Dagestan Skolkovo

There is so much football-related news around our football that we have to admit: even if someone gets bored writing about 2:0 and 3:1, there will still be topics for conversation. With interest. Because our football figures behave so clumsily that there is enough reason for heated discussions.

In Gazeta.Ru I remembered how last week my respected Konstantin Remchukov (professor and newspaper publisher, and more recently the chairman of the board of directors of Anzhi), delighting fans with constant photographs on Twitter: here is the team in training, here is the team in the locker room , here I am and Roberto Carlos, etc.) puzzled the public. The bomb (of course, informational) was detonated easily and sparklingly. He told the public that Anji would have a new base. And it will be located in the land of nanotechnology - in Skolkovo.

And they all exploded. Each one in their own way. Some were discussing that, they say, Suleiman Kerimov wants, hiding behind the sign of the Makhachkala club, to organize another development project. He will, they say, make some kind of country club with an application in the form of a sports component.

Others were looking for tax benefits that I didn't really understand. But the Makhachkala fans were the most worried.

It is clear that Anzhi is a club that all Dagestanis support, no matter where in the country they live (unlike Rubin Kazan, which for some reason Tatars throughout the country do not support). But it’s those who live in the region where the club is registered that are hurting the most. Dagestani Anzhi fans, who now get to their stadium not without problems (they are dropped out of their cars three kilometers before the arena, and then have to walk), are indignant: okay, if at one time they talked about Kratovo as a temporary refuge (the village of Saturn near Moscow, as Roberto Carlos called the base near Ramenskoye) - they endured it. They also endured it when Anzhi played in Cherkizovo. They stoically endured the move of the base to Luzhniki. Because they understood: all these are temporary options. But now there is a completely different option: we are building our own base. And again she is not where the club is assigned.

What does all this mean?

The club becomes like home for the fan when he lives somewhere nearby. Not only in the heart, but also physically somewhere nearby. When, on the way out of a local restaurant, you might meet Samuel Eto'o, and in the market you might see Roberto Carlos coming for fruit. And even if you don’t meet any of them, you will still understand that he is close, he is nearby, he is your fellow countryman.

The team has been living in its new status for several years now, but nothing has changed in this regard. Why not say honestly: we can still fly to Makhachkala once a week or two to play a match, but living in the most troubled region is a completely different matter, we are afraid.

Skolkovo's proximity to Luzhniki suggests that when Russia's main sports arena reopens after reconstruction before the 2018 World Cup, it will become Anzhi's home for the next few years. No options.

Did Anzhi admit that the chances of convincing UEFA to play at home in Makhachkala are low? Also - no options.

One thing at least becomes clear: which of the Moscow teams will play matches in Luzhniki when Spartak, CSKA, and Dynamo finally build their long-suffering stadiums. And Anzhi will play there. Always. Because in essence, this is also a Moscow team. If one of the team stars lives at the expense of the club in a five-story penthouse on Leninsky Prospekt with a separate elevator, if all life happens exclusively in Moscow and around Moscow, then let’s honestly remove the word “Makhachkala” from the brackets after the team name.

"Anji" is a typical Russian Potemkin village. With a beautiful and expensive facade. And the complete absence of anything inside.

Very often, both on air and in idle conversations with colleagues and representatives of the expert community, I heard this almost obligatory phrase: “Well... if the club has the opportunity... then why not?”

And herein lies one big problem. There is curvature in the brains of a huge number of people. A special angle of view. Special interpretation. If you have money, if you have the opportunity. Few people think about the priority of spending and strategic investments. The main thing: if you have money, you have the opportunity to spend it.

I don’t want to criticize in any way the approach of “Suleiman’s friend,” as Guus Hiddink calls him. Thank God that such people appear in our football (or around our football). I am no longer interested in seriously discussing how Yuri Semin once asked to schedule Lokomotiv matches as early as possible in order to have time to fly with Kerimov to Chelsea games and explain to him all the intricacies of the game. I don't even care if it's true or not. In the end, learning to understand football by watching Chelsea games is better than watching Krylya Sovetov - Terek. At the moment, one thing is clear to me: he loved football. Rumor has it that it doesn’t even matter to him what place the team takes (as we can see from this year’s results, the team doesn’t care either). He wants everyone in the world to know that somewhere on the shores of the Caspian Sea there is a show team, that world-famous stars play in it, that rich Europeans will fly here for one evening, landing at a private airport, have dinner, enjoy football at the miracle stadium (why not build a stadium on alluvial sand right in the Caspian Sea?). Maybe someday this will happen. Maybe even many bases will be built - in addition to Skolkovo, in New York, Abu Dhabi and London. Well, in Makhachkala - so that no one gets upset.

But all this once again demonstrates one simple truth: we are talking about a project that cannot be viable. Because it is limited to the desires (even if absolutely sincere) of one specific person. If he gets tired of this toy, the project will collapse and disappear overnight.