The football community continues to discuss possible candidates for the position of head coach of the Russian national team. And every day the circle of possible successors to Stanislav Cherchesov is getting narrower. In particular, the number of possible candidates for the post among domestic specialists has been reduced to a minimum, and Kurban Berdyev is considered the main one. Early in the morning, Rubin's ex-mentor personally flew to Moscow, which may also be an indirect confirmation of his negotiations with the RFU.
It is not surprising that Berdyev himself refused to talk about a possible appointment as head coach of the national team. The specialist has always been distinguished by his closeness, and this time he was also extremely laconic. He explained his visit to the capital as "personal affairs", and refused to answer other questions, silently proceeding to the street. But taking into account the recent statement of the head of the RFU, Alexander Dyukov, about the desire to resolve the personnel issue in the national team before the start of the new RPL season, the sudden arrival of Kurban Bekievich to Moscow can hardly be called an accident.
The fact that it is Berdyev who is considered the main candidate for the vacant place in the national team was also reported by Sport-Express. According to the publication, the specialist can be offered a contract before the end of the 2022 World Cup, and further cooperation will be discussed after the end of the tournament. At the same time, Kurban Bekievich will earn significantly less than Cherchesov, but if he reaches the world championship in Qatar, he will receive a solid bonus.
Undoubtedly, Berdyev is one of the most honored Russian coaches in the 21st century. First, he built the powerful Rubin, with which he not only won the national championship twice, but also successfully played in European competitions. Many remember the victories over Tottenham and Atlético, but the triumph in the confrontation with Barcelona in the Champions League and reaching the quarter-finals of the Europa League, where only the future winner of the trophy, Chelsea, managed to stop Kazan, stand apart.
Subsequently, the mentor left Kazan and proved that he was still able to achieve high results at home and compete on equal terms with the giants of world football. In the 2015/16 season, he was close to bringing Rostov to the championship. However, Igor Akinfeev's miracle save at the end of the meeting with Rubin allowed CSKA to keep the first place in the table. The European Cup campaign will be remembered for the victories over Ajax and Bayern Munich, as well as the fierce battle with the future winner of the Europa League Manchester United in the 1/8 finals of the tournament.
Yes, the last stage in Berdyev's career turned out to be not the brightest. In 2017, he returned to Rubin, but in two years he could neither improve the team's game, nor deal with personnel issues. Then in the Kazan club there were about 40 players, many of whom were acquired during the period of cooperation with Xavi Gracia. It was expected that Kurban Bekievich would sort out all the problems: he would clear the payroll, get rid of unnecessary players, and quickly teach the rest to win. However, in two seasons, the team won only 19 of 66 official matches and never managed to rise above 10th place in the RPL.
In this regard, serious doubts may arise about the advisability of appointing Berdyev to the post of coach of the Russian national team. Over the past two years, he not only did not rehabilitate himself for a failure at Rubin, but did not engage in coaching at all. Until May 2021, he remained unemployed, after which a message appeared about his arrival at Kairat. True, in Alma-Ata, he was supposed to act as an advisor to the chairman of the supervisory board. But in the case of Kurban Bekievich, it cannot be ruled out that it was a kind of screen. At Rostov, he also first retrained as a consultant, and then took over as vice president, which did not prevent him from monitoring the training process and determining the transfer policy. In any case, this is what the former general director of the club, Yuri Belous, said.
It is also important that two years of inactivity cost Berdyev and his coaching staff, with whom he achieved success. Over the past 19 years, he has worked with a limited circle of assistants and is unlikely to want to change something, but at the moment only a few of them are available. According to Transfermarkt, Yakub Urazsakhatov and Alexander Matsyura are without a club, while Vitaly Kafanov and Vladimir Kulaev work in other teams. The first helps Valery Karpin in "Rostov", the second - works in the Belgorod "Salute".
Thus, Berdyev will need to either persuade his former assistants to leave their current jobs and join him, or find new ones. Sure, this can be tricky, but it's not worth calling it a stumbling block either. Just look at Roberto Mancini, who assembled the coaching staff of the Italian national team from scratch. The question is, would a conservative professional want to do this?
In terms of the possible arrival of Berdyev in the Russian national team, other factors may also be alarming. One of them concerns the degree of the team's openness to the public and communication with the press. Over the past five years, many have criticized Cherchesov for his unwillingness to build work with journalists and thoroughly explain certain steps, and many consider his answer to the question of not calling Igor Denisov in 2018 indicative. Then the specialist limited himself to the phrase: "I am the head coach, and I decided so."
However, there is every reason to believe that in the event of Berdyev's arrival in this aspect, one should not expect changes for the better. Yes, there may be fewer openly rude answers to questions, but the specifics will certainly not be added. Kurban Bekievich never liked to answer questions in detail, and over the years he has hardly changed. Consequently, the press conferences, although they will be held in a somewhat calmer atmosphere, will hardly satisfy the need for information of both the media and ordinary fans.
As for the coaching activity itself, everything is also ambiguous here. Yes, victories in the RPL and successes in European competitions are a serious argument during the discussion of Berdyev's candidacy, especially given the fact that neither Rubin nor Rostov had top-level performers. And in the context of the Russian national team, this may seem like a key factor. The ability to squeeze the most out of average footballers, use their strengths wisely and adjust the tactical pattern to them is the ideal set of qualities for a national team coach.
But even here there are several nuances. In recent years, Cherchesov has been repeatedly criticized for an overly defensive style of play and a lack of ideas in attack. This was especially noticeable at the European Championship at the moments when the Russian national team was in the role of catching up. The inability to act in a positional attack and the absence of a plan B in the event of neutralization of Artyom Dziuba - this is what largely led to a fiasco in the confrontations with Belgium and Denmark, and was almost worth the victory over Finland.
And there is no certainty that under Berdyev, the national team will act more diversified. In games with top-teams, you should probably wait for the "bus" at your own goal and bet on counterattacks, and in matches with weaker opponents - throws at a powerful forward. Over the years of his career, Kurban Bekievich also often preferred physically powerful strikers. Suffice it to say that it was under his leadership that Alexander Bukharov was revealed.
Berdyev was also often criticized for excessive trust in a certain backbone of football players, who subsequently followed him around the clubs. Suffice it to recall how, in 2017, Rubin added a whole assault force of his former charges from Rostov in the amount of seven people, including Soslan Dzhanaev, Fedor Kudryashov, Serdar Azmun and even 37-year-old Sesar Navas. And in July 2018, Bukharov also moved to Kazan, temporarily suspending his career six months ago.
It should not be ruled out that in the Russian national team Berdyev will not deviate from his principles and will rely on proven performers. On the one hand, this will allow, in the shortest possible time, to assemble a combat-ready team of football players, in whose abilities the mentor is 100% sure. On the other hand, it will delay the rejuvenation process and put an end to the prospects of many other athletes. Most of Kurban Bekievich's “old acquaintances” have already crossed the 30-year mark and are unlikely to be useful in the long term.
So far, it is extremely difficult to imagine how comfortable Berdyev himself will feel in the national team. There are certain suspicions that his methods may not work in the national team, where he will not have the opportunity to constantly contact his charges and analyze their actions in certain episodes to the smallest detail. In a limited time environment, it may be difficult for Kurban Bekievich to develop automatism in the team, which can negatively affect the results.
In addition, the idea of considering Berdyev as a crisis coach capable of giving a result in the shortest possible time seems to be very controversial, because during his career he only succeeded in such a quality. In December 2014, he accepted Rostov and helped him rise from the last, 16th to eighth place in the table. True, even then it was not without amplification. In the winter transfer window, the team was joined by Artyom Dzyuba, Serdar Azmun, Vladimir Granat, Ivan Novoseltsev.
At the same time, during the last visit to Rubin, he was unable to cope with this task, and this is despite the carte blanche in terms of the lineup renewal and a number of notable acquisitions. And his successful period in Kazan is the fruit of a long and painstaking work - both coaching and selection. In this regard, there are great doubts that Berdyev will be able, and most importantly, will want to update the Russian national team and lay a bridgehead not only for a successful performance at the 2022 World Cup, but also at Euro 2024.