RealnoeVremya: Post-Championship Season Outlook

“Strela” handed over the reins of the championship to the rugby players

The Tatarstan football championship ended in complete triumph for the teams representing the regions of Tatarstan. For the fourth year now, the season has been held under the total advantage of one team. Starting in 2022, the championship and the Republic Cup were won by the same team. In 2022 it was “Nefis”, a year later “Falcon” became a winner. Immediately after this, the teams moved up in class, moving to the level of professional football. It turns out that the Tatarstan championship has twice delegated its teams to professional football over the past couple of years, because, in addition to Sokol, Nefis also became the basis for the creation of Rubin-2 on its basis.

Last year, Strela became the undisputed champion. True, Oleg Mironov’s squad did not even set their sights on pro football; for them, the main thing was to restore the historical name of this club. Until the end of the 60s, the “arrows” were one of the strongest teams in the city, as recalled by the current chairman of the Tatarstan Football Federation, Alexander Gusev:

“After studying at KKhTI, in 1968 I went to work at the Powder Plant, like my friend from my youth Damir Bikbov, the future Minister of Economy of Tatarstan. And the Powder Plant is the Strela football team (although the Strela rugby team has been created in the sports club since 1967). I was invited to play for the club team, but the first year I could not help it due to health reasons, and a year later the secretary of the party committee persuaded me to play for the workshop team. And this is where football ended for me as an amateur player. Including because Strela was very strong at that time, both Damir Bikbov and Albert Fayzullin were football players with experience playing for the Rubin team of masters.

Kazan football veteran Yuri Markov, the long-time head of Rubin, worked for us. The coach of that factory team was Konstantin Martyanov, a war veteran who himself played for both Rubin and Strela, and came to Kazan from Belarus. Such was the sports environment, but by that time I had become the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the plant, and this entailed a huge layer of social work, both sports, cultural and mass. Development estimate – palace of culture, stadium, hockey rink. After which, over time, he became the secretary of the plant’s party committee, going to the Kazan city Komsomol committee for five years.”

Zakamye rules

Now it is difficult to explain for what reasons the “shooters” lost their positions back in the days of the Union; it is possible that this is due to the appearance of a rugby team in the Kirovsky district of Kazan in 1967. And resources – financial, human – were redistributed to the city’s only rugby team, after which football faded into the background. Actually, as it was in Derbyshki, where bandy prevailed. If this assumption is correct, then a beautiful picture emerges of how the football “Strela” passed the championship baton to the rugby team, although at the moment they have no connection with each other.

In fact, the transition of two Kazan teams to the pros, the understandable growing pains of young guns, led to the fact that Kazan did not participate in the fight for republican football medals this year. “Strela” won the Super Cup, defeating “Alabuga” on penalties, and then the burden of leadership fell on the representatives of the Zakamsk (“Alabuga” and “Elmet” from Almetyevsk) and Prikamsk (vice-champion FC “Mendeleevsk”) zones of the republic.

As for the Kazan teams, they staged a “rubilovo” within the first league, when three teams – “Electrospectr”, “Kukmara Babay” and “Rubin-Media” – were separated in the final table by only one point.

Our publication has already written about the triumph of Alabuga, which took second place for two seasons in a row and has now made a qualitative rise, having interviewed the head coach of the triumphant team, Vladimir Baryshev. By the way, Vladimir Leonidovich mentioned that FC Mendeleevsk may even have a larger budget.

Historical success of FC Mendeleevsk

For the Mendeleevites, the current second place is a historical success, since representatives of this city have never been among the winners of the championship, or even finalists of the Republic Cup. There was a chance this season, but the Mendeleev team missed it in the post-match penalties, having beaten them in the semi-finals worse than Elmet. The Almetyevsk team, in turn, may be worried about the fact that, having reached the final, they were unable to win the Republic Cup, and at the end of the championship they lost second place to the Mendeleev team. The latter will begin the next season with a match for the Super Cup of the Republic, in confrontation with Alabuga.

As for the Almetyevsk residents, the season is still ongoing for some of them. The fact is that four Tatarstan teams will take part in the Russian 8×8 mini-football championship. The tournament will be held in Sochi from November 2 to 7 on the fields of the Sports Territory sports complex with the participation of 112 of the strongest teams from 82 regions. Among them are “Profkam” and “O2Rus-Tishina”, representing Naberezhnye Chelny, Kazan “Warm House – Na farte” and Almetyevsk “Elmet”.

There are different opinions regarding its existence. For example, the chairman of the Tatarstan Football Federation, Alexander Gusev, spoke as follows: “There are fears that this could destroy the system of development of classical football. Meanwhile, the same people who play in the classic football championships take part in these tournaments. And already there is serious competition, both student football and veteran football, media football and futsal (mini-football). It is clear that 6X6, 7X7, 8X8 is easier to create a team and play. And there are fears that football players will choose tournaments there, all other things being equal. There are more dynamics there, goals are scored more often.”

The victory of Bayramov’s team is a plus for the karma of Tatarstan football

The fears of Gusev, who noticed that different types of football are often played by the same ones, can be understood. The Almetyevsk team has more than ten players, led by head coach Rafael Khisamov, who successfully combined classic football with its 8X8 variety during the season. At the same time, Khisamov himself, as well as his assistant on the coaching staff Denis Zainullin, being playing coaches, plus their wards Guzairov, Chernyshev, Shlyapkin, the tandem of the Yagudin brothers, have crossed the age of 30.

Corporate and veteran competitions, mini-football in the usual 5×5 format – all this is a load that is becoming more difficult to cope with every year, especially considering that we are talking about amateur football. True, no, no, but even amateurs have stories of the “they come back” variety. Thus, Marat Khairullin, who was actively involved in various types of football and participated in the Tatarstan championship as a player in veteran football and futsal teams, returned to professional football. He became the sports director of the Kazakh Aktobe, where he spent the best years of his playing career.

Moreover, Khairullin is not the first Tatarstan football player to return to the pros; the most striking story of this year was the winning by Vladimir Bayramov and his Turkmenistan team “Arkadag” of the Challenge Cup, the third highest-ranking club tournament on the Asian continent. It is worth a lot to return triumphantly to international professional football from the republic, and Bayramov until that time headed the children’s team of the Labor Reserves. Just like the fact that Yuri Solano’s team from Ecuador will participate in the World Cup, and the coach himself was and continues to be an active participant in the amateur football of the republic.

This season, FC Sokol, the champion of the republic and winner of the 2023 Tatarstan Cup, ceased to exist. Perhaps the football community of Tatarstan simply could not stand the transition of two amateur teams to professional status. Veteran of Tatarstan football Iskander Shaikhov, at the time when the Nefis team was playing in the republican championship, suggested that the players of his team, as well as other Tatarstan students, were given a second chance to get into big-time football: “We don’t have this chance since Rubin 2 was abolished, but this team, playing in the second league, gave both Ruslan and Rustem the opportunity to express themselves Mukhametshin, Irek Ganiev, Marat Sitdikov, Marat Sagirov, Marat Khairullin. Plus, the coaches were Robert Evdokimov, Rustem Khuzin, who worked with this team, and Ilya Ulyanin, who played there.”

“It doesn’t happen that a football player has blossomed at the age of 18, and that’s it, he’s already in the mix”

The Nefis team managed to implement this idea in cooperation with the Rubin football club. The “Falcons” did not have such a reliable rear behind them, and the team’s ultimate goal – to become a kind of outpost that would give promising footballers a chance to return to the pros – had already been adopted by the Nefisovites. The same Shaikhov reasoned: “It doesn’t happen that a football player blossomed at the age of 18, and that’s it, he’s already in the mix. Take the same Ilya Samoshnikov, who became a player of the Russian national team, or the football player of the Armenian national team Khoren Bayramyan. He was not seen in Rostov at all until Kurban Berdyev arrived there. They suggested to Kurban Bekievich: “Take the guy to watch, he doesn’t need money, no one needs to pay for him, he just wants to play.” They took it, and after a while he scored against Bayern.”

Let’s hope that the former “Falcons” will take advantage of the experience that they acquired while simmering in the cauldron of professional football for a year and a half, where they transferred from republican football.

The season coming to an end was full of various events directly related to republican football. Among the sad ones: Rubin veterans Vladimir Zaitsev and Yuri Ibraev passed away, former general director of Chelny KAMAZ Yakov Bregman and former coach of Zelenodolsk Pozis Alexander Klobukov died. An ex-footballer of the republican amateur teams “Technology” (football) and “Brick Row” (mini-football, Rustem Shamsutdinov) died in the Northern Military District. Just the other day, a message came about the death of Nizhnekamsk resident Sergei Sitchikhin, a member of the large Sitchikhin football family, the most famous of which is Andrei Sitchikhin, now working with the Neftekhimik youth team.

Rubin veterans (60 years and older) took third place in the All-Russian RFU Union Cup. The competition was timed to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Veterans of republican football, actively involved in competitions of the Football Federation of the Republic, gathered under the auspices of “Rubin”. And some of the veterans had their own anniversaries last season. Towards the end of last year, Ilgizar Gainutdinov celebrated his 70th birthday, and this year two more celebrants were added to him: 80-year-old Albert Faizullin and Alexander Ivanov. Roman Sharonov saved the young goalkeeper during a championship match between children’s teams, one of which his son Lev played in. At the end of the season, Lev Sharonov, the son of the long-time captain and coach of Rubin, became the champion of the republic together with his teammates from the Trudovye Rezervy team. By the way, until the middle of the season this team played under the name “Labor Reserves – Sokol”, being a children’s team in the structure of this club.

Jaudat Abdullin

SportFootball Tatarstan