“Torpedo” looked for a coach in its ranks – Sport – Kommersant

After the resignation of Alexander Borodyuk, Nikolay Kovardaev, who previously headed the second team of the club system, was appointed the new head coach of Torpedo. The leadership of the black-and-whites made a rather unexpected choice, given that among the applicants were called completely different and – much more famous – specialists. Kovardaev, on the other hand, worked independently only at the youth level.

Moscow Torpedo, officially informing about the resignation of Alexander Borodyuk, there was no delay in appointing a new head coach and immediately announced the name of the successor. Although just this name will probably say little to a wide range of fans. As a specialist, 51-year-old Nikolai Kovardaev is known, as they say, only in narrow circles.

He began his coaching career back in 2004 at Khimki, where he ended his playing career, which, in general, also took place on the football periphery, except for a very short period of playing for Dynamo Moscow in the 1990s. Since then, Kovardaev has pretty much traveled around the cities and villages, having worked in Ramensky Saturn, Donetsk Metallurg, Novosibirsk Siberia, Saransk Mordovia, SKA-Khabarovsk, Tula Arsenal. Several times fate brought him to the capital’s Dynamo.

Until now, Nikolai Kovardaev was trusted with the role of head coach, but only in youth teams, and, as they say, at the adult level, he performed exclusively assistant duties.

It is curious that often Kovardaev worked as an assistant in conjunction with Andrei Gordeev, who now also entered the Torpedo coaching staff and with whom they switched places this time. And in the black-and-white system, Kovardaev ended up in February 2022, after the farm club of the main team was created in January. His “Torpedo-2” recently debuted in the second division, and quite successfully, scoring three victories and two draws. He was preparing the “deuce” for the next match with Murom, but now he will have to abruptly switch to the Premier League and think about how to resist Zenit. Already on Sunday, the Torpedo players will meet on the road with the flagship of Russian football, and Kovardaev needs to somehow have time to reconfigure his new team, which is clearly in a stressful state against the backdrop of a failed start in the championship.

Recall that Torpedo is in 15th place, having only one point after five rounds. And Muscovites have a very difficult series of games ahead, where, in addition to Zenit, they will have to compete with Krasnodar and Rostov, which also belong to the group of leaders. And then the black-and-whites will have a battle for survival with Ural, followed by a derby with CSKA. The calendar is such that you will not envy Kovardaev. Moreover, according to experts, the current composition of the Torpedo team does not correspond to the Premier League, and there is not much time left before the transfer window closes to noticeably strengthen it.

In general, other contenders for the post of the new head coach of Torpedo appeared in the media. These, according to various sources, included Alexander Kerzhakov, who headed Nizhny Novgorod last season, Igor Cherevchenko, who was fired from Khimki in the winter and was recently released Sergei Yuran, who has also recently worked with a club near Moscow. But the board of directors of Torpedo surprised by appointing Kovardaev, who was inferior to them at least in eminence. However, if he fails to pull the team out of the bottom in the shortest possible time, the black-and-white leadership can make another coaching reshuffle.

Alexander Ilyin