On Tuesday, in the Cherkizovsky market area, a large group of well-known Russian trainers was noticed. On a sunny Monday morning, they arrived at the Russian University of Physical Education in order to become students for several days and receive a coaching license of the Pro category. Izvestia correspondent watched how football coaches returned to their academic past.
Audience No. 61, the main abode of knowledge of the football department, is a spacious room with desks and chairs placed in it. Just like at school. Opposite them, a couple more tables are built, at which representatives of the expert commission, headed by Nikita Simonyan, are sitting. Having thanked the trainers “for coming”, the commission tells the audience how the training process will go on for half an hour. Among those gathered were those who, for some reason, did not receive the Pro category last summer. The desire to obtain this license is explained simply: from next year without it it will be impossible to train professional clubs and national teams.
In the audience, coaches are placed according to age and merit: those who are younger and hungrier to knowledge are in the forefront, the titans of the coaching workshop are in the gallery. So, from the front desks, every word of the commission is swallowed by Dmitry Galyamin, who recently left Spartak Nizhny Novgorod, and Igor Kolyvanov, this spring leading the Russian team to victory in the European Championship among 17-year-olds. Despite his recent success, he may be the only student of the current convocation who does not receive the Pro category. “Last year, as you remember, out of 30 people, only two were not given a license - Andrei Chernyshov and Andrei Kobelev,” recalls Nikita Simonyan. “The main reason was a lack of experience. Now Igor Kolyvanov himself says that perhaps he himself young, it will be difficult at these courses. Although it all depends on him. The rest, I think everything will be in order.
Despite requests to turn off mobile phones, Spartak head coach Vladimir Fedotov forgets to do this. Reporting an incoming call, his pipe plays the Champions League anthem all over the room - it’s immediately clear that a person is preparing in advance for the tournament, where Spartak will start in a couple of weeks. To move further away from him, the Spartak coach sitting at the same desk with the sports director of the red-white Stanislav Cherchesov is in a hurry to train and at the end of the class leaves the audience first. Before that, however, Valery Ovchinnikov, the legendary coach of Nizhny Novgorod Lokomotiv, has time to pin up. When it comes to car passes to the university, Fedotov lets go to Ovchinnikov: "He will come here on the ship."
Such a joke is an allusion to the current residence of Ovchinnikov, who has recently been working as vice president of Tallinn Levadia. “In my opinion, Tallinn is a beautiful city. And Estonia is a very nice country: it’s not in vain that I have been living there for six years,” he says, taking a drag on his cigarette, to an Izvestia correspondent. “They love football there. such courses are always interesting: there will be something to return to Estonia with. "
The main stars of the coaching courses - the former coaches of Spartak and the Russian team Oleg Romantsev and Georgy Yartsev - are sitting on the last desk in the very corner of the audience. When, after the opening stage, the trainers go out for a smoke break, dressed in a spectacular pink shirt, Yartsev answers all journalistic requests for an interview with his inherent temperament: "Give me a good rest!"
However, judging by the stated course program, Yartsev is unlikely to be able to rest. The first stage of training will last 4 days and will include two theoretical and two practical classes. After that, the coaches will be dissolved to meet again in November. Then they will hold a full-fledged two-week gathering, which will even include internship abroad (the options for Milan, Ajax, Chelsea and Manchester United are currently being considered) and the defense of abstracts. It is curious that the standard response time for an abstract is 8-10 minutes, but last year a record holder was found who broke all standards. CSKA head coach Valery Gazzayev revealed the secrets of preparing his team for more than half an hour.
Yuri DUD