“We have a lot of talented guys and girls in Loko”

Alexei Nikolaevich Shchigolev – 50!

Often we pay so much attention to the coaches and team leaders of the Russian Premier League, and we undeservedly forget those who train talented football players for them in academies and schools. Let’s try to improve at least a little today – and congratulate the head of the Moscow Lokomotiv Academy, Alexei Shchigolev, on the upcoming 50th birthday.

— Alexey Nikolaevich, your football biography is impressive in scope. Here are the Moscow “Torpedo”, and the Yaroslavl “Shinnik”, and “Tom”, and Novokuznetsk with Ryazan, there are far abroad countries – Korea and Israel, as well as Belarus … It is clear that you cannot tell everything in an express interview, but dotted: where do you remember more?

– Of course, it was interesting everywhere, everywhere you met good people who were truly in love with football, you could learn something from everyone. Yes, you correctly noted: in a short conversation, we have to leave a lot of things out of the brackets, but first of all, I remember the 4th place with Shinnik in the top Russian division (the best indicator in the history of the team), and a trip to the same South Korea to Valery Kuzmich Nepomniachtchi, where at first it was unusual, and then I tasted the local cuisine, and I began to distinguish between teammates (smiles) … Yes, everywhere, I’ll say it again, there was something remarkable – in the same Dynamo Brest, I graduated at the age of 37 , but they still remember me there, which is nice, journalists call from there.

– It is clear that a mentor is too big a word, but still, from the current positions of the head of children’s football, who could be singled out in your career?

– Again – I would like to remember many with a kind word. But first of all, in addition to the same Nepomniachtchi, who gave us a lot not only in the game, but also in human terms, I will probably name my children’s coach Nikolai Mikhailovich Ulyanov. How many wonderful players he has prepared! That’s just for our year in the torpedo school, Sergey Borisov, and Sergey Grishin, and Denis Klyuev, and Mikhail Murashov, and Andrey Talalaev, and many others who, perhaps, did not reach the higher leagues and Real Madrid did not play beat, but Nikolai Mikhailovich, in any case, laid a serious base. And he planted those seeds of respect for partners, for coaches, for football, without which there is no way in later life.

– You are in your activities (and in addition to the Lokomotiv Academy, Shchigolev worked in the Russian Football Union, where he was also involved in the development of talented football players. — A.L.) are you referring to it?

– Undoubtedly. And not only. After all, life does not stand still, we must constantly learn and meet the requirements of modern football. Otherwise, you won’t be able to withstand the competition, and Loko Academy, of course, has the task not only to win (here I would like to congratulate once again the team that won this year in FNL-2, these are guys born in 2005), but to give capable guys to the main team. Only recently, for example, goalkeeper Daniil Khudyakov and midfielder Artem Karpukas have strengthened it, and Vadim Rakov, the best scorer of the same UFL-2, has already come out as a basis … Although here it is necessary to make a reservation that it is wrong to single out one, two or three people, talented guys a lot, and girls too – after all, we are also raising replenishment for the Lokomotiv women’s team.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28870 dated September 16, 2022

Newspaper headline:
“We have a lot of talented guys and girls in Loko”