Introduction:
Roman Shirokov is the enfant terrible in Russian football. Ever since he entered professional football as a youngster for Torpedo Moscow by going on an unscheduled two months vacation and returning with a fake cast on his leg claiming to have a broken leg, he has attracted unwanted attention and created headlines everywhere he went. As a youngster, Shirokov had an unfortunate love of alcohol and cigarettes, and in an attempt to get some discipline into the midfielder, his childhood club CSKA send him to the army to dig trenches while he trained with the reserves. It’s needless to say that it didn’t work, and Shirokov has represented 12 different clubs since coming through the ranks at CSKA.
Former Zenit coach Dick Advocaat once stated that Shirokov could become the best Russian defender, a position Shirokov played until the late 00s, to which Shirokov replied that he wasn’t interested in being a defender, but instead wanted to become the best midfielder in the country.
His best time came at Zenit for whom he played between 2008 and 2014 before he fell out with head coach Luciano Spalletti and was sent away, first to FC Krasnodar and later to Spartak. After Spartak terminated his contract in January, he joined CSKA on a short-term deal to gain playing time before the Euros.
Strengths and weaknesses:
34-year-old Shirokov is a technically gifted old school playmaker with a wonderful touch on the ball. He is the player his teammates look for when they need to create something, and he is more often than not the man behind the decisive pass. In the previous season, he averaged six key passes per game according to InStat, which was more than any other player in the league. He is a creative and unpredictable player, with a great eye for the game, which also makes him a goal scoring threat, although he has struggled to find the back of the net since leaving Zenit at the beginning of 2014.
He has however also struggled with disciplinary issues, and has often been accused of being lazy.
The 2015/2016 season:
Expectations were high as Shirokov returned to Spartak last summer after a successful loan at Krasnodar. Shirokov was chosen as the centerpiece of Dmitri Alenichev’s Spartak team, and started the first 14 games of the season. He did however have a clause in his contract automatically extending his contract by one year once he had played 15 games, and with Spartak uncertain of the level of their most expensive player, they decided to bench him. In January, he left the club, and joined national team coach Leonid Slutsky’s CSKA. Shirokov expressed happiness to return to where it all started, but he has struggled since returning to the Army Men, and just started two games and playing a total of 287 minutes.
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