Russian coach Leonid Slutsky was invited to the Shanghai Shenhua club

One of the most famous Russian football coaches, Leonid Slutsky, after a break in professional activity that lasted more than a year and was mainly devoted to creating entertaining online content, found a new place of work. It’s quite exotic. The Shanghai Shenhua club represents the Chinese Super League, which has long given up the gigantic ambitions and gigantic financial capabilities inherent in it in the middle of the last decade. In Slutsk, the team leaders, in addition to extensive experience, including that gained in Western European championships, were attracted by the ability to develop young talents.

The Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua announced the appointment of Leonid Slutsky to the post of head coach of the club. He replaced local specialist Wu Jingui. The contract with 52-year-old Slutsky will be valid from January 1. In a message dedicated to him, Shanghai Shenhua, which did not perform too badly in the recently completed season (in China it is played according to the spring-autumn system), finishing fifth in the championship, but winning the National Cup, made it clear that He hopes that under the leadership of Leonid Slutsky, whose task is to “develop a suitable technical and tactical style,” he will add even more.

This is a curious event. Leonid Slutsky is one of the most famous Russian coaches. True, the nature of this fame is quite ambiguous. In fact, he achieved all his unconditional, significant professional successes in one club – CSKA, which he headed in 2009, being a very young mentor by Russian standards. Under Slutsky, the army team won championship gold three times, the Russian Cup and Super Cup twice, and also played in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

But the continuation of his coaching biography was by no means so successful. Effective work at CSKA provided Leonid Slutsky with a career boost. In 2015, he was entrusted with the Russian national team, which had just been left by the famous Italian coach Fabio Capello, leaving it in a difficult position in the qualifying round for the European Championship in France. Slutsky was able to save the almost failed qualification, but he himself failed in the final part of the championship. There, in the summer of 2016, the Russian team, having started with a draw against the British, suffered defeats from the Slovaks and Welsh and found themselves in last place in the group, not making it to the play-offs.

After that, Leonid Slutsky amazed with a move that was very unusual for coaches in demand in Russia. He went to work abroad – and not to the near abroad, but to England, accepting the invitation of Hull City, which had been relegated from the Premier League and was eager to immediately return to it. However, Slutsky lasted only five months and was fired in December 2017: at that moment, Hull were fifth from bottom in the table of the second-ranking English division.

Leonid Slutsky’s next club was the Dutch Vitesse from the elite division, which was considered the “junior partner” of Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea. Slutsky’s period of stay there turned out to be a little longer. He spent a full season at Vitesse, following which the club took fifth place in the championship and almost won the right to play in European competition, and at the beginning of the second, in November 2019, he was forced to resign after a fifth consecutive defeat.

Then Leonid Slutsky worked again in Russia – at Rubin. In 2021, the Kazan team took him to fourth place in the championship, but the following season was relegated from the Russian Premier League. Slutsky retained his position in the second division. However, he left her quickly. In November 2022, Leonid Slutsky said goodbye to Rubin, who did not look like a clear contender for promotion, after a series of inexpressive matches, only to surprise the public again by taking up something unusual for a “correct” Russian coach. In recent months, he has constantly penetrated the media space as the host of online entertainment programs, primarily “Comment.Show” on YouTube. And once he entered there for a scandalous reason. In September, the Ethics Committee of the Russian Football Union suspended Slutsky was suspended from football activities for a year for making offensive statements on air about journalist Vitaly Borodin.

In that era, which saw the coaching peak of Leonid Slutsky, who won titles with CSKA, his current appointment could even be perceived as a serious breakthrough.

Last decade, the Chinese Super League was in the spotlight for the same reasons that everyone was watching Saudi Arabia this year: its clubs suddenly had gigantic ambitions and gigantic resources, allowing them to buy star players like Hulk, Ricardo Carvalho, Oscar, Carlos Tevez or Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, who played for Shanghai Shenhua, as well as star coaches such as Marcello Lippi and Luiz Felipi Scolari.

But the project to transform the Chinese Super League into a competitor to the “big European five” slammed shut without really getting off the ground. Today they write about it most often in the context of the financial problems of clubs, due to which some former flagships have already gone bankrupt. And the cost of the Shanghai Shenhua application, which does not include at least relatively big names from the point of view of a European fan, is estimated by Transfermarkt at a very modest amount – slightly over €10 million.

However, this club seems to have become interested in Leonid Slutsky largely because of his ability to develop players. It really seems indisputable – in contrast to the results in the period after leaving CSKA. The Shanghai Shenhua statement contains the names of four football players who had the opportunity to play for Slutsky at a very young age in CSKA, Hall, Vitesse and Rubin. Currently, Alexander Golovin is the leader of Monaco, Jarrod Bowen has made it to the England team, Martin Odegaard wears the captain’s armband at Arsenal, and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has made Napoli fans fall in love with his dribbling.

Alexey Dospehov