Zinetula Bilyaletdinov was given Kazan for the third time

One of the giants of the KHL Ak Bars announced the return to the post of head coach of the club Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, under whose leadership he won all three of his Gagarin Cups. Now the veteran mentor has to help the Kazan players overcome an unexpected crisis: having strengthened themselves with several celebrities in the summer, they perform very mediocrely in the regular season, being in the basement of the play-off zone.

“AK Bars”, one of the KHL giants, announced that 67-year-old Zinetula Bilyaletdinov became his new head coach. This post has been vacant since the beginning of December, after the dismissal of the former mentor Oleg Znark. Prior to the appointment of Bilyaletdinov, an agreement with which provides work until the end of the current season, Ak Bars in the status of the acting first person in the coaching staff was led by Yuri Babenko.

Commenting on the decision, Marat Valiullin, general manager of Kazan, said that Zinetula Bilyaletdinov “is able to instill professionalism and the ability to fight in every match for the team.”

Bilyaletdinov himself admitted that “initially” he had other professional plans, but “the situation prompted such a choice.”

“I care about our team and the position we all find ourselves in,” he said.

It is clear what Zinetula Bilyaletdinov meant by this phrase. Before the start of the season, Ak Bars was considered almost as his main favorite. The fact is that he was able to further strengthen the already expensive and high-quality composition in the summer. First of all, we are talking about three domestic stars – defender Vyacheslav Voinov and forward Vadim Shipachev who transferred from Dynamo Moscow, as well as striker Alexander Radulov, who played for a long time in the NHL.

This team, outstanding by the standards of the KHL, was headed by the famous coach Oleg Znarok, who has many achievements in his track record, including an Olympic victory with the national team in 2018. However, instead of taking off, something extremely similar to a failure turned out.

Ak Bars was constantly losing points in the fall, and conflicts between the players and the Kazan management turned into a hot topic for various media resources.

Even despite the good results in December, the position they occupy in the standings does not at all correspond to the idea of ​​the club’s potential. He is in seventh place, that is, in the basement of the “play-off zone” of the Western Conference, having almost equal losses and wins (22 and 21), and therefore, runs the risk of running into a powerful opponent in the opening round.

Leading the team out of the crisis, the leaders of Ak Bars entrusted, one might say, a significant figure for him. Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, in the past one of the strongest defenders of Soviet hockey, has a very bright and coaching biography. He, like Znark, had a chance to work with the national team, winning the World Cup with it. But still, first of all, Bilyaletdinov is associated with Ak Bars.

In total, he worked in it for more than ten years: first from 2004 to 2011, then from 2014 to 2019. In its history, Ak Bars has won three Gagarin Cups, and all with Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. He first mined it in 2009, and repeated his success in 2010 and 2018.

True, until recently it seemed that Bilyaletdinov, most likely, would not be easy to get a job in a top club again. He was fired from Ak Bars a season after the third triumph, against the backdrop of a crushing, in four matches, defeat from Avangard in the 1/8 finals of the Gagarin Cup and against the backdrop of a wave of criticism: the coach was reproached for archaic style and methods. During the downtime of Bilyaletdinov in the KHL, the trend for young coaches was finally established. Veteran coaches in the league are now a rarity.

However, the reasons to think that Zinetula Bilyaletdinov will be a good option for Ak Bars are at hand. The fact is that before being appointed head coach, he actively helped Yuri Babenko for some time, entering his headquarters.

And Marat Valiullin, of course, could not but draw the attention of the doubters in Bilyaletdinov to the fact that with him in the role of a consultant with broad powers, the performance of Kazan citizens improved dramatically.

In the last seven games they lost only twice, adding dramatically in terms of the quality of hockey.

Alexey Dospekhov