Castling in the national team: Karpin instead of Cherchesov

The replacement of the head of the Russian national team Stanislav Cherchesov with Valery Karpin became the main event of the outgoing year in domestic football.

The previous mentor led the team for five years and, it seemed, had to fight with her to the end for tickets to the World Cup in Qatar.

However, the setback at Euro 2020 made unexpected adjustments.

Paradoxically, the main reason for the coach's resignation was not even a failure at the continental championship, but irritation among the fans.

Despite reaching the quarterfinals of the home world championship, Cherchesov was not liked for his arrogance and was accused of betting on defensive anti-football.

The last straw was a press conference at which the specialist called himself a field commander.

The arrival of Karpin helped return the disposition to the national team.

In contrast to his laconic predecessor, the coach, open and boldly answering all the questions of journalists, aroused sympathy among the public.

In addition, he tried to change the team's game, focusing on high pressure and abandoning Artyom Dziuba, who was a backbone player under Cherchesov.

Another thing is that in most of the matches under his leadership, Russia did not please with bright football.

The exception was the away confrontation with Slovenia.

But the meetings with Croatia and Slovakia were much more memorable, in which the domestic team did not succeed.

Losses in decisive matches

Nevertheless, Karpin in the national team was incredibly lucky at first. Under his leadership, she won five matches in the qualifying stage of the 2022 World Cup and at home she parted with the main competitor - Croatia. Such results helped to approach the meeting of the last round in Split in the first place. In the away game with the "checkers" the guests were satisfied with a draw, but they suffered an offensive defeat. The fate of a direct ticket to the final stage of the tournament was decided by Fyodor Kudryashov's own goal. But the coach was upset not so much by the misfire itself as by the cowardly game: 32% possession of the ball and only two inaccurate shots.

In general, it cannot be said that the national team played unsuccessfully with Cherchesov.

In 2021, she, led by a former mentor, played seven matches, in which she won three victories with the same number of defeats.

We managed to successfully start qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, and beat Finland at Euro 2020.

But, as in the case of Karpin, the crucial test ended in failure.

Russia devastatingly lost to Denmark (1: 4) and failed to reach the playoffs of the continental championship.

The year ended for the national team with two good draws.

In the semifinals of the play-off matches for the right to go to the World Cup in Qatar, she will play with Poland, and in the final she can compete with the winner of the Czech Republic - Turkey match.

In the League of Nations, the team has a great chance to break into the elite division, since Iceland, Israel and Albania got into the group rivals.

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Dzyuba Passion

The most talked about football player of the national team was Dziuba. After Cherchesov left, many wondered whether the captain would retain his place in the team, given the protracted conflict with Karpin. At first it seemed they had buried the ax of war. In the summer, a meeting took place at which the striker expressed a desire to help the new coach. But he did not make it to the September matches. A month later, the situation changed, but the footballer himself refused the challenge, citing a desire to get in shape. Since then, the parties have only exchanged barbs through the media. For example, Artyom accused the mentor of disrespect and a desire to offend him.

One way or another, but in the person of Dziuba, the national team lost one of the strongest forwards in the country.

He finished the last RPL season in first place in the sniper race, scoring 20 times.

The striker has broken the Premier League performance record this year.

And in terms of the number of points according to the "goal + pass" system (10 + 4), he is in the lead at all.

Yes, and to the national team Dziuba remained useful to the last.

In the outgoing year, in qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, he hit the gates of Malta and twice - Slovenia, and at Euro 2020 he scored a penalty in the confrontation with Denmark and helped Oleksiy Miranchuk to distinguish himself in the match with Finland.

Along the way, he caught up with Alexander Kerzhakov with 30 goals in the list of the best scorers of the national team in history.

Zenit titles

On the domestic arena, 2021 was marked by the dominance of Zenit.

If in European competitions Petersburgers regularly experience problems, then at home they have no equal.

In May, they won the Russian championship for the third time in a row, eight points ahead of their nearest pursuer, Spartak.

We managed to guarantee ourselves another title two rounds before the finish thanks to the humiliating defeat of Lokomotiv - 6: 1.

The railroad workers intended to take revenge in July in the Super Bowl match, but again they were big beats - 0: 3.

Thus, the blue-white-blue could not take only the Cup of the country.

In the 1/8 finals, they sensationally lost to Arsenal.

In the new RPL season, Dynamo made a serious competition to Zenit, but the reigning champion still left for the winter break as the leader, for the fourth time in a row under the leadership of Semak.

In general, one gets the impression that the Petersburgers are capable of winning the championship with any losses in the lineup, since they are simply head and shoulders above their competitors.

Their advantage is underlined by the results of head-to-head matches with such giants as Dynamo (4: 1, 1: 1), Spartak (7: 1), CSKA (1: 0, 2: 0), Krasnodar (3: 2), Lokomotiv (1: 1).

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Revolution in Lokomotiv

Serious problems in the camp of the main competitors contributed to the hegemony of the team from the banks of the Neva. For example, in less than a year, railroad workers have gone through two stages of a management reshuffle. In December 2020, Vasily Kiknadze and Anatoly Meshcheryakov, hated by fans, left the club. In the spring, the Muscovites, led by Marko Nikolic, put on an excellent finishing spurt in the national championship, taking third place, and won the Russian Cup.

And in the summer, the team of the famous German manager Ralf Rangnik, who was appointed head of the sports and development department, came to Lokomotiv.

Thomas Zorn, who previously worked at Spartak, has become the technical director.

The red-greens announced a change in the vector of development: they got rid of a number of experienced players and spent more than € 30 million on the transfer market, according to media reports. And in the fall, after the first setbacks, Nikolic was dismissed, and Markus Gisdol took his place.

But the real surprise awaited the fans at the end of November, when Rangnik, remembered for his desire to make “Sapsan” from a steam locomotive, took over the leadership of Manchester United.

The results of the team still leave much to be desired.

During the winter break, she went only sixth in the RPL standings, and at the group stage of the Europa League she scored only two points.

Changes in CSKA and Krasnodar

There was a lack of stability and other competitors of Zenit.

In addition to Lokomotiv, they changed mentors at CSKA, Krasnodar and Spartak.

And the army team did it twice.

After the arrival of Evgeny Giner, the club taught that it is patient with coaches and does not seek to dismiss them as soon as possible.

Therefore, Valery Gazzaev, Leonid Slutsky and Viktor Goncharenko worked with the red and blue years.

In 2021, the throwing began just after the departure of the Belarusian.

The reason for the separation was a bad start to the year.

If this step to some extent looked logical, then the appointment of Ivica Olic, who has no experience, raised big questions.

As a result, the Croat, despite the support of the fans, failed to perform a miracle.

The Red and Blues finished sixth and for the first time in many years did not make it to the European competition.

In the summer, Olic himself lost his post.

The choice of a replacement surprised again, because the management trusted Alexei Berezutsky, who, being a CSKA legend, is just beginning his journey as a coach.

However, this castling did not affect the results of the army team too much.

For the winter break, they left fourth.

Goncharenko, on the other hand, was out of work for a very short time - in April he took over Krasnodar.

But in the case of the Belarusian, one cannot say that the new team has greatly improved under his leadership.

The southerners, although they put things in order in defense, continued to regularly lose points in matches with outsiders and middle peasants and have not yet entered the European Cup zone.

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The contradictory nature of Spartak

Spartak also went through two head coach changes in a year.

After the end of last season, Domenico Tedesco left the team, who won RPL silver medals with her.

His place was taken by another eminent legionnaire - Rui Vitoria, who had previously achieved considerable success with the Portuguese giants.

However, he did not work for Spartak for half a year.

At the end of December, Paolo Vanoli took the red and whites.

The leapfrog of specialists is only part of the mess that was happening in the club.

The 2021st at Spartak was marked by another round of the struggle for power.

Often, conflicts between the parties became public knowledge.

That, at least, is the skirmish on Telegram between Zarema Salikhova and Dmitry Popov, who was dismissed from the post of sports director in early August.

It's even amazing how the red and white, with such internal contradictions, achieved success in the Europa League.

When the draw determined the domestic team in the group with "Napoli", "Leicester" and "Legia", many assumed that she was going to fight for the third line.

However, the Muscovites won back the first and got directly into the 1/8 finals.

And the main character in their composition was the goalkeeper Alexander Selikhov, who deflected a penalty in England and Poland.

It was his save in the 98th minute of the match in Warsaw that allowed the team to keep the lead.

But on the RPL games a completely different "Spartak" came out - weak-willed and apathetic.

The ten-time champions of Russia suffered a humiliating defeat from Zenit (1: 7) and lost points in the confrontations with Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa and Arsenal.

As a result - only ninth place, seven points behind the European Cup zone.

New names in RPL

Among other positive moments of the outgoing year, it is worth noting the appearance in the Premier League of a large number of young talented football players.

The beginning of this trend was laid by Dynamo.

As the head of the team, Sandro Schwartz was not afraid to bet on the youth, and it worked instantly.

Arsen Zakharyan, Konstantin Tyukavin, Vyacheslav Grulev, Sebastian Shimanski and Daniil Fomin became the leaders of the blue and white.

And in the summer they were accompanied by Denis Makarov, acquired from Rubin.

Muscovites benefited from such drastic changes.

In the current draw of the national championship, they are the main competitors of Zenit and show the brightest football.

To match them "Wings of the Soviets", which returned to the RPL in the summer.

Samara are fighting for getting into European cups, and the key roles in the team are played by Roman Yezhov, Anton Zinkovsky, Vladislav Sarveli, Yuri Gorshkov and Danil Prutsev.

Even the main talent of national football, Sergei Pinyaev, who turned 17 in November, regularly receives practice.

Already in December, he scored his debut goal in the RPL.

Vitoria also managed to break in a couple of young players.

During his reign, Ruslan Litvinov and Mikhail Ignatov began to play in Spartak on a permanent basis.

The former was previously content with playing for Spartak-2 in the FNL, and the latter, after a brilliant debut, was also forced to defend the colors of the farm club.

However, now both are the leaders of the red and white.

First of all, this concerns Litvinov, who made a duet with 21-year-old Nail Umyarov in the support zone.

Finally, one cannot fail to mention the incredible progress of Hamid Agalarov.

The Ufa striker, who has not scored a single goal in the RPL before, has scored 13 times this season and is the leader in the tournament's top scorers race.

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The successes of the youth team

Largely a consequence of the growing trust in domestic footballers in the clubs was the first entry of the Russian youth team into the final stage of the European Championship since 2013.

However, the performance there left conflicting impressions.

On the one hand, Mikhail Galaktionov's wards started with a crushing victory over Iceland (4: 1), and on the other hand, they could not oppose anything to France and Denmark and could not reach the playoffs.

More was expected from the team with Zakharyan, Tyukavin, Umyarov, Maksimenko, Makarov, Igor Diveev, Ivan Oblyakov and Fyodor Chalov.

Despite this, Galaktionov retained his post, and in the fall the renewed youth team took the start in the Euro 2023 qualification.

Serious rotation did not affect the results.

In the first six rounds, the Russians won five victories with one defeat from Spain and share the first place in the group with their opponents.

Moreover, at home, the domestic team managed to take revenge from the "red fury" thanks to Tyukavin's goal.

And the top scorer of the team in the qualifying cycle is Agalarov with four goals.

Replacing Pryadkin with Khachaturian

An equally important event was the change of the head of the Premier League.

Sergei Pryadkin has held his position since 2007, and it seemed that he would not leave it for a long time.

The positions of the functionary were seriously hit by the coronavirus pandemic, during which the league avoided making key decisions as much as possible.

At the same time, the head of the RFU Referee Committee Ashot Khachaturyants gained weight.

His activities were positively assessed by many managers and coaches, for example Slutsky.

In early October, Pryadkin voluntarily resigned, and Khachaturyants began to perform his duties first on a temporary and then on a permanent basis, who at the same time continued to work in the same place.