Lokomotiv returned the scorer to Russia – Newspaper Kommersant No. 24 (7469) dated 09.02.

Lokomotiv, which found itself in a very difficult position in the Russian championship, made the most curious deal in the Russian Premier League (RPL) during the winter break in the season. The club, which has recently been relying on youth, has signed contracts with two veterans – defender Igor Smolnikov and forward Artem Dzyuba – until the end of the current season. At the same time, Dziuba, who until recently was considered the leader of the Russian national team, for several months, in fact, had no match practice.

Lokomotiv Moscow, which suffered a catastrophe in the first part of the domestic football season, finding itself before the winter break in 14th place in the national championship table, just one point from the relegation zone, made, apparently, the loudest and most extraordinary deal among all that took place in the Russian Premier League during a long pause in the season. The club signed contracts with two 34-year-old former players of the Russian national team – a flank defender Igor Smolnikov and forward Artem Dziuba.

An interesting deal will be made not only by the fact that the team, officially, at the level of development strategy, betting on youth, decided to rely on veterans in a difficult period, but also the background of the most famous among the invited players.

Igor Smolnikov, at least in the fall of 2022, constantly played in the Russian championship. He played for the Torpedo, who had settled on the bottom line of the Russian championship table and hardly seriously expected to survive in the top division of Torpedo, and left it of his own free will. The story with Artem Dzyuba is much more complicated.

A couple of years ago, playing for Zenit, he was perhaps the brightest star of Russian football. In 2018, Dzyuba turned into a hero of the World Cup home for the Russian team, scoring three goals in tournament matches and making a huge contribution to the team’s breakthrough to the quarterfinals, after which he received the captain’s armband in the national team, and the Russian championship twice in a row – in 2020 and 2021 finished as top scorer.

The crisis in the career of Artem Dziuba was unexpected. After the European Championship held in the summer of 2021 and the appearance of Valery Karpin as the head coach of the failed national team instead of Stanislav Cherchesov, the striker stopped playing for it. And in the course of last season, which extended Zenit’s series of successes in the Russian championships to four, Dziuba said goodbye to his special status in the St. Petersburg club. He played 28 matches in the championship, but only 18 of them came out in the starting lineup, and in his finishing part he had a minimum of playing time.

In August 2022, he moved to Turkish club Adana Demirspor. In the very first official match for the new team, Dzyuba scored a goal, but soon lost his place at the base and, as a rule, watched games from the bench. In the end, Adana terminated the contract with them.

It is known that the striker tried to find a job in Russia and even negotiated with some clubs – the most active, it seems, with Torpedo. As a result, a forward with a rich biography, but in an incomprehensible tone, took the risk of taking on Lokomotiv, at least one of the leaders of which Dziuba should be familiar with.

At the junction of the last decade and the last decade, Vladimir Leonchenko, general director of railway workers, worked at Tom as an assistant to head coach Valery Nepomnyashchiy. It was in this team in 2009 that the young Artyom Dzyuba, expelled from Spartak, was expelled from the background of a conflict with partners. At that time, it seemed that a terrible blow had been dealt to his prospects. But in Tom, on the contrary, there was a “reset” of Dziuba, who transformed into an interesting striker with broad functionality, which soon allowed him to return to the top level. Artem Dziuba will meet Spartak very soon. With him, Lokomotiv will play in the quarterfinal stage of the Russian Cup at the end of February.

The source of Kommersant, who is well acquainted with the course of negotiations related to the transfer of Artem Dzyuba to Lokomotiv, believes that in fact the option chosen by the grandee, who is going through a difficult period, looks quite logical. He explained that deals with foreign players “in the light of the current situation” (meaning the sanctions against the Russian sports industry, which include the possibility of unilateral termination of contracts by players without compensation) “carry a colossal risk.” Domestic high-level forwards, the interlocutor of Kommersant explained, “there are practically no on the market.” True, even earlier, Lokomotiv managed to acquire from Krylia Sovetov two young, but already successful players in the attacking line – Sergey Pinyaev and Maxim Glushenkov.

Alexey Dospekhov