Translated material
Fedotovo Mountain
The head coach of Spartak resigned
The country's most titled football club is once again experiencing a change in leadership. Yesterday, the head coach of the vice-champions, Vladimir Fedotov, resigned, which was immediately accepted by the chairman of the board of directors and the actual owner of the club, Leonid Fedun. The team was led by Spartak sports director Stanislav Cherchesov. The contract with him was concluded until the end of 2008.“In the afternoon I was called to the club, told about the resignation of Vladimir Grigorievich and offered to take over the team. I agreed and signed a contract for a year and a half,” Stanislav Cherchesov briefly commented on his appointment yesterday, asking to postpone a detailed conversation until Friday’s Spartak game. But Fedotov’s resignation did not come as a surprise neither to him, nor to the fans, nor to the former head coach himself. The team won only one of the last eight matches and suffered crushing defeats twice: in the semi-finals of the Russian Cup from Lokomotiv - 0:3 and with the same score from the Premier League debutant Khimki. After these results, Fedotov’s resignation at the end of the first round was obvious to everyone associated with the club.
But everything happened before. On Sunday, leaving the stadium. Streltsov, where Spartak, amid friendly chants of their own fans “stop disgracing us,” lost another match to Moscow, the owner of the “red-white” club Leonid Fedun made it clear that fundamental decisions could be made in the near future. “The score is on the scoreboard, there is no game,” the club owner told reporters and left in the same car with sports director Stanislav Cherchesov. As it turned out later, for the next meeting, where Vladimir Fedotov later arrived.
And before that, the head coach refused to resign at a press conference. “Hope lives even at the very graves,” Vladimir Grigorievich quoted Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Recently, the 64-year-old specialist has generally been noticed to have a special passion for classics and philosophy: when addressing the arbitrators, he recited lines from Lermontov - “there is God’s court, confidants of debauchery”, and in other interviews he quoted other poets and writers. But yesterday, hope still did not survive: after two days of deliberation, Leonid Fedun made the long-awaited decision to fire his experienced mentor.
The decision to dismiss the head coach of the “red-whites” Vladimir Fedotov could have taken place earlier. Back in April last year, an offer was made to the same Stanislav Cherchesov to head Spartak. The mentor, who at that time led the Austrian club Wacker-Tirol, refused the offer and took up the post of sports director. The position of head coach was finally entrusted to Vladimir Fedotov, who, after the dismissal of Alexander Starkov, headed the team with the prefix “acting.”
At the same time, it was assumed that Cherchesov would sooner or later accept the team as head coach. But Fedotov initially coped with his duties well . He managed to find a common language with the players, who were agitated by the scandalous interview and the subsequent dismissal of team captain Dmitry Alenichev. “Spartak” picked up the pace and won silver medals. There were no reasons for Fedotov's dismissal. Even in the Champions League, the “red-whites” managed to get out of a seemingly hopeless situation and took third place in the group, which gave them the right to continue playing in the UEFA Cup.
There, however, Spartak failed in the spring. But it was too late to change anything. Moreover, in the current championship, the “red-whites” initially performed not so bad. Fedotov introduced a large group of young Russian players into the squad, which Leonid Fedun really liked. The new coach Stanislav Cherchesov made it clear that he will not give up relying on youth. “The course announced by the top management is unchanged: we are preparing personnel for the Russian national team,” says Cherchesov’s address, published on the official Spartak website. - However, I assure you that a place in the main team is not guaranteed to anyone. Those who work harder in training and look better at the moment will play. My main goal is to return and strengthen what the fans have always loved our team for: Spartak’s game in spirit and result, and time will tell whether this can be done.”
The additional application campaign, which starts in early August, should help Cherchesov. Spartak planned to spend about $10 million on the acquisition of new players. Under the current circumstances, the amount may be increased. So far, general director Sergei Shavlo has stated that the team needs one defender and one striker. But now, perhaps, there will be more acquisitions.
However, Spartak plans not only to buy, but also to sell. Even before the resignation of Vladimir Fedotov, Ukrainian midfielder Maxim Kalinichenko and Polish goalkeeper Wojciech Kowalewski were actually put up for transfer. The issue of sending the Brazilian Santos Mozart back to Italy was considered. On the proposed terms, Dmitry Torbinsky, who had an offer from Lokomotiv, refused to renew his contract. All of the named players, with the exception of the last one, can now leave the club: most likely, all possible transfers have already been agreed upon with Stanislav Cherchesov - his position in Spartak was strong even before his appointment as head coach.