What will happen if “Spartacus” on the neck to hang gold medals

In my opinion, “Spartacus” in this case is just a figure of speech. One of the most striking examples, emphasizing the general trend. Its essence is not new: the clubs, which for a long period of time are characterized by harmony along the lines of “management – coaching staff – team”, are an order of magnitude more successful than competitors subject to ideological and personnel tremor. Who is stable in terms of organization, who does not tend to rush about year after year, if not from tour to tour, in search of a “new course” – as a rule, they have good results, progress, interesting prospects.

There are many examples. One of the most revealing is the coaching leapfrog, which reached record levels in the 2022/23 season. On one side of the scale – Khimki, Torpedo, Sochi, Pari NN, Fakel, Lokomotiv, the same Spartak (the list is incomplete), on the other – Zenit, CSKA, “Rostov”, “Orenburg”, in a sense – “Akhmat” and “Wings of the Soviets”.

To whom are these throwings peculiar? The answer is obvious and simple: clubs run by people who are unprofessional, incompetent, far from football. Their level is limited, the view is blinkered, the understanding of the processes is primitive. They solve problems that are infinitely far from the essence and meaning of playing football at a professional level. They don’t care about club traditions, the dynamics of progress, the interests of the fans, and in the end, the result.

There is no way to do without a reference to Zenit, which won the championship for the fifth time in a row. It has become a bad habit to accuse Zenit of monopoly, of lobbying its interests in the corridors of power, of financial opportunities incommensurable with competitors. This is a very primitive view, it is convenient, first of all, to justify one’s own miscalculations and shortcomings. Few people pay tribute to the permanent champions for the ideal organization of the club economy, for strict adherence to the chosen general line, for the ability to formulate a goal and move towards its achievement not in jerky jerks, but systematically, taking into account mistakes (of course, St. ).

Zenit is not only rich and ambitious. He is concrete, purposeful and harmonious, and these, I believe, are the main components of his success. In the same row is CSKA, which went through different stages in the 21st century, struggled with different circumstances, overcame various difficulties, but always remained true to itself and football.

And take, say, Lokomotiv, which in a short period of time showed such a vivid example of the transition from stability to anarchy and vice versa that you couldn’t imagine it more clearly. Lokomotiv, such an impression, random people planned to literally wipe Russia off the football map, bankrupt ideologically, and even financially, destroying winning traditions and turning the club into a field for crazy experiments that have no justification or explanation. I don’t even want to remember what the team was like in the very recent past, but, thank God, the club managed to stop literally on the edge of the abyss.

A knowledgeable, experienced, talented manager Yuri Nagornykh came to the leadership, who managed to literally turn the situation around in a short time under extreme conditions. The result is obvious: Lokomotiv, as in the good old days, is again harmonious and successful. A young promising coach Mikhail Galaktionov works with the team, he has deep knowledge and has his own view on football. The transfer policy is built in clear algorithms, kitchen scandals are in the past. In the second half of the season, the team looked very interesting, and there is every reason to expect that the “monopoly champion” will have another serious competitor in the 32nd Russian Championship.

Here, in my opinion, it is appropriate to return to Spartak, which, if objectively, has no less opportunities for harmonious development and progress than Zenit. Spartak is an ambitious club, financially strong, popular not only, as they say, among the people, but also in the government, where it has a lot of loyal fans. But he hasn’t had any winning traditions for a long time, because there is no one to competently dispose of such strong trump cards. Spartak is constantly in a fever – ideological, personnel, mental. Where Spartak is, unfortunately, there are rumors, conjectures, scandals. Coaches, football players come and go, but there is no stability.

Now the club has a new management, a coaching staff that has prospects, a strong selection of players. I would like to believe that everything said about Spartak is echoes of the past, that the red-whites will finally find their “golden ratio”. Since ancient times, the collective opinion has been in use, which is strongly supported even by the opponents of the glorious club: without a strong, bright Spartak, the Russian championship is losing much of its attractiveness. I fully agree with this opinion.

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The 31st Russian season was held in exclusive conditions of international isolation, which, it would seem, could not but affect the quality of the fight. First of all, at the level of motivation, which seems to be devoid of a foundation. For example, in terms of the struggle for prize-winning places, from which in the European cups in any case it is not possible to show up yet. But no, nothing like that. All teams – all without exception, including not the most successful participants in the tournament – must be given their due: they fought furiously, with the right professional attitude, from the first round to the last.

The atmosphere of fierce rivalry not only gave the championship a tournament intrigue on almost all levels of the table, but also, I would like to believe, interested new potential advertisers, sponsors, and partners. It is fair to note the high level of organization of the tournament on the part of the RPL, which firmly kept its finger on the pulse and did not allow any failures.

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But with all due respect to the quality of the tournament intrigue and the level of competition, one cannot ignore the low level of technical equipment of most of our elite teams. The number of marriages is off scale, frankly. This is an address note. It concerns, first of all, systematic work with the younger generations of football players – a fundamentally important point, our old, unfortunately, “sore”. You watch the matches of the world’s leading leagues – and I watch a lot of different football, I try not to miss anything from the “important” category – the only thing left is to grab my head. The difference is huge, and the problem, I repeat, concerns even the leaders of the RPL. Including the invincible Zenit.

Work on the preparation of the reserve requires, of course, structural changes. For how many years there have been anxious conversations about the evaluation criteria for the quality of work of children’s trainers! How many fair, obvious arguments for professionals! After all, the true principle of the success of a coach working with youth is not a place in the table of regional, city or federal competitions, as is customary in football Russia, but the number and level of players prepared for big-time football. For the place is a variable and in a sense mythical, but the level of training is constant and real.

A vicious, fundamentally wrong approach needs to be changed. Here, the interaction of leading and directing departments comes to the fore – in particular, the Ministry of Sports and the RFU, which are often focused on completely different regulatory documents. The RFU has been working in this direction lately, working persistently, but the battle with the ossified bureaucratic system is still a challenge.

It is clear that at the head of the power pyramid, whatever one may say, is the Ministry of Sports. The main levers of influence are under his control, and in a global sense, the demand, it turns out, comes from the Russian Football Union. At the same time, the very structure of the problem, and its history, and the experience of the leading football countries are pushing for the most logical of decisions: to transfer the “reins” (and with them the responsibility, of course) into the hands of the RFU. It is the relevant department that should become the master of the situation.

Until the situation fundamentally changes, the blatant, harmful contradiction underlying the problem will not go anywhere either. And so the younger generations will fight for the lines in the protocols, for medals and cups for beautiful reports and shelves in office windows. These are, alas, concrete, tangible milestones within the framework of the current system of coordinates. They are praised for them, salaries and bonuses are paid for them, coaching categories are increased. And what is there, further, in the near foggy future – but who will sort it out? That’s what the future is for, so that you don’t know anything about it in the current reality …

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Well, about refereeing, of course. Where can we get away from this eternal question: when will we put things in order here? When will the arbitrators finally feel the full extent of the responsibility entrusted to them? When will judges be punished not on parole, but seriously, in an adult way, on the basis of truly professional criteria, for the roughest ones that break the course of individual matches and entire tournaments (and together in them often the fate of players and coaches, teams and clubs)? Up to the complete removal from the profession in fundamentally important cases.

Without raising this threshold, asking arbitrators is just shaking the air. Which, in fact, happens from match to match, from year to year.

In direct connection with an increase in the level of responsibility – the quality of training of judicial personnel. Here is the flag and the cards in the hands of the people who run the corps. The training of arbitrators (preferably not in one, but in several academies) is one side of the coin, the evaluation of their work is quite another. I am convinced that in order to evaluate the actions of the referee in a single episode or match, it is not at all necessary to know the refereeing business to the smallest subtleties. Let the experts sort out the subtleties – where and why the judge made a mistake, what is the nature of the mistake. And at the fundamental level of “good or bad” not only are independent people capable of, but also must work, not bound by mutual responsibility, but at the same time professionally connected with football.

The division of functions suggests itself in a more local area of ​​this most important front. We are talking about the VAR system, which is slowly but surely turning from a potential football assistant into a hidden pest. Including because the current arbitrators are sitting on the VAR, connected with the team working in the field with corporate interests. This, in my opinion, is fundamentally wrong. Why not hand the leverage of VAR to retired arbitrators who have gone through fire, water and copper pipes? Well, physically they don’t pull due to their age, but the experience is gigantic, the whole career is behind them. And why not dilute the video team with a functional unit that is not related to the judicial case at all? A football man, of course, a former football player or coach? ..

And one more thing I am sure of: in order to finally turn the tide, Russia’s judiciary must be headed by a bright, authoritative, strong leader. Again – not necessarily with a judicial past. And even preferable.