Murad Musaev was appointed head coach of the Krasndar football club

After the resignation of Serbian specialist Vladimir Ivic, Krasnodar appointed Murad Musaev, who had previously held this post, as head coach. Recently, he was not associated with Russian football and headed the little-known Azerbaijani Sabah. At the same time, Musaev will not need to adapt to a club that is familiar to him, where he worked his way up from the children’s academy to the main team. Now that Krasnodar is participating in the championship race, this choice of mentor probably looks the most optimal.

While everyone was thinking and wondering who would become the successor to the unexpectedly dismissed Vladimir Ivich, Krasnodar President Sergei Galitsky, it seems, had already prepared a backup option in the person of Murad Musaev, and his appointment It didn’t take long to wait. Although at first glance Musaev’s return seems as strange as dismissal Ivich, who seems to have not yet managed to spoil anything, except departure this week from the Russian Cup. Yes, and this event could be interpreted in different ways and not dramatize it, given that it is perhaps even better for the Kuban team to focus now on the championship, where they have a real chance to compete for gold.

“Krasnodar” is still only conceded first place to Zenit, but by no means lost the championship race and is only one point behind in it. Changing the head coach in such a situation is in itself a huge risk, and changing Ivic for Musaev is even more so.

With all due respect to the graduate of the Krasnodar club system, who worked in it since 2005 and rose from the youth level to the main team, he failed to satisfy Galitsky’s sporting ambitions and grow into a winning coach. And in general, in relation to Musaev in Russian football, there was no general opinion that he was some kind of progressive or reliable specialist in terms of results. It is probably no coincidence that after leaving Krasnodar, he managed to find a job only in the Azerbaijani championship, heading the little-known Sabah from the suburbs of Baku. And even though Musaev confirmed his professional suitability there, making this club the silver medalist for the first time in history, in Russia they quickly forgot about the coach. Musaev’s resignation from Sabah also went unnoticed, which meanwhile occurred surprisingly in a timely manner, on February 1 of this year. He knew that Galitsky would soon need him again.

On the other hand, in the current circumstances, in the midst of the fight for the championship, when Krasnodar does not have time to introduce a completely new coach, Musaev’s return can be called a completely logical decision.

He just won’t need time to adapt either to the club or to the Premier League. Actually, Musaev has been invited so far only for the rest of the current season – apparently, with the goal of trying to finish what Ivic started and at the same time cheer up the team, which was depressed after the winter break. Winning gold against Zenit, of course, is unlikely to happen, but preventing a sharp slide down and finishing in the top three is now a more realistic task.

By the way, it was under the leadership of Musaev that Krasnodar won two of its three sets of bronze medals – in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons. With him, the Kuban team made their debut in the 2020/21 Champions League, where they took third place in the group. And in the 2018/19 Europa League they made some noise when they left the group, eliminated the German Bayer in the first round of the play-offs and beat the Spanish Valencia in the 1/8 finals. So, if you look at the facts, Musaev worked quite well in the past with Krasnodar, and at the time when he first took over the main team, he was only 34 years old. Due to the lack of a Pro license, he could not even officially hold the position of head coach in the Premier League. True, it coincided that after Musaev had already received it, he was fired from Krasnodar in April 2021, and the club ultimately showed only the tenth result in the Russian championship.

Alexander Ilyin