Sergey Yuran does not stay long in Khimki – Newspaper Kommersant No. 144 (7345) of 08/10/2022

Khimki and coach Sergei Yuran continued the strange tradition of parting, which has nothing to do with sports performance. For the third time in his career, he was dismissed from the post of coach of the Moscow Region club, despite good results at the start of the next Russian football championship – seven points in four rounds. Yuran’s replacement, apparently, will be another well-known player in the past – Nikolai Pisarev, whose track record includes achievements from the youth team of the country, but no achievements at the club level.

The information that Sergey Yuran is leaving the post of head coach of Khimki was confirmed by speaking at “Match TV”, a member of the Supervisory Board of the club near Moscow Roman Teryushkov. According to him, the decision to resign was made “by mutual agreement”: “Documents will be signed in the near future, compensation will be paid.” At the same time, Roman Teryushkov made it clear that he did not consider the incident an emergency.

Mr. Teryushkov claims that with appointment Sergei Yuran in February instead of Igor Cherevchenko, the parties from the very beginning “talked about short-term interaction: maintaining a place in the elite and preparing for the new season.”

However, this explanation hardly sounds more convincing to those who closely follow domestic football than exotic versions about the reasons for the dismissal of Yuran, which were put forward by various sources: from distrust of Ilya Sadigov, who plays for Khimki, the son of the club’s shadow investor Tufan Sadygov, to the participation of a specialist in scandals related to refereeing in the recent past.

The resignation of Sergei Yuran is already the second in the Russian Premier League this season, despite the fact that only four rounds have been played in the championship. A few hours before Yuran, another famous player of the national teams of the USSR and Russia, Igor Shalimov, who coached Ural, lost his post (see Kommersant dated August 8). But in the case of Shalimov, the situation looked obvious: Ural lost all four of their matches. But Khimki’s performance did not even hint at the possible dissatisfaction of their management with the effectiveness of the coach, who, having kept the club in the elite last season, was quite successful this season. In the opening matches of the championship, the Khimki team scored seven points, losing only in the away match with Rostov and achieving a draw in the first round in a meeting with the current title holder Zenit.

However, paradoxically, even this circumstance does not turn the case of Sergey Yuran into an extraordinary one due to a strange background.

The fact is that firing Yuran, not paying attention to sports results, has become something like a tradition for Khimki.

For the first time he was invited to this club in the summer of 2008, in the middle of the championship held at that time according to the “spring-autumn” system, which the team failed miserably. Sergey Yuran was able to save her from relegation from the RPL, but in the winter the contract with him was not renewed.

The second time Yuran appeared in Khimki in January 2020. At the time, the club played in the Football National League (FNL), the second division in status, and sought to return to the top. Yuran completed the task. The championship of the FNL was interrupted shortly after his appointment, but at the time of the stoppage, Khimki were second in the table, and they were promoted. In addition, the team managed to reach the final of the Russian Cup that year, in which they were defeated by Zenit. Meanwhile, before the start of the national championship “Khimki” said goodbye with Yuran to give the coaching post to Dmitry Gunko – he was soon fired.

It is already known who will now lead Khimki instead of Sergei Yuran. Roman Teryushkov admitted that “in the near future, today or tomorrow” Khimki will sign a contract with Nikolai Pisarev, another former Spartak player.

The 53-year-old Pisarev, the same age as Yuran, has an interesting coaching record. In the past decade and a half, he worked for a long time in the system of the Russian Football Union, including as a head coach and sports director, he led the youth (under 21) team and the beach soccer team. The domestic youth team with him was able to break into the final tournament of the European Championship in 2012. By its standards, it was almost a breakthrough – the team had not made it to the continental championships for 12 years.

At the moment, Pisarev, who at one time worked in conjunction with Khimki CEO Dmitry Ulyanov, who was appointed in June on the youth team, is one of the members of the coaching staff of Valery Karpin in the national team.

At the same time, Nikolai Pisarev’s club experience is more than modest. Pisarev never reached the elite level. And before entering the headquarters of the Russian national team, he coached Krasnodar Harvest from the third division.

Alexey Dospekhov