Instead of Jiri Yaroshik, Orenburg was headed by David Deogracia

Failed starting segment of the championship of Russia “Orenburg” replaced the head coach. Instead of Jiri Yaroshik, who appeared at the club this summer, taking the place of Marcel Lichka, who left for Dynamo, the team was headed by Spaniard David Deogracia. This is one of the most mysterious specialists who have ever worked in the Russian Premier League. The geography of Deogracia’s movements around the world is very wide, but all his previous experience comes down mainly to working with young people.

Orenburg announced that Jiri Yaroshik left the post of his head coach. This is the second coaching resignation that happened during the Russian championship that started only a month ago. The first happened a week ago in Akhmat, which fired Sergei Tashuev and appointed Miroslav Romashchenko to the vacant post. The resignation of the Orenburg, however, looks a little more intriguing.

The club’s message says that the Czech broke up with him “due to family reasons”, and the Orenburg residents considered it necessary to wish goodbye “health to his entire family.” A number of sources suggest that the reason for the departure of the coach could be an injury received in Russia by his infant daughter, which necessitated her treatment at home. But the purely sporting version of what happened looks quite understandable.

Jiri Yaroshik, a well-known player in the past, who, having got to CSKA in the zero years, managed to move from it to Chelsea, had a chance to work in Russia for a very short time. Orenburg signed a contract with him after the end of the previous season, and it was a forced move. Before him, the team was coached by the Czech Marcel Lichka, and under him the Orenburgers made a serious take-off by their standards, jumping to seventh place in the championship immediately after returning to the top division. After a brilliant success, Dynamo lured Lichka, and Yaroshik became his replacement.

Meanwhile, the results of the team in the starting segment of the championship were a failure. In five rounds, Orenburg scored only a point – for a draw with Rubin – and fell to the bottom line in the standings. Parting with Yaroshik took place two days after the Orenburgers suffered a major – 0:4 – defeat from Akhmat.

However, the intrigue of personnel reshuffles in the club is provided, first of all, by the figure of a new mentor.

Recently, Russian clubs have been taught that they often sign contracts with coaches without a solid background. But the background of David Deogracia is very specific.

The Spaniard is already 50 years old, and formally he can be considered a hardened specialist, if hardiness is measured by the number of jobs and movements around the world. Deogracia began his professional career, of course, in Spain, having marked himself in inconspicuous positions in such popular clubs as Deportivo, Zaragoza and Valencia. But after that he visited Thailand, Morocco, and Belarus.

There is an important nuance. According to Transfermarkt, David Deogracia has been the head coach of a professional club for less than two years. And we are talking about clubs from the weak Thai championship. Basically, Deogracia was in demand as a coach for junior and youth teams, designed to supply personnel to the base. And so he led them quite successfully – in Asia, in Africa, in Belarus. In Morocco, for example, in the middle of the last decade, his breakthrough to gold with the previously extremely low youth club Atlético de Tetouan made a big impression. Actually, Orenburg assigned Deogracia the usual role of the head of the club academy. However, the Spaniard, who has been promoted up the ranks, will now also have to deal, strictly speaking, with a rather young and raw squad. Most of Orenburg’s players are just over 20, and there are very few veterans in today’s squad.

Alexey Dospekhov