Magomed Adiev became the head coach of Akhmat

Akhmat, which fired head coach Miroslav Romashchenko after being eliminated from the Russian Cup due to a defeat from Orenburg, quickly found a rather interesting replacement for him. Magomed Adiev became the new coach of the Grozny club, which is going through a rather difficult period. Adiev, a specialist without a strong background, managed to make some noise while leading the Kazakhstan national team. The team, always considered one of the European outsiders, had a very powerful qualifying tournament for the continental championship in Germany, cutting it off at the semi-final play-off stage – the final stage of qualifying.

“Akhmat” announced the appointment of Magomed Adiev to the post of head coach. He took over the position that Miroslav Romashchenko, who had led the club since August 2023, left on Thursday. Romashchenko resigned immediately after Akhmat’s departure from the Russian Cup: he was knocked out of the tournament by beating Orenburg 1:0 in the home match of the second stage of the quarterfinal round of the Path of Regions. Before this, the Grozny team suffered setbacks in the national championship that resumed after the winter break. Due to two consecutive losses – to Dynamo and Rubin – they found themselves in a rather difficult situation. “Akhmat”, which jumped to fifth place in the previous championship, takes 12th place after the 21st round of the championship. At the same time, he has the same number of points – 20, as those located next to him, that is, in the “play-off zone”, “Ural” and “Orenburg”. And Baltika, which is in 15th position, in the relegation zone, is only three points behind.

“Akhmat” invited a curious specialist to correct the situation. Until recently, the track record and reputation of 46-year-old Magomed Adiev looked extremely modest. He only had a chance to work at the top club level by domestic standards for only one season.

In the summer of 2018, Anzhi entrusted the position of mentor to a coach without extensive experience. By that time, the Makhachkala team had long said goodbye to the image of an ambitious grandee that they once possessed, and to serious financial and personnel resources, having turned into a club with a colossal number of problems, dreaming exclusively of survival in the elite. Anji and Adiev sometimes played bright matches, beating, for example, the championship winner Zenit, but failed to cope with the key task, finishing in second place from the bottom in the table.

After that, Magomed Adiev did not get such options that could increase his quotes. But everything changed when he decided to go to Kazakhstan at the beginning of the decade.

Having worked well at Shakhtar Karaganda, in April 2022 he became the head coach of the national team of this country, which for a decade and a half after moving under the auspices of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) from the Asian region could not get rid of its unsightly status – maybe and not a “dwarf”, but very close to the “dwarfs”. From such a command one does not expect anything more or less sonorous.

However, under Magomed Adiev, the Kazakh team experienced some amazing transformation. First, she performed well in the League of Nations, winning the tournament in her group. This was, naturally, an outsider niche, but the rivals who were ahead of the Kazakhs – Azerbaijanis, Slovaks and Belarusians – still did not look so weak. And then, already in 2023, Adiev’s team made a lot of noise in the selection for the European Championship, which Germany will host next summer.

Having only a few players in the squad with experience of playing in high-level leagues, such as the former Moscow army player Bakhtiyor Zainutdinov, who moved to the Turkish Besiktas, but showing cheerful and emotional football, at the main qualifying stage she won six wins in ten matches – one less than in the four previous qualifying rounds combined, including over the favorites the Danes and the participants in the continental championship three years ago, the Finns.

The Kazakhstan team did not win a ticket to the European Championship, but took an honorable third place, behind the Danes and Slovenes. And thanks to its good performance in the League of Nations, it won the right to play in the final stage of the selection, the so-called play-offs, with three vacant spots at stake in March of this year. However, this is where the spectacular rise of the Kazakhstan national team ended. She lost in the semi-finals of her play-off mini-tournament, losing to the Greeks with a crushing score of 0:5. And immediately after this misfire, the Kazakhs made another one. In a friendly match they were beaten 2:1 by the Luxembourg team. At the same time, Adiev’s appearance in Akhmat, as it turned out, does not mean that he parted with his team. The Grozny club clarified that the coach will combine work there with the leadership of the Kazakhstan national team.

Alexey Dospehov