Let call a spade a spade: why Gracia and Rubin have no future
This year Rubin is playing fair to middling. An enormous sum has been spent, a foreign coach and foreign players had been invited, but yet there has been no result. At the same time the head coaching is asking for more time to build the team. The sport staff of Realnoe Vremya exams a question, which is as old as the hills: to be or not to be? Does the Spanish coaching staff deserve time for adaptation?
Whether there is life after Berdyev
After Moscow and Petersburg, Kazan is the third city where a local football club became champion more than once. But so much time has passed since then so that it seems that many people managed to forget it except true fans who require a better result every year. Unfortunately, there is no result. Seven years – it is the time that Rubin-Kazan needed to bog down in the middle of the standing of the Russian Football Premier League after the championship. Four years have passed since the last trophy or, to be more precise, after Berdyev left Rubin, Rubin has achieved no important victory in any competition.
During all this time, Rubin was trying to find its destination, looking for its fate, so to speak. At first when Berdyev was dismissed, the direction was towards Europe, though there were other mottos. The focus was on the work with fans and promotion of the brand abroad. When Rinat Bilyaletdinov was invited, Kazan staked on the young and wanted to become an incubator of players for leading clubs of the country. Having forgotten its image of one of the leading clubs of the country, we turned our face towards financially weak teams that live on the resale of their own pupils. But the executives came to their senses and decided to create a successful club and crossed our all the previous results. Actually, we invited Javier Gracia who is famous for his defensive football against great teams of the Spanish La Liga. However, he has had nothing in common with Berdyev at the moment. At least, according to football standards.
Playing at random with Gracia?
Choice of a coach for Rubin is a topic for a separate article in general. We have not heard a clear explanation of the administration why the two-time champion of the country was headed by Gracia. Only one thing is clear. 'Movers and shakers' of the club wanted the Spanish specialist very much and staked on an unobvious candidate. The coach who has worked with Spanish clubs has a CV that illustratively shows today's state of affairs of Rubin in the standing. In total, Javier has had 300 matches. He won 40% of them. He won 30-35% of the matches in his latest clubs. There are many questions about the philosophy of the game. Very Gracia admits he doesn't have any style. Playing at random?
Three years have passed after Kurban Berdyev was dismissed. Rubin has not chosen its short-term development plan yet. It seems that wishing to hide the nudity of their own ideas and a pile of mistakes made when they dismissed the best coach of Russia, the administration chooses a road in a confused way every time. The team still doesn't have a clear system of work. Conflicts still arise in the team. The first place of Rubin has turned into the 10 th. And it is unclear whether we are sinking or swimming. Or are we moping around like a solid waste matter from the bowels in the ice hole?
Pissed off
According to talks to the Rubin fans, their respect towards the Spanish specialist is seen. Many people agree that he should be given time, the coach and his team's potential is seen. To be honest, the results don't show it. Some people compare Rubin with CSKA and call it the Militarians for the poor because it gains points mainly with the worst teams and loses points with leaders. Are they poor if they spent €40m on transfers only, exclusive of new players' salaries?
Sure, every coach who respects himself tries to bring the players he is not doubtful about and he trusts to a new club. In our case, they were two – defender Sergio Sánchez and Samuel García. But when the coach brings somebody to the new club, old players have to do their best and help the team, maybe at the beginning. We have seen only pain and disappointment from the game of these two since the kick-off of the championship. And Sánchez and Samu were the players who were given negative opinions about the start of 'Spanish-speaking' Rubin. I even dare to say these two guys wrong-footed Gracia because he staked on them while implementing the new tactics of the team. We approached the tenth match with another formation of central defenders. Is not it late to make such decisions after 1/3 of the championship left behind?
Javier Gracia who is famous for his strong defence, chose a classical formation in the 2000 – the 4-4-2. In this formation, Sánchez and Samu were to become a source of knowledge, in fact. But both of them failed, so the entire team followed their example. Despite the bad results, the Spaniard stands firm and doesn't give a chance to their rivals in positions. For example, last year's leader in defence Solomon Kverkvelia has not played in the championship of Russia yet. And Zhemaletdinov who showed his skills in some episodes has played in this season less than 'green' Ilzat Akhmetov.
Flexibility is not our forte
Absence of flexibility of Gracia's team is another problem. Either the Spaniard knows something and doesn't say it to us or today's Rubin doesn't have other formations at its disposal, but we play all the matches using the same formation. Let's remember the 4-4-2 is a key formation of weak teams who play a primitive football. Only coach chooses a formation for a match. I think many people will agree with me that use of the same character of the game against all the teams – whether it is an outsider or a top club – seems strange for a coach who has a high qualification. Is it possible that we are losing all the matches with the leaders of the Russian Premier League and at times have boring games against teams like Amkar for this reason?
We also have a problem with young players. The Spaniard who is praising his fruitful work with the young in his previous posts has not affected the development of the players who were expected to reach another level this year. Nabiullin, Akhmetov, Ozdoev and Kanunnikov were to become players of the first eleven of the national team in the WC in Russia. However, their development suspended when Javier came. If Elmir continues working in the first team in his usual position and formation, we can't say the conditions are comfortable for the other players.
Magomed Ozdoev whom we trusted in the past suffered the most. This year was certainly to become very important in terms of the development of the player's further career. Magomed, who is still considered to be young, is still among the young concerning the quality of his game. He leaves a bad taste in the mouth and a reason for the fans' slander after his game. A true gentleman with fans, Ozdoev fails to reach a stable level. The Spaniard's arrival was supposed to fix it. But, in fact, Magomed was divested of his place in the first eleven.
We respect the old but don't give them way?
It seems Gracia doesn't have good relations with old players. The fans and the administration of the club don't like Gökdeniz Karadeniz's growing discontent and no mentioning of the main clown Ryzhikov's jokes in the press. Karadeniz's latest interview clearly shows the foreign specialist doesn't have support from the old players of the team. If these two sides don't make peace in the short run, I think it won't have a good result. At least, for one of them. And today we would not like the legendary players of Rubin to be this side.
By the way, Sergey Ryzhikov probably has many questions for the Spaniard. Working with a new coach of goalkeepers, who is Gracia's acquaintance, this summer, Sergey started to get lost on the pitch. Probably Sergey could not imagine how many mistakes he made at the beginning of the season even in a nightmare. When the new coaching staff came, the goalkeeper, who was approaching the national team of Russia year after year, lost not only his reliability but also fame among the fans from other teams.
Despite the above-mentioned problems, it seems Javier Gracia stubbornly does not want to see them or, at least, admit their presence. His regular interviews before and after matches became exceptionally standard and even. One thing is when the coach admits his mistakes, first of all, his own mistakes. But another thing is when he thinks that everything is the source of misfortunes except himself.
Gracia frequently says about a lack of time or its amount for building a strong and unique team. What lack can we be speaking about? Firstly, huge money was spent on the transfers. Secondly, specialists who have less time and money demonstrate a more interesting football. Look at the success that Amkar achieves with Gadzhi Gadzhiev who has lost almost all his players this year. He has built the club from scratch without money even for trips and camps. Carrera who is also famous for his defensive tactics is another example. He has one of the best defences in the country, while Spartak always had a black hole in defence.
Rubin doesn't have a game under Gracia. Let admit it. Our statistics doesn't mean we do it because we have nothing to do. Not because we such a strong and organised team but, on the contrary, — we 'shoot' the rival's goals because of despair and absence of ideas in attack. The praised Spanish defence turned out to be strong only for an open game in the very La Liga, while Gracia's defence has defeat after defeat in Russia.
There are enough free and interesting coaches who can substitute Javier. Oleg Kononov could do it. He gave a beautiful football at Krasnodar with little money. Or Goncharenko who made almost all big clubs take poor Ufa into account. Possibly Rubin's Spaniard has not had the last word yet. This event in inevitably approaching. Taking into account the above-mentioned problems and the absence of a clear analysis of the reality given by the coaching staff, I think talks about a soon dismissal of the latter are just.