Sergei Gerasimets is a football player. Sergei Gerasimets: “Berdyev, like Lobanovsky, is a great organizer. — Why did you choose Shakhtar?

Club

Pupil of the “Young Dynamo” school (Kyiv). He ended up in Dynamo (Kyiv) under Lobanovsky, but became a reserve player under Yuri Morozov. Being in the Kiev team, he became friends with many football players. Among them was Grigory Pasechny, who died tragically in 1983. After two years in the reserve team, he was transferred to the subsidiary team from the city of Irpen. Viktor Kanevsky, who was working with the team at that time, allowed the football player to open up and allowed him to play technical football. In 1986 he accepted the invitation and moved to Shakhtar (Donetsk). He left Donetsk without working well with Anatoly Konkov. After some time, Mikhail Fomenko called him to Lanchkhuti. He wrote an application to move to Guria, but warned: if there is an offer from the major leagues, he will go there. Soon such an offer came from Dynamo (Minsk), where he moved. He also played for Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv (1994-1996), Baltika Kaliningrad (1997), Zenit St. Petersburg (1997-1999), Zalgiris Kaunas (1999), Dynamo Stroyimpuls St. -Petersburg (2000), “Torpedo-MAZ” Minsk (2001-2002).

In the national team

After the collapse of the USSR, he accepted the invitation of Mikhail Vergeenko and began to play for the Belarusian national team. He played 26 games for the national team and scored 7 goals. One of them was against Edwin Van der Sar in a qualifying match against the Dutch national team in 1995.

Coaching

As a head coach, he led the teams Severstal Cherepovets (2004) and Okzhetpes Kokshetau, Kazakhstan (2006, 2009-2010). He assisted Anatoly Byshovets in Tomsk Tomsk (2006) and Moscow Lokomotiv (2007). In the fall of 2008, he signed a contract with Dynamo (St. Petersburg), where he helped Eduard Malofeev until 2009. On December 12, 2010, I completed a 240-hour coaching course in Moscow and received a Pro license.

Sergey Grigorievich Gerasimets(October 13, 1965, Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) - Soviet and Belarusian football player of Ukrainian origin, forward; trainer.

Career

Club

Pupil of the “Young Dynamo” school (Kyiv). He ended up in Dynamo Kiev under Lobanovsky, but became a reserve player under Yuri Morozov. After two years in the reserve team, he was transferred to the subsidiary team from the city of Irpen. Viktor Kanevsky, who was working with the team at that time, allowed the football player to open up and allowed him to play technical football. In 1986 he accepted the invitation and moved to Shakhtar Donetsk. He left Donetsk without working with Anatoly Konkov. After some time, Mikhail Fomenko called him to Lanchkhuti. He wrote an application to move to Guria, but warned: if there is an offer from the major leagues, he will go there. Soon such an offer came from Dynamo (Minsk), where he moved.

In 1993 he left to play for Israel for Bnei Yehuda from Tel Aviv. He made his debut on October 30 in a game against Hapoel Tel Aviv. The player's debut was successful - the club won 4-0, and Gerasimets after that became a first-team player.

He also played for Baltika Kaliningrad (1997), Zenit St. Petersburg (1997-1999), Zalgiris Kaunas (1999), Dynamo Stroyimpuls St. Petersburg (2000), Torpedo-MAZ Minsk ( 2001-2002).

In the national team

After the collapse of the USSR, he accepted the invitation of Mikhail Vergeenko and began to play for the Belarusian national team. He played 26 games for the national team and scored 7 goals. One of them was against Edwin Van der Sar in a qualifying match against the Dutch national team in 1995.

Together with Petr Kachuro, we beat seven Dutch players. I received a pass from a partner and actually hit the goal from the corner flag. This goal was recognized as the best in that round of qualifying games.

Sergei Gerasimets: I always loved football more than money. Archived from the original on December 2, 2012.

Coaching

As a head coach, he led the teams Severstal Cherepovets (2004) and Okzhetpes Kokshetau, Kazakhstan (2006, 2009-2010). He assisted Anatoly Byshovets in Tomsk Tomsk (2006) and Moscow Lokomotiv (2007). In the fall of 2008, he signed a contract with Dynamo (St. Petersburg), where he helped Eduard Malofeev until 2009.

On December 12, 2010, I completed a 240-hour coaching course in Moscow and received a Pro license.

Since 2012, he has coached the amateur FC Otradnoye in the city of the same name, Kirov district, Leningrad region.

Since June 2013 - head coach of FC St. Petersburg.

On March 19, 2014, he was appointed to the position of head of children's and youth teams - head of the youth football development program of FC Tosno. He worked as the head coach of the youth team "Tosno" from the championship of the MRO "North-West" and the Leningrad region. On January 31, 2016, the contract with the club was terminated.

Before the 2016 season, he headed the new club “Junior” St. Petersburg, declared in the LFL, MRO “North-West”.

Junior

Job title Main coach Career Club career* 1983-1984 Dynamo (Kyiv) 0 (0) 1984-1986 Dynamo (Irpin) 56 (7) 1986-1988 Shakhtar Donetsk) 50 (4) 1989-1991 Dynamo (Minsk) 47 (8) 1992-1993
  1. REDIRECT Ш:Flag of Belarus (1991-1995) Dynamo (Minsk)
47 (16) 1994-1996 Bnei Yehuda 68 (21) 1997 Baltika 13 (5) 1997-1999 Zenit (St. Petersburg) 49 (9) 1999 Kaunas 5 (2) 2000 Dynamo-Stroyimpuls KFC 2001-2002 Torpedo-MAZ 32 (5) National team** 1992-1999 25 (7) Coaching career 2004 Severstal 2005 Tom trainer 2006 Okzhetpes 2007 Lokomotiv (Moscow) trainer 2008-2009 Dynamo (St. Petersburg) trainer 2009-2010 Okzhetpes 2012-2013 Otradnoye 2013 Peter 2014-2015 Tosno functionary 2014-2015 Tosno-M 2016- Junior

* The number of games and goals for a professional club is counted only for the various national championship leagues.

** Number of games and goals for the national team in official matches.

Sergei Grigorievich Gerasimets(October 13, 1965, Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) - Soviet and Belarusian football player of Ukrainian origin, forward; trainer.

Career

Club

Pupil of the school “Young Dynamo” (Kyiv). He ended up in Dynamo Kiev under Lobanovsky, but became a reserve player under Yuri Morozov. After two years in the reserve team, he was transferred to the subsidiary team from the city of Irpen. Viktor Kanevsky, who was working with the team at that time, allowed the football player to open up and allowed him to play technical football. In 1986 he accepted the invitation and moved to Shakhtar Donetsk. He left Donetsk without working with Anatoly Konkov. After some time, Mikhail Fomenko called him to Lanchkhuti. He wrote an application to move to Guria, but warned: if there is an offer from the major leagues, he will go there. Soon such an offer came from Dynamo (Minsk), where he moved. He also played for Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv (1994-1996), Baltika Kaliningrad (1997), Zenit St. Petersburg (1997-1999), Zalgiris Kaunas (1999), Dynamo Stroyimpuls St. -Petersburg (2000), “Torpedo-MAZ” Minsk (2001-2002).

In the national team

After the collapse of the USSR, he accepted the invitation of Mikhail Vergeenko and began to play for the Belarusian national team. He played 26 games for the national team and scored 7 goals. One of them was against Edwin Van der Sar in a qualifying match against the Dutch national team in 1995.

Together with Petr Kachuro, we beat seven Dutch players. I received a pass from a partner and actually hit the goal from the corner flag. This goal was recognized as the best in that round of qualifying games.

- . .

Coaching

As a head coach, he led the teams Severstal Cherepovets (2004) and Okzhetpes Kokshetau, Kazakhstan (2006, 2009-2010). He assisted Anatoly Byshovets in Tomsk Tomsk (2006) and Moscow Lokomotiv (2007). In the fall of 2008, he signed a contract with Dynamo (St. Petersburg), where he helped Eduard Malofeev until 2009.

On December 12, 2010, I completed a 240-hour coaching course in Moscow and received a Pro license.

Since 2012, he has coached the amateur FC Otradnoye in the city of the same name, Kirovsky district, Leningrad region.

Since June 2013 - head coach of FC "Peter".

On March 19, 2014, he was appointed to the position of head of children's and youth teams - head of the youth football development program of FC Tosno. He worked as the head coach of the youth team "Tosno" from the championship of the MRO "North-West" and the Leningrad region. On January 31, 2016, the contract with the club was terminated.

Before the 2016 season, he headed the new club “Junior” St. Petersburg, declared in the LFL, MRO “North-West”.

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Tales from the “most colorful figure” of the Russian Championship - 1997, a graduate of Dynamo Kyiv, ex-player of the Belarusian national team and Zenit St. Petersburg

What is the school of Soviet football at its best? This is when a player could be forgiven for everything - arguments with the coach, rudeness, even violations of the regime - except for cowardice and indifference on the field, Sergei, a famous former football player and now coach of the PFL club Anzhi-Junior from Zelenodolsk, recalled in an interview with BUSINESS Online Gerasimets. He also talked about how Mutko gave him a washing machine, about the goal against Hiddink’s team, as well as about “Peter”, where money was laundered.

“LOBANOVSKY DID NOT FORGIVE COWARDNESS”

— Sergey Grigorievich, after a not very successful start, many people criticize Rubin Kazan. How do you like the team's performance?

— What is a good team? This is a close-knit team of players and coaching staff. When there is such cohesion, then the result will come. This is exactly the kind of unity that Kurban Berdyev is currently doing at Rubin. Before that, he did a similar thing in Rostov. He is not currently staging some kind of combination game, but is trying to create a single mechanism that would represent the club, the coaching staff and the players.

— Didn’t you cross paths with Berdyev on the field?

- No. But I remember him as a football player. Small stature defensive midfielder. So shaggy and bald at the same time.

- Shaggy and bald at the same time. This is an exact description of the football player Sergei Gerasimets from the 90s.

- That's right, speak up. By the way, Igor Shalimov looked the same. The coaches are all somewhat similar to each other. As for my shaggy hair combined with a receding hairline, in 1997 Sport Express recognized me as “the most colorful figure of the championship.” As for the nickname, in Dynamo Kiev they called me Zolik. Moreover, not only I had such a nickname, but also Andrei Bal.

— You were in the Dynamo Kyiv system during the time of Valery Lobanovsky. What do you remember about him?

— Because he never forgave cowardice on the field. Yura Mikolaenko was in Dynamo’s double, we were called up together for the USSR junior team. Once in a match he jumped twice while avoiding the joints - for this he was sent to serve in a military unit. During the break of the match, we are sitting in the locker room of the Dynamo stadium, the most comfortable stadium in the world, and suddenly we hear footsteps, as a harbinger of an approaching threat. The door opens, Valery Lobanovsky is standing. He never came into our locker room, but here he made an exception. He came in, looked around at everyone and said to our coach Mikhail Fomenko: “Mikolaenko to the unit!”

— In other words, would Lobanovsky also kick out David Beckham, who in the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup left the cut, allowing the Brazilians to carry out a scoring counterattack?

- Yes. Beckham, by jumping up then, punished his entire football nation. If he had gone through the “Lobanovsky school”, in which everything could be forgiven: arguments with the coach, rudeness, even violations of the regime, but not cowardice and indifference, he would not have jumped.

I can call Lobanovsky a great organizer, and on this path there is no one to put him higher. Is it possible that Kurban Berdyev can now compare with him in this field of activity in terms of the level of organization and approach to business.

Kurban Berdyev Photo: Epsilon / gettyimages.ru

“COACHES CALLED THE PEOPLE OF KIEV “MIMA’S BOYS”

— You spoke about violations of the regime. I immediately recall a case that was egregious for the USSR when Dynamo football player Grigory Pasichny died after a fight in a restaurant.

“I wasn’t at the wedding where he was killed, I was only at the funeral.” All Dynamo was there - terrible memories. It was a serious psychological blow to me and our teammates. As for subsequent punishments, I can’t say anything here, since I myself have never been one of the violators of the regime; I tried alcohol when I was closer to 30 years old. For me this issue was not problematic.

— Dynamo graduate Pasichny did not make it into his native team, you were not able to play there, Oleg Taran eventually left for Dnepr. Why were there so few Dynamo school graduates in the main team of their home team?

— Let me start with the fact that the competition when getting into the Dynamo team was fierce. All the best who were in Ukraine were invited to the team. And the best ones had plenty back then. In those years, the USSR national team was ranked second in the world, now Russia has dropped to 63rd place. Remove the limit now, 15 - 20 smart football players with a Russian passport will take to the field for all championship teams. Going back to those times, we staged real battles for survival during our reserve training. But I note that the reserve coaches gave preference to students from other boarding schools, since they themselves were mostly visitors. And we, the people of Kiev, were called “mama’s boys.” How could the same Taran get into the lineup if Oleg Blokhin was there. A little earlier there was Vladimir Onishchenko, then Igor Belanov. At the same time, Taran was, as they say, a wayward, proud footballer, but he found a place for himself in Dnepr and won two championships of the Soviet Union with him.

We had to go through blood, sweat and suffering just to get to the composition of the take. ( Laughs.) I’ll give as an example Lesha Mikhailichenko, who gave entire performances at every match of the reserve team and became a starter at the age of 23. Vasya Rat was in the reserve for 7 years. But Taran did not want to endure it.

— In those years, Soviet teams of your age took part in European home championships twice - U-18 (1984) and U-20 (1985). There were almost no Kyivans in those teams, including you. Why?

— We were involved in the team of Boris Ignatiev with the same Mikolaenko, whom I already mentioned. Then, for some unknown reason, the team was headed by Sergei Mosyagin. Something didn't work out for the guys with him. I remember that on one of the trips to Romania we lost twice. True, the refereeing there was such that our Georgian Soso Chedia slapped the referee in the butt. Nevertheless, the guys had a plan to remove Mosyagin until Ignatiev intervened and calmed the rioters. As for me specifically, I can assume that the coaching staff was not satisfied. Although I was very upset, I still have the jersey of that USSR team at home. But 1984 turned out to be eventful for me: I wasn’t selected for the national team and from the Kyiv reserve team I was sent to the second league, to a farm club, as it would now be called. I was 18 years old at the time, and you can’t imagine how upset I was then.

“KOLOTOV WAS REMEMBERED AS A VERY HUMBLE PERSON”

- Why? You were given a chance to move from the reserves tournament to real men's football, where people earned money.

“I didn’t realize all this then.” We had to move not far, Irpen is a suburb of Kyiv. The team was coached by Viktor Kanevsky, who had a great influence on my future career. If in Kyiv I felt like a cog, I was obliged to follow any instructions, then Kanevsky built the game through me. I saw that I could play in front, sharpen, pass, score, and then he covered the area under me with a defender, and gave me a free hand - create! A year and a half later, I received offers from all Ukrainian major league clubs, including my native Dynamo! Only it invited me last, when I had already reached an agreement with Shakhtar Donetsk.

But I realized all this later. And at the time of the transfer - understand, I was flesh and blood Dynamo. We lived half a kilometer from the Republican Stadium, and my entire childhood was spent there, I was at Dynamo matches, a fan of the team that was the strongest in Europe in the mid-70s. By the way, when I moved to Zelenodolsk, I was very surprised to learn that one of my childhood idols, Viktor Kolotov, was a student of local football. I even played for some time under his leadership: for example, we won the 1986 Spartakiad.

— How do you remember Kolotov?

— Very modest in everyday life: believe me, this is a rare quality that distinguished the idols of our childhood, whom we later had to encounter in life. I even managed to play with him for the Kyiv championship, but he was already finishing, and I was starting my career. On the football field, he was remembered as a very selfless person, with a fighting character; people didn’t just become captains of Dynamo Kyiv in those years.

— Why did you choose Shakhtar?

— It was influenced by the fact that Shakhtar at that time was coached by Oleg Bazilevich, who worked in Kyiv in the mid-70s together with Lobanovsky.

— You played in Shakhtar’s double team with Viktor Onopko. What was he like when he was 17 - 19 years old?

“We were put in the same room when he just moved to Donetsk. Our birthdays are almost on the same day. I saw in him amazing human qualities and great reliability in every sense. This is an ultra-reliable player on whom the coach could rely 100 percent.

Initially, I liked everything about Donetsk, but then Bazilevich was replaced by Anatoly Konkov. It was very sad. As much as he was a great player, I was so disappointed working under his leadership. Konkov was only concerned with himself, drank, walked, but did not work. I considered being under his leadership a waste of time. And I had to leave there without any invitations. It was very difficult in terms of everyday life; I was given a three-room apartment in Donetsk; my first son, Sergei, had just been born. But I gave up on everything and left.

— Meanwhile, you received an offer from the Georgian Guria. The team was looked after by the brother of Eduard Shevardnadze himself. The same Khlus said that he was paid 3 thousand rubles there for matches in the first league.

- That's pretty much how it was. But not with me. When I returned from Donetsk to Kyiv, Mikhail Fomenko, who previously played for Dynamo, and I were invited to a conversation. He took charge of Guria and formed a squad of players he knew who could definitely help in the season. Fomenko explained the football tasks, and said that other people would talk about the rest. Personally, a very fat Georgian drove up to me in a black Volga, who with a great accent began to talk about the conditions: “From two six hundred thousand rubles to three four hundred.” Chocolate, by USSR standards. There were five thousand inhabitants there, and the stadium for 30 thousand was the first purely football stadium in the USSR, without any athletics tracks. In the same Dynamo Minsk, where I eventually went, there was a salary of 250 rubles plus a fifty-kopeck bonus for winning. But I chose Minsk because I set priorities for myself. Then the main thing for me was to play in the major leagues. And at the very last moment I waited for an offer from Eduard Malofeev.

“BYSHOVETS IS THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER”

— Much has been written about Eduard Vasilyevich as a person who “burned hearts with a verb.” Was he already a deeply religious person then?

- Not to the same extent as now. Overall, I think I was lucky in my football life in that I played under two outstanding coaches and then helped them in their coaching work. These are Malofeev, for whom I worked at the headquarters of Dynamo St. Petersburg, and Anatoly Byshovets, for whom I played at Zenit and helped him at the headquarters of Tom and Lokomotiv. I was lucky that I could analyze their philosophy and coaching approaches. Eduard Vasilyevich - yes, he set hearts on fire.

- But he was no longer able to repeat the success of 1982, when he became a champion with Dynamo Minsk.

“It seems to me that he was hampered by a problem that everyone in the football world is well aware of. As a football specialist, I consider Malofeev higher than Lobanovsky, Morozov, and Byshovets, which is why I learned most about the coaching craft from the practice of Eduard Vasilyevich. Byshovets is a great philosopher, a person who has the gift of building relationships with management. Malofeev is a coach, although he was a very weak organizer.

— Your words are indirectly proven by the history of 1986, when Malofeev led the country’s national team to the World Cup, and Lobanovsky took it to Mexico. Was this decision the right one?

- Of course not. What happened should be reproached to our then head of the federation, Vyacheslav Koloskov, who did not defend the working coach. Of course, in the wake of Dynamo Kyiv’s victory in the Cup Winners’ Cup and the invitation of 13 players from there to the national team, there was a temptation to succumb to this replacement. But it was necessary to understand, in my opinion, why the players in the club shine, but in the national team they play neither shaky nor shaky. As a result, the team, which could have reached the final, lost to Belgium in the 1/8 finals.

“But we can also say that, having started coaching at the World Championships, Lobanovsky laid the foundation for the team that came second at the 1988 European Championships. No?

- But I agree with this. It happens in life when today’s defeat, with proper comprehension of it, turns into tomorrow’s victory. But I still support the idea that there should be no revolutions in football. But, alas, Malofeev’s figure was not supported, there was no unity around him, the players who looked brilliant in the club presented a pitiful sight in the ranks of the national team - they returned to the club and again gave enchanting performances. It turns out that the players shared the importance of playing for the club and the national team, although I personally am not a supporter of this approach.

“CHAIRS WERE FLYING IN THE LOCKER ROOM AT BALTIKA”

— You met the collapse of the Union in Minsk.

— It should be noted that I really liked it in Minsk, I settled down there, got an apartment, a car, made friends, felt very comfortable, it’s a wonderful country with sincere people. But I didn’t initially plan to play in the Belarusian championship, because of the level of competition for Dynamo Minsk, whose rivals were several teams from the second league. I began to deal with issues of returning to Kyiv, but we won the Belarusian championship and got a chance to play in the Champions Cup, and our opponents were the famous Werder Bremen, led by Otto Rehhagel. For me this confrontation was very tempting. In the end, I don’t regret not leaving Minsk. We played 1:1 at home, I made an assist for Valya Belkevich, in Germany we lost 2:5, completely different from the game in which, by the way, I scored. The money earned would eventually be spent, but this remains in the memory, this is not forgotten. After this season, I was again invited to Kyiv, but I chose the offer from Israel, leaving for the local Bnei Yehuda. From there I returned to the Russian championship, to Baltika.

— How they were invited at a time when there were no agents, the Internet, cell phones, and people were forgotten quite quickly, disappearing from the social circle.

— Leonid Tkachenko invited me there. Baltika offered very good financial conditions, and the city itself was ready for big football. As proof: we decided to hold a friendly match with Zalgiris Vilnius on March 1st. 30 thousand spectators came to the local stadium! The motto of the team, led by Leonid Tkachenko, was one: “When you enter the field, you die!” Glasses, chairs, and even armchairs were flying around the locker room after the games. By and large, this is the same principle as Lobanovsky’s, only conveyed to the addressee a little differently ( laughs). Nevertheless, we had an amazing team there, an excellent team, they still remember me in Kaliningrad, despite the fact that I played a little more than a dozen matches for Baltika. I am grateful to this city for the opportunity to get on my feet.

“MY GOAL HELPED TO BEAT HIDDINCK’S TEAM”

— You moved to the Russian championship already as a player of the Belarusian national team. How did you get convinced to play for her?

— For me, Ukraine was and remains my homeland, but there were no offers from the football team. Apparently, the football chaos that then consumed our entire world prevented the local leadership from understanding what was happening around them, and it is not customary to apply for the national team on your own. In any case, I could not imagine this. And by that time the Belarusian national team had begun to prepare for its debut official tournament, the Euro 1996 qualifying tournament. I missed the first training camp, hoping for a call from Ukraine, and came to the second because I wanted to play at the international level. Initially, the Belarusian national team was coached by Mikhail Vergeenko. He trusted me, and this is the most important thing for me in a relationship with a coach. 30 matches in the national team in official tournaments is a significant part of my career. Under his leadership, I worked in Dynamo Minsk, then in the national team, and I can call these years some of the best.

— It’s not for nothing that you were recognized as the best football player in Belarus in 1993.

“Back then I was completely enjoying football, and it’s very difficult to come to such a feeling. As for the national team, the most memorable was the 1995 match with the Dutch national team, which was then coached by Guus Hiddink. We won 1:0 at home.

- Thanks to your goal. Did you really hit the goal from such an acute angle then?

- Do you want me to say in 20 years that I made a pass then?! Yes, the angle was sharp, but not zero, just in the dynamics it might have seemed impossible to score. In general, the counterattack turned out to be a sight for sore eyes, we came out of defense after a set piece, and with Pavel Kachuro in two passes we tore apart the Dutch defense. The background to this game is that several leaders of the national team did not come to it, in particular, Sergei Aleynikov, Yuri Shukanov. We had 7 football players from the Belarusian championship in our squad. And they have about the same amount from Ajax, who just won the Champions Cup. Of course, before the game we were all buried in the forecasts. By this time, our team was already coached by Sergei Borovsky, and he is a very strong tactician, and he structured the game competently. The same Mark Overmars was guarded on the flank by Sergei Gurenko, who did not allow the Dutchman anything.


“THE WE TRANSFORMED ZENIT FROM A FOOTBALL PERIPHERY INTO A TOP CLUB”

— You ended your playing career at Zenit, and there were more Ukrainians than St. Petersburg residents.

- Let's count: me, Vernidub, Gorshkov, Popov, Popovich, Lebed, Svistunov. The St. Petersburg youth were: Berezovsky, Igonin, Zazulin, Kondrashov, Panov, Anatoly and Dmitry Davydov - a unique case when father and son played in the same lineup. The team was unbalanced and was just finding connections. Barely five thousand fans came to the first game with Nizhny Novgorod. I went there to see Byshovets, whom I had known since childhood. I knew that where Anatoly Fedorovich was, there was order. This time I asked to see him, although everything was going well for me in Kaliningrad.

St. Petersburg has a special caste of fans, which I felt right away. These are people who understand football, the best in Russia. The city itself is beautiful; after moving, I spent my free time organizing excursions for myself to get better acquainted with one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in which I was lucky enough to stay to live. And Byshovets made a team out of an unbalanced lineup, which the audience followed by the end of the year. In 1998, the stadium was already full when we were in the lead, making a splash at the beginning of the championship. In just six months, St. Petersburg has transformed from the “football periphery” into a top city.

— How did the St. Petersburg audience fall in love with a team whose core consisted of newcomers?

“Because we gave ourselves completely, you can’t fool the public in this regard.” Although I remember that your colleagues often asked me provocative questions. Among other things, Gennady Orlov was interested: “Why do you play here with special zeal?” I answered that even when playing in the yard I would do this with special zeal. My parents are hard workers, and the football upbringing instilled in my childhood did not allow me not to give my all on the field.

“MUTKO GAVE MY FAMILY A WASHING MACHINE”

— Vitaly Mutko, who became the president of Zenit, began his football career almost simultaneously with you. What can you say about Vitaly Leontyevich’s first steps in the club?

— I'll start with a short story. When I first moved to Zenit, I had twins. After the flight from Kaliningrad, the employees of the Zenit club took me to the base, and my wife to the maternity hospital. When I played my debut match against Lokomotiv, my wife gave birth. They told me about this during the break of the match.

— A beautiful ending to this story would be if you scored a double against Loko in the second half.

— I had chances, but didn’t score, and we played to zero, which was a great achievement. And I put it down in the next game with Nizhny Novgorod, it didn’t rust for me. And Vitaly Leontievich gave us a washing machine.


— Pavel Sadyrin said about Alexander Panov: “He was such a scourge, he fell from a glass.” Thanks to what did Panov become one of the leaders of the Russian national team in 1999?

— About Sasha, with whom I played at Zenit, I will say that he was such a “difficult teenager.” But there are difficult ones, who are secretive, but he is all in full view, very sincere. He says what he thinks. I think that working with Byshovets turned him into a great football player. Many people’s worldviews were turned upside down, including Igonin and Kondrashov, when guys that few people needed became candidates for the national team. Panov had a natural quality - speed. I have rarely encountered runners like this.

— For example, your teammate from Dynamo Minsk in the 80s, Valery Velichko.

— Valery, nicknamed Horse, could have gone far, but he had more laziness than speed. Who realized himself from Soviet times is Igor Belanov. So Panov made the most of his speed and dribbling, delivered a shot, remembering his doubles in the final of the Russian Cup - 1999 and the match with the French national team (3: 2). Playing on the same team as Panov, I only had to throw the ball behind the defenders, and Sasha was already rushing there and was the first on the ball.

“IN “LOKOMOTIVE” THERE WAS DISTRESS BETWEEN PLAYERS AND COACHES”

— If we talk about your coaching career, then perhaps you can highlight your work on the coaching staff of Lokomotiv, with whom you won the Russian Cup.

— We won the trophy, but I got more pleasure from working in Tomsk in 2005. Both there and at Loko I worked on Byshovets’ coaching staff. We finished eighth, the attitude towards us was good, the whole of Siberia worked for the team, and we enjoyed our work. I can’t say the same about Lokomotiv. I still don’t understand who came up with the idea to put Yuri Semin and Byshovets in the leadership of the club - antipodes who hate each other. Initially, it was clear that nothing good would come of this. And so it happened. There was no order in Lokomotiv; if there had been, we would have become champions. We took four points from the then champion Zenit, won four games in the season from the silver medalist Spartak - in the championship and the Cup, but we ourselves were left without medals.

There was discord between coaches and players. The football players treated us disgracefully. As a result, every visit to Bakovka was difficult for me. Although we won a trophy this season, human relationships are more important than that. It is not for nothing that when Leonid Slutsky was asked what the work of a coach is, he answered that it is in managing relationships. When they are not established, it is impossible to think about the matter properly.

— How can you characterize your work as the head coach of the Kazakh club Okzhetpes?

— It was a good school of survival, which I went through in a team that had no conditions. I also remember that I personally have never seen such ugly refereeing as in Kazakhstan anywhere. They just “kill” there. I really remember Kazakhstan for its diversity, where the north and south of the country are, in fact, two completely different regions. In the north, where I lived in the Akmola region, there are beautiful places, blue lakes, and the south of Kazakhstan is a continuous steppe, along which camels walk and falling stages of space rockets fall from the sky. Then I went to Okzhetpes for the second time and ran into the president of the club, who turned out to be a scoundrel. He and the players handed over the games, and in such a case it is simply impossible to manage the team.



“There are SO MANY CROOKS IN FOOTBALL THAT IT’S VERY DIFFICULT TO BREAK IN”

— You also worked at Dynamo St. Petersburg. Is this the same team that dies and is immediately reborn?

- Same thing. In St. Petersburg there is a problem of relationships in football, which are formulated in the slogan “One city - one team.” Why this slogan is in effect, I cannot understand. I was not invited to the club where I played, but I had to work hard in other St. Petersburg teams. But there are so many rogues that it is very difficult to break through. As for Dynamo, team president Sergei Amelin bet on the wrong candidate in the gubernatorial elections, and after the victory of his opponent, Dynamo began to put spokes in the wheels.

— You also worked in such teams as “Peter” and “Tosno”. What was there?

“Peter” was something fleeting when the club president was laundering money. What killed me was the episode when we were sent to a training camp in Finland, where we rented a house in which we had to live constantly, without training. They promised to feed us, but we just had to spend three weeks together. For what? Why?

As for Tosno, it is a small regional center, I worked in the youth team. We achieved excellent results, but some non-football issues intervened, and my services were refused. The team has now reached the Premier League, although the meaning of its existence, when there is nothing, right down to its own dressing room at the stadium, is not entirely clear to me. Football players practically never appear in Tosno, they rent apartments in St. Petersburg, train at the New Arena stadium, they have nothing. It was possible to build a stadium a long time ago and develop your own football school, but when this doesn’t happen, you wonder how long it will last.

— But, excuse me, the same question can be asked about Anzhi-Junior. Or not?

- Absolutely the right question. There is such a distrustful attitude towards us, most of all because of the prefix “Anzhi”, which symbolizes Dagestan. Why did we come here, what do we want? I will answer that we came here to develop football, we have a young team, which is a symbiosis of students from St. Petersburg, Tatarstan and Dagestan football. Five people came with me from the Junior team, which I led in St. Petersburg, in whom I am absolutely confident. Tatarstan students are needed so that local fans will come to us and start worrying about us, especially since the local land is not deprived of football talents. The example of Arthur Gilyazetdinov, an unknown boy, confirms my thesis. I saw him at the first training session, he worked with sparkling eyes. I remembered the words of Konstantin Beskov about Sergei Rodionov and Fyodor Cherenkov: “Looking at their work, you want to live.” The same can be repeated about Arthur and many of the guys from our team. And I will try to convey to them all the experience, parts of which I shared with you in the interview.

Date of Birth: November 13, 1965
Place of Birth: Kyiv
Gaming career:“Dynamo” (Irpen) – 1984 - 1986; Shakhtar (Donetsk) – 1986 - 1988; “Dynamo” (Minsk) – 1988 - 1993; “Bnei Yehuda” (Israel) – 1993 - 1996; "Baltika" (Kaliningrad) - 1997; Zenit (St. Petersburg) – 1997 - 1999; “Kaunas” (Lithuania) – 1999; "Torpedo-MAZ" (Minsk) - 2001/2002.
Achievements: winner of the Russian Cup - 1999, best football player of Belarus - 1993. Played 25 matches for the Belarusian national team.
Head Coach Career:"Severstal" (Cherepovets) - 2004, "Okzhetpes" (Kokchetav) - 2006, 2009/2010; "Tosno-M" - 2014/15. Since 2016 - head coach of Anzhi-Junior (Zelenodolsk).
Coaching career:"Tom" (Tomsk) - 2005, "Lokomotiv" (Moscow) - 2008, "Dynamo" (St. Petersburg) - 2008/2009.
Achievements: winner of the Russian Cup - 2007.

Club

Pupil of the “Young Dynamo” school (Kyiv). He ended up in Dynamo (Kyiv) under Lobanovsky, but became a reserve player under Yuri Morozov. Being in the Kiev team, he became friends with many football players. Among them was Grigory Pasechny, who died tragically in 1983. After two years in the reserve team, he was transferred to the subsidiary team from the city of Irpen. Viktor Kanevsky, who was working with the team at that time, allowed the football player to open up and allowed him to play technical football. In 1986 he accepted the invitation and moved to Shakhtar (Donetsk). He left Donetsk without working well with Anatoly Konkov. After some time, Mikhail Fomenko called him to Lanchkhuti. He wrote an application to move to Guria, but warned: if there is an offer from the major leagues, he will go there. Soon such an offer came from Dynamo (Minsk), where he moved. He also played for Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv (1994-1996), Baltika Kaliningrad (1997), Zenit St. Petersburg (1997-1999), Zalgiris Kaunas (1999), Dynamo Stroyimpuls St. -Petersburg (2000), “Torpedo-MAZ” Minsk (2001-2002).

In the national team

After the collapse of the USSR, he accepted the invitation of Mikhail Vergeenko and began to play for the Belarusian national team. He played 26 games for the national team and scored 7 goals. One of them was against Edwin Van der Sar in a qualifying match against the Dutch national team in 1995.

Coaching

As a head coach, he led the teams Severstal Cherepovets (2004) and Okzhetpes Kokshetau, Kazakhstan (2006, 2009-2010). He assisted Anatoly Byshovets in Tomsk Tomsk (2006) and Moscow Lokomotiv (2007). In the fall of 2008, he signed a contract with Dynamo (St. Petersburg), where he helped Eduard Malofeev until 2009. On December 12, 2010, I completed a 240-hour coaching course in Moscow and received a Pro license.