Krasnodar fired coach Vladimir Ivich at the height of the “golden race”

Vladimir Ivich, who, as it seemed only recently, was supposed to become almost the main triumphant of the domestic football season, has turned into a living symbol of the precariousness of a coach’s fate. After two unsuccessful matches in the Russian Championship and a disaster in the National Cup with relegation from it after a collision with the representative of the second-ranking division, Khimki, Krasnodar, still fighting for championship gold, fired the Serbian coach. The most interesting intrigue now, perhaps, is connected with the future place of work of Vladimir Ivich, whose name has often been mentioned in recent days when talking about the problems of another giant, Spartak.

“Krasnodar” announced in a short message about the termination of the contract with head coach Vladimir Ivich. The club did not explain the reasons for the decision, limiting itself to wishing Ivic success “in his future work and life.” In fact, we are talking about an extremely extraordinary event.

The Russian Premier League (RPL) is not one of the championships that are distinguished by their patience with coaches. Quite the contrary: in the RPL their rapid resignations are almost the norm.

And Krasnodar is definitely no exception. Over the decade and a half of the young club’s existence, which quickly became one of the league’s giants, its president and owner Sergei Galitsky, striving for a big breakthrough, tried a dozen different specialists as a mentor. And few of them managed to stay there longer than a full season. So in this sense, Vladimir Ivich is by no means a record holder.

The Serb, who previously quite effectively led the Israeli Maccabi, appeared in it in January 2023 during a rather difficult period for the Krasnodar team. Before that, they were going to bet on German coach Daniel Farke. But Farke, not having had time to really work with Krasnodar, broke off relations with him immediately after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine.

As a result, the position of head coach was entrusted to Alexander Storozhuk, who headed the Krasnodar double team. The team’s results under Storozhuk did not look very impressive, and he was replaced by Ivic, who lasted at the club for about the same length of time as the average tenure of any coach, regardless of background.

Nevertheless, the case with Vladimir Ivich is still special. The fact is that until recently he seemed an undisputed contender for the title of almost the number one hero of the Russian football season.

In the first, autumn part of it, Krasnodar looked as good as ever in its history. The club, which finished in sixth position in the last Russian championship, went into the winter break in the current championship as a leader, after 18 rounds two points ahead of the winner of the five previous tournaments, the undisputed domestic flagship Zenit. At the same time, the convincing play of the Krasnodar team seemed to insist that they were absolutely real hunters for the club’s first gold, and Ivic’s own safety margin seemed colossal.

Meanwhile, it turned out that it too could melt literally within a few days in March after the restart of the season. First, Krasnodar played two unsuccessful matches in the championship with opponents located significantly below it in the standings, losing the victory over Rubin (1:1) in the end and losing to Rostov (1:2). And on Tuesday the Krasnodar residents suffered disaster in another major competition. In the game of the first quarterfinal stage of the “Path of Regions” of the Russian Cup, they were beaten (2:0) by Khimki, playing in the second division. Moreover, “Krasnodar” fielded almost a fighting squad for this match and did not save leaders.

In any case, even taking into account the painfulness of the misfires, the dismissal of Vladimir Ivich, still the best coach ever to head Krasnodar in terms of the average number of points scored per match – 1.9, hardly fits into the idea of ​​a logical club strategies.

At the height of the “golden race”, at the moment when it enters the decisive stage (and from got out “Krasnodar” is only a point behind the top line of the Zenit table), coaches are rarely kicked out. Especially if a bright successor has not been selected for them in advance. But it seems that Krasnodar does not have this, considering, say, that championat.com named the main contender for the vacant position Murad Musayev, a specialist with a modest track record, who briefly and without much brilliance coached the Krasnodar team in 2020–2021, and was fired from the Azerbaijani Sabah in January.

Much more interesting, it is possible, is the intrigue concerning the near future of Vladimir Ivich himself, who has already acquired a reputation as a top mentor for the RPL. Since the end of last week, his name has often been mentioned by various media resources in connection with another grandee, also experiencing something like a crisis. This grandee is Spartak. Many sources are confident that the mediocre results in the championship after the restart (a draw with Zenit and a defeat against Fakel) made the position of his head coach Guillermo Abascal quite precarious. And it can transform into a completely shaky one on Thursday after the return match of the 1/4 finals of the “Road of the RPL” against “Orenburg”: in the first, the Orenburgers prevailed – 1:0. The same Championat.com insists that Spartak have already had negotiations with Ivic regarding possible cooperation.

Alexey Dospehov