year, the club won the Cup, and in 2014 and 2016 it repeated its achievements, winning two more national championships. However, the 2016/17 season did not start very well for the coach, and in December 2016 he voluntarily left his post. But it is worth paying attention to the fact that for some period of time he coached not only CSKA. Who else was Slutsky? Coach of the Russian national team!

Coaching activities in the national team

In the summer of 2015, the Russian Football Union invited the current CSKA coach to the position of head coach of the national team. Slutsky is the coach of the Russian national team! This was sensational news. He managed to achieve a lot with CSKA, so there were high hopes for the team’s performances. The goal was a trip to the European Championship 2016, and Slutsky was able to take the team there. The national team coach structured the game well. However, at the tournament itself everything went downhill. And Leonid Slutsky could not control this. The Russian coach made every effort to somehow force his players to show at least some class, but all attempts ended in failure. The team drew the first match with the British, which was a very good result, but this was followed by a defeat from the Slovak team with a score of 1:2. The match with Wales was decisive, and the Russians could have clinched their way out of the group if they had won. But the result was the opposite - they lost, devastatingly, with a score of 0:3. As a result, the team scored only one point in three matches and was eliminated from the tournament, and Slutsky immediately resigned. As a result, he played only 13 matches with the national team: 4 qualifying matches for the European Championship, 6 friendlies in preparation for the tournament, as well as three directly at the 2016 European Championship. On this moment Leonid Slutsky does not have a contract with any of the clubs.

Personal life

As for his personal life, Slutsky has a half-brother Dmitry. He also has a wife, Irina, with whom they had a son in 2008.

Leonid Slutsky played football from the third grade at the Spartak stadium football school. After graduating from school, he entered the Volgograd State Institute physical culture and at the same time began playing as a goalkeeper in the newly created Zvezda team from Gorodishche, but after playing only 13 matches, he received a domestic injury, after which he was unable to return to big-time football.

Coaching career

After graduating from the institute with honors, Slutsky entered graduate school. At the same time, in 1993, he began coaching career, training with a group of 12-year-old football players at the Volgograd Olympia. In this team he raised such famous football players as Roman Adamov, Denis Kolodin, Andrey Bochkov and Maxim Burchenko. In 2001, then Main coach Elista "Uralan" Sergei Pavlov invited him to lead the team's backup team. In 2003, after Uralan was relegated from the Premier Division, he replaced Igor Shalimov as head coach of the club. After the disbandment of Uralan, Slutsky was offered the position of coach of the Moscow reserve team.

In July 2005, he replaced Valery Petrakov as coach of the main team of FC Moscow. In the 2007 season the club last round claimed the first championship medals in its history and reached the final of the National Cup, but at the end of the championship the club’s management terminated the contract valid until 2010, which was decided a few days before, regardless of the final result. In November 2007, after a change of ownership and entire management in the Krylya Sovetov club from Samara, it became known that Slutsky would be the new head coach of the Samara team, replacing Alexander Tarkhanov in this post. On December 21, Leonid Slutsky signed a three-year contract with Krylia. Having assembled in Samara almost from scratch new team, Leonid Slutsky achieved 6th place in the Russian Championship with her in the first season. On October 9, 2009, Leonid Viktorovich wrote a letter of resignation from Krylia of his own free will. It was accepted by the club president Igor Zavyalov.

On October 26, 2009, he was appointed head coach of CSKA, the contract was signed under a 3+2 year scheme.

He made his debut as the head coach of CSKA four days after his appointment - on October 30, as part of the 27th round of the 2009 Russian Football Championship, the army club hosted Terek Grozny and won with a score of 1:0. Then in the Champions League, CSKA played Manchester United at Old Trafford, the game ended in an epic 3:3 draw. In the championship, CSKA lost 0:2 to Rubin, which soon won the championship; then the army team beat Spartak in the derby (3:2). Then, in the Champions League at Luzhniki, the army team defeated Wolfsburg with a score of 2:1. Under Slutsky, CSKA won the final matches of both tournaments - in the Russian Championship they beat Saturn with a score of 3:0, and in the most important match of the 6th round of the Champions League in Istanbul they beat Besiktas with a score of 1:2, this is a loss “ Wolfsburg "Manchester United" allowed the army team to reach the playoffs of the tournament for the first time in their history.

By the time Slutsky was appointed as head coach of CSKA, the army team had seven final matches of the season left to play - four in the Championship and three in the Champions League. There were three victories in the championship (including a derby over Spartak) and one defeat (from Rubin), which allowed CSKA to take 5th place and get a place in the Europa League for the next season.

Best of the day

Coach Leonid Slutsky is a significant and authoritative figure in football. As a sports mentor, only the lazy did not criticize him. He himself claims that he has long been accustomed to the attacks and ridicule to which he was subjected for his professional steps and even his appearance (due to his excess weight, Leonid was nicknamed Behemoth).

On the field and in the locker room, Slutsky proceeded from the fact that neither the coach nor his teammates were of interest to the player. For a football player, the first place was, is and will be his own career, personal success. The coach's task is to identify the athlete's strengths, increase his efficiency and fit him into the game schemes with maximum effectiveness.

Childhood and youth

Leonid Viktorovich was born in the Volgograd maternity hospital on May 4, 1971. The parents were happy about the appearance of their son, but soon tragedy struck. When Lena was 6 years old, his father, a master of sports in boxing, died. A number of sources attribute Jewish roots to the head of the family, Viktor Borisovich, but do not provide evidence of this. The question about the nationality of the coach arose when Slutsky was in the company and appeared in a commercial for the Jewish cultural center.

The boy grew up with his mother, who worked as a teacher in kindergarten, and then began to manage it preschool. Lenya grew up as a sympathetic and kind child. He is like all children Soviet Union, went to school, and from the 3rd grade was enrolled in the football section of the Spartak stadium.

After receiving the certificate of completion high school Leonid Slutsky continued his education at the State Institute of Physical Culture in Volgograd. Simultaneously with his studies at a higher institution, Leonid became a player-goalkeeper in the youth team. football team"Star" from Gorodishchi.

In his youth, the athlete showed promise, but everything was cut short one autumn day. Responsiveness and kindness played a cruel joke on Leonid. Having decided to help a neighbor get a pet cat from a poplar tree, Slutsky put an end to his playing career. The tree branches couldn't stand it young football player, and instead of training, he ended up in a hospital bed with fractures and a concussion. The treatment lasted a whole year. Leonid Slutsky was able to develop knee-joint, but the goalkeeper's career is over.

Coaching career

Leonid Viktorovich Slutsky was an excellent student, graduating from the Institute of Physical Education with honors. After that, he continued his education in graduate school, starting parallel coaching activities. He was 22 years old when he recruited 12-year-old boys into his Olympia team who dreamed of becoming famous football players. Under the leadership of Slutsky, Olimpia Volgograd won the Russian Cup by 1999, getting a chance to play in the second division.

Since 2001, Leonid began coaching football players playing in the reserve team of Uralan from Elista. After the collapse of the Elista club, Leonid Viktorovich took a coaching position in the second team football club"Moscow". He didn't have to train the double team for long. Already in 2005, the man became the mentor of the main team.

Such cooperation with the Moscow club lasted 2 years, although the players could get a prize-winning place in the Russian Cup. At that time, FC Moscow remained in 4th place and got the opportunity to play in the UEFA Cup.

Despite all the team’s achievements, Leonid Viktorovich Slutsky was fired from his position, prematurely terminating the contract that was signed before 2010.

The man was not left without a job; he was offered to become the head coach of the Samara “Wings of the Soviets”. The contract was signed for 3 years, but even here there were frictions and misunderstandings. Although the club played with good results, Leonid Viktorovich still had to leave after 2 years, writing a letter of resignation of his own free will.

Becomes a coach since 2009 professional club CSKA. Under his leadership, the athletes reached the playoffs of the Champions League, and in 2011 they won the championship, taking the Russian Cup for the 6th time. This award became the first trophy for coach Slutsky.

Nowadays, few people remember that the appointment of the head of the army coaching staff was opposed by a fan named Malikov, who imagined himself to be a privileged fan only because he had once transferred 3 million rubles to a children’s school. This man came to the club’s management and stated that in the event of at least some victory, CSKA, led by Slutsky, would buy a hippopotamus for the Moscow Zoo and would take care of it in the future. As soon as the team won the title, the fan disappeared, “technically jumped off.”

In August 2015, Slutsky was entrusted with coaching the Russian national team players, while leaving the opportunity to train CSKA Moscow. After the failure at Euro 2016, Leonid Slutsky announced his desire to leave the post of head coach of the Russian national team.

In an interview with one sports publication, the coach of the champions said that by the mid-2000s he had changed his attitude towards his players. Behind sports biography Slutsky derived 2 coaching postulates - managing people and football itself.

“I don’t try to educate or set ephemeral goals, I don’t go into the humanitarian aspect. Everything is quite simple - I must achieve discipline, fulfillment of my demands. Compared to me 10 years ago, I have become a more cynical coach, more demanding, not once again explaining my decisions. It’s much more interesting to me what kind of relationships the players have with each other than how they treat me.”

In 2017, Leonid Viktorovich moved to Foggy Albion and took on the British club Hull City. The Russian coach had to learn English language, but apparently not so well, because in a conversation with Dutch reporters he mixed up the words sack and suck.

If the first is translated as a harmless “fire”, then the second sounded obscene in that context. At the same time, Slutsky’s clause caused a stir only in Russian media, Leonid’s entourage did not understand what they were talking about at all.

The coach remembered the English period in his career because he had to work with a team from which players left almost every day. In fact, Slutsky spent the preseason with one squad, the start of the national championship was held with the second, and by the 5th round a third was formed. The hopes of coaches and owners for performance were not justified: Leonid left the club when it occupied 20th of 24 lines in the Championship. The contract was terminated by mutual consent.

Slutsky arrived in the Netherlands in mid-2018 to coach the local Vitesse. In England, the coach was supported by a businessman, in his new place of work - the owner of the team, oil tycoon and developer Shalva Chigirinsky, who bought the club from Merab Jordania, well known to football fans of the USSR times. According to rumors, Abramovich was the true owner of Vitesse.

A television

The life of Leonid Viktorovich is not monotonous. He is interested in more than just sports. His hobbies concern the Club of the Cheerful and Resourceful and the television comedy show “Good Jokes.”

The man played for the Volgograd team “Third Sons”, took part in the games Major League KVN, acting as not only a coach, but also a dancer and musician. Leonid Slutsky cannot imagine his life without sports or humor.

In 2017, the coach made his debut in the role sports commentator, when he led the match of the quarter final of the Champions League together with Nobel Arustamyan.

Personal life

Leonid Slutsky’s personal life took shape at the age of 32, when he got married to Irina. The wife is a philosopher by training and, probably, therefore was sympathetic to the constant absence of her husband. During her husband’s rare visits, Ira provided him with complete rest; as the media wrote, Leonid did nothing with his hands at home.

Son Dmitry, born in 2005, does not share his father’s passion for sports. The guy, according to his grandmother, dreamed of becoming a scientist in order to come up with a cure for the cancer from which his grandfather died. As I grew up, I became interested in rap.

In 2014, in photos published in the press, Slutsky appeared significantly thinner. He said that he lost 13 kg with the help of a protein-vegetable diet and swimming. However, the man, whose height is 181 cm, did not specify at what point the scale arrow stopped.

Leonid Slutsky now

Leonid Slutsky's contract with Vitesse runs until the end of 2020. When the new coach arrived, the team was in 6th place in the national championship. The club's management was attracted to the Russian specialist by his tactical ingenuity, individual style and attention to detail in “growing” football players.

In Arnhem, where Vitesse is stationed, Leonid met former player CSKA Vyacheslav Karavaev. 7 thousand spectators gathered for the first training session of the first Russian coach in Dutch football. Coincidentally or not, in the fall of 2018 the club began selling earflap hats with its own symbols. Slutsky began with innovations: he made it free to attend meals, every day he began to spend 2 training sessions, although the players were afraid that they would not survive, from games outside the country, athletes were allowed to return directly home, and not to the base.

The scale of the Dutch team, of course, is not comparable to the army team. According to the site ransfermarkt.de, the total cost of Vitesse's core players was €27.3 million, and the CSKA squad was estimated at €101.68 million. Even Hull City was more expensive - €65.3 million.

Leonid Viktorovich noted high level national championship and expressed hope that the players will compete for 3rd place in standings. At the break in the 2018-2019 season, the “yellow-blacks” left 5th position.

Slutsky dreams of staying in the Netherlands for 10 years. The coach gave up the mansion and lives in a modest apartment, the neighbors are pensioners, and the family remains in Moscow. The company car was provided by the sponsor - the Audi automobile concern. Attempts to learn the language ended after a couple of lessons, “English is enough to convey all my thoughts to the players, colleagues on the staff, management, and fans.” Leonid especially enjoys the opportunity to ride his bike everywhere.

In the first days of 2019, Leonid Viktorovich was joined in the role of assistants, tentatively until the end of the season, by those who had completed their careers as players of CSKA and the Russian national team. In addition, the coach intends to strengthen the Vitesse squad with Spartak player Jano Anannidze, whose performance in the Russian Championship Slutsky is well aware of.

He has something to tell those who are just beginning to comprehend the basics of their profession - students. “AiF” visited Moscow State University and listened to “coaching instructions” Slutsky for young people.

About funny plans and football friendship

There is a famous phrase: if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. But, if we talk about the coaching profession, it’s even three times funnier. In an instant you can turn into anyone, go both up and down. The coach is always a hostage to the situation. Let me give you an example. Remember, that year in the Champions League there was a confrontation between Barcelona and PSG. In the first match - a major victory for PSG (4:0), in return match PSG conceded a large number of goals 6 minutes before the end of the match (lost 1:6). I was looking at PSG coach Emery. It was the same Emery as yesterday - the same level of skill, ambition, ability. But the score changed - and the attitude towards this man, who simply stood in the technical area and did not have the opportunity to control the game, changed; he had already made all the substitutions. 6 minutes turned everything upside down: here he is - a hero, basking in the rays of glory, who beats Barcelona and can win the Champions League, and here he is - an outcast whom everyone hates... That's why I never think about tomorrow, the next day step, long career. I just try to give the maximum amount of energy to the place where I work today.

The main goal of a coach is results. What kind of atmosphere there will be in the team is sometimes not so important. There are great teams where the players didn’t even greet each other, but that didn’t stop them from achieving victories. When it comes to truly professional people, they will be killed on the field in any case. Maybe not so much for my teammates, but for myself.

The higher the level of ambition of the team, the more difficult it is to manage the team outside of professional activities. So, in 7 years of working at CSKA, we have never gathered in full force - be it a wedding, a birthday, or even a banquet on the occasion of the championship. The situation is similar in England. Everything about the work is super, there is not a single complaint. But to get together outside of work... Although I'm not sure that's necessary. There is no need to unite the ununitable, to force people to be friends different generations, different countries, different religions. They just have to solve joint problems on the field. My task as a coach is to create a microclimate within which football players could realize themselves, grow, and not be afraid to perform any actions, understanding that they have the right to make mistakes.

About England and new work

England is the birthplace of football, and everything connected with it is actually a religion there. Moreover, if the British can make cynical jokes on a religious topic, I have never heard such jokes on the topic of football.

One day we decided to play with the Hull City support staff, and an amazing thing was discovered: the doctors, physiotherapists, and media representatives - they all know how to play football. It is a compulsory subject at school and every English boy dreams of becoming a footballer. And those who didn’t succeed have great respect for those who succeeded, who turned out to have more abilities, desire, hard work, etc., that is, those who play football professionally - players, coaches. That is why they even go to support fourth division teams. And I really hope that we will get to this point.

Vitesse has a historical relationship with Chelsea. (Slutsky will start working at Vitesse in the summer of 2018; the coach has repeatedly emphasized that the owner of Chelsea Roman Abramovich I've been helping him lately. - Ed.) But Vitesse is an independent club that has its own owner (in 2013, shares of the Dutch club were bought by a businessman Chigirinsky- an old acquaintance of Abramovich. - Ed.). Yes, the current Vitesse has 3 players in the starting lineup, loaned from Chelsea. However, Chelsea has more than 40 players playing on loan - both in England and in other European championships. Because these players simply cannot get into the main squad. This only says that Chelsea is a huge football machine that works productively. I think it’s unlikely that Roman Arkadyevich will call me and insist that Vitesse take a player.

About your own school and lost talents

More than a year ago I opened a football school in Volgograd, which I finance entirely at my own expense. 250 boys have excellent conditions for playing football, and qualified coaches work there. By the way, they are all my students from the Volgograd Olympia. I think in this way I give back to the city that raised me as a coach.

Very few children's football schools in the country. Previously, we moved from mass production to quality, but this has been lost. And the main task of our football leaders is to ensure that as many children as possible have conditions for training - fields, arenas, etc. It’s not even about raising professional players. It is important that any of our children have the opportunity to play sports - no matter what: football, skiing, figure skating.

Another serious topic is the very large loss of talented youth. The youth team (under 17 years old) twice became European champion (under the leadership of Kolyvanova- in 2006 and under the leadership Khomukhi- in 2013). Only a few of these players were able to achieve something later, in particular - Alexander-Golovin. Cause? Look, in many European countries, regular competitions for young men continue until the age of 23, but in our country they essentially end at the age of 17, when the guys graduate from football schools. That is, 17-year-olds must either compete in teams with adult football players or be sent to the reserve squads of Premier League clubs. This is where a lot of talented guys disappear.

Whether it’s CSKA, whether it’s the national team - unfortunately or fortunately, there are people who today are much deeper into this topic. There are active coaches there who make decisions and are responsible for them. We all, of course, can have our own thoughts on any issue - who should be included in the team, who should not, etc. But you know, it’s very easy to have your own point of view when you’re not responsible for anything. Therefore, I will refrain from commenting. I’ll just say that the national team must be supported regardless of whether they play in defense brothers Berezutsky and Ignashevich or Kutepov and Kudryashov.