Stanislav Cherchesov is unlucky with qualifications

After the third, penultimate before the group stage, qualifying round of the play-offs of the Champions League, the Russian representation in the main European Cup, and so minimal due to sanctions against domestic clubs, was reduced to almost imperceptible. The losses were the former coach of the national team Stanislav Cherchesov, who again failed to reach the main stage of the tournament, now with the Hungarian Ferencvaros, who lost to the Azerbaijani Qarabag, as well as the midfielder of the national team Alexander Golovin: his Monaco did not pass the Dutch PSV.

For Stanislav Cherchesov, the current qualification for the Champions League could result in a crossed out gap in the coaching record rich in various events. Cherchesov, changing teams, actually worked as a mentor without interruption from the middle of the 2000s, sometimes achieved good results, and once he became almost a national hero of Russia, leading her national team to the quarterfinals of the home World Cup, but he did not develop relations with the main European Cup. As a coach, Stanislav Cherchesov could not get to the group stage of the Champions League, despite the fact that it seemed that good chances to get there appeared repeatedly.

The first arose in 2007, when Cherchesov headed Spartak. With him, he found himself in the third qualifying round of the Champions League, stumbling there against Celtic. The rivals went 1-1 twice, and the Scottish club took over in the penalty shoot-out.

A year later, Spartak again found itself in the third qualifying round. He was opposed by Kiev “Dynamo”, and the Ukrainian team twice brutally, with a score of 4:1, “Spartak” beat. Actually, after the defeat in the return match, Cherchesov was fired from the capital’s club.

Finally, in the middle of the last decade, Stanislav Cherchesov was entrusted with coaching the Warsaw Legia. With her, he won the Polish championship in 2016, turning into an idol for local fans, but he did not have a chance to play with this club in the Champions League. In the summer, that is, before the qualification, its leaders announced their separation from the Russian specialist. At the heart of the decision, as it was believed, lay Cherchesov’s conflict with management, connected precisely with the European Cup: the coach insisted on a serious strengthening of the team, he was denied it.

A new attempt to penetrate all the same into the group stage of the Champions League, which guarantees big earnings even for an outsider, Stanislav Cherchesov was provided by another voyage abroad. He was dismissed from the post of head coach of the Russian national team after a failure at last year’s European Championship, and in December Cherchesov was invited to the flagship of Hungarian football. With Ferencváros, he did the same trick as with Legia – he immediately led him to the championship, and also to victory in the National Cup. Only this time, before the Champions League, Cherchesov did not go anywhere. But it didn’t work out with the breakthrough again, despite the fact that the “championship path” that Ferencváros was following looked much simpler than the “non-championship” one in terms of recruiting opponents: teams from the same modest – and often more modest – leagues play in it, like the Hungarian one, and there are no representatives of the Big Five.

Ferencvaros overcame two rounds. In the first one, he smashed the Kazakh “Tobol” (Cherchesov finally opened the scoring with coaching victories in the Champions League), in the second, he got out in the confrontation with the Slovak “Slovan”: he lost to him at home – 1:2, took a convincing revenge – 4:1 away . An insurmountable barrier for Ferencváros turned out to be Qarabag – a brand that is not exactly sonorous, but already with a decent experience of playing in European competitions. Moreover, the Hungarian club achieved a seemingly good result – 1:1 – in the away match, but could not resist at home, losing – 1:3, and after that it will fight for the right to play in the group stage of the second European Cup – the Europa League – with the Irish Shamrock Rovers.

A blow to the Russian representation in the Champions League was the second leg in a pair that brought Monaco and PSV together. In the first, the third winner of the previous French championship played at home with the Dutch club in a draw – 1:1. The main time of the second meeting ended with a score of 2:2, and had to be cut in overtime, in which everything was decided by the strike of PSV footballer Luc de Jong. Monaco also went to the Europa League – along with their Russian midfielder Alexander Golovin, who was replaced in the lost match in the 53rd minute.

However, in the final qualifying round of the Champions League, one player who has already been called up to the Russian national team can take part. We are talking about the goalkeeper of the Norwegian club Bodø-Glimt, who dealt with the Lithuanian Zalgiris, Nikita Khaykin. True, already at the end of the first quarter of an hour of the return game, he suffered a leg injury and was forced to leave the field.

Alexey Dospekhov