On January 13th the squad of Rubin Kazan flew to Turkey for a training camp. There the club from Tatarstan will prepare for the second half of the Russian Premier League season in Antalya and will do so under the guidance of a new coach: Leonid Slutsky. The ever-smiling ex-coach of the Russian team stands for a real monster job.
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Rubin’s Relegation Fears
Rubin Kazan is in thirteenth place in the RPL and therefore far from certain of self-preservation. After all, the teams that end up in fifteenth and sixteenth place will be relegated to the Football National League (FNL) and Rubin’s advantage over Sochi, the current number sixteen, is just four points.
The season started so well for Rubin. The club, led by former defender Roman Sharonov, and they earned seven points in the first three rounds. It all went downhill quickly though, and after the third round, Rubin only won two league games. After Slutsky resigned at Vitesse, the management of Rubin decided to dismiss Sharonov and to quickly appoint Slutsky instead.
Slutsky got what he wanted: a five-year contract, transfer budget and a huge challenge.
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Herculean Task For Slutsky
The days when Rubin Kazan could compete to win the Russian league title and could beat clubs like Barcelona and Internazionale in the European Cups are definitely over. But Slutsky has been given the task to make Rubin relevant again, not only in the national league but also in Europe.
And that’s also where Rubin, at least according to Slutsky, belongs, the former coach of Vitesse, Hull City and CSKA Moscow during his presentation said.
“Rubin is a club with a rich history, with an excellent training base and infrastructure. Kazan is known for its sports clubs and sports achievements. I am very happy that a club with such a story showed interest in me. Rubin was and is one of the flagships of Russian football. And will ever be.”
Add to that, Slutsky said in the show Ak Bars TV: “Rubin is one of the most underrated football teams in Russia. Rubin has a great tradition, rich history and a good squad. But something has been wrong in recent years. And we need to fix that.”
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Five Years Of Turmoil
It is obvious that Rubin has had problems in the past years. The club finished fifth in 2015. In that season, Rinat Bilyaletdinov was the coach and under his guidance, Pavel Mogilevets broke through and Bilyaletdinov reshaped the careers of Magomed Ozdoev and Ruslan Kambolov. But in the years after, Rubin was nothing more than an average mid-league team.
The Spaniard Javi Gracía was allowed to take players for forty million euros in total (think of Samu García and Sergio Sánchez) with him and failed hopelessly. Rubin also had to deal with numerous financial blows. Partly because of those financial problems the successor of Javi Gracía, the returned legendary coach Kurban Berdyev, couldn’t convince either. Berdyev was thanked for proven services in June 2019.
Seen in this light, it seems highly unlikely that Slutsky will serve out his five-year contract. Fortunately, Slutsky himself is also aware of the vagaries of football.
“It is really a long-term project. But at the same time, the duration of a head coach contract doesn’t really matter. Even if you sign a contract for a hundred years, you can be fired or resign by yourself (…) With the current duration of the contract, both parties mainly want to show that they have a lot of confidence in each other. ”
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Gravitational Pull Of Slutsky
The presence of Slutsky has given Rubin a certain appeal, you could say. Despite interest from other clubs key players like Filip Uremovic and Yuri Dyupin decided to extend their contracts and Rubin already bought three new players, all exciting young prospects: Torpedo Moscow wingback Ilya Samoshnikov, Neftekhimik midfielder Denis Makarov and Krasnodar striker Ilya Ignatiev.
The latter cost Rubin approximately €7m, making Ignatiev the most expensive purchase of Rubin since the 2016/17 season, when Jonathas, Maxime Lestienne and Rubén Rochina were brought in for a lot of money. However, the early sale of Egor Sorokin back to Krasnodar offset a rumoured €4m of that fee.
Both Ignatiev and Makarov admitted that Slutsky played a key role in their arrival. Makarov, who scored 11 goals for Neftekhimik in the first half of the FNL season, also had an offer from CSKA. “Why Rubin? Because of Slutsky and the new assistant coach Oleg Veretennikov. I worked with Oleg before”, the 21-year-old told Business Online.
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Yuri Gagarin
For a moment it seemed that the transfer from Makarov wouldn’t go through, because the midfielder did not pass the first en most important part of the medical examination. Only in second place Makarov passed the medicals and could sign his Rubin contract.
Slutsky, an avid fan of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, reacted on Twitter in a playful manner to the arrival of Makarov and to all the uncertainty that surrounded that transfer: “Rubin is space! And our soccer players are as healthy as astronauts!”
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Transfer Market
It looks like Rubin isn’t done on the transfer market yet. Spartak Moscow winger Soltmurad Bakaev and the Tajik striker Shakhrom Samiev are about to sign and the Rubin leadership wants to attract Mladá Boleslav striker Nikolay Komlichenko as well. The negotiations for Aleksandr Sobolev of Krylya failed and after that Rubin switched to Komlichenko. Young talents Kirill Kosarev (Zenit), Egor Shapovalov (CSKA) and Vladislav Masalskiy (Murom) are all training with Rubin out in Turkey also.
Other names that are being mentioned in the Russian press are Oleg Shatov and Leon Musaev (Zenit St Petersburg), Georgi Schennikov (CSKA), Younes Namli (Krasnodar), Bauyrzhan Islamkhan (free agent), Serdar Aziz (Fenerbahce), Roman Eremenko (Rostov) and Wilfried Bony (free agent). The latter recently admitted in an interview with The Athletic that he really received an offer from Rubin. Although, it is not known whether he already responded to that proposal or not.
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Tarasov In, Honda Out?
Another candidate to strengthen the midfield for the second part of the season is Dmitry Tarasov. The Russian has been without a club since his departure from Lokomotiv Moscow and is having a trial period with Rubin at the moment. He will travel to Turkey too.
One player who won’t go to Rubin is Keisuke Honda. Slutsky worked with the Japanese midfielder at CSKA Moscow and also brought him to Vitesse in the Netherlands last year. However, after four matches, Honda cancelled his contract so he is a free agent again.
“Honda is already of age and has many additional interests”, Slutsky recently told Sport-Express. “He is also the owner of a football team and is the national coach of Cambodia. I think he will find himself outside of the football field. I know he would like to play at the Olympic Games, that’s his dream. But for that, he doesn’t necessarily have to train abroad.”
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Training Camp
The Rubin Kazan training camp will last until January 25. Rubin will play friendlies against Legia Warsaw (January 21) from Poland and the Slovakian side of Slovan Bratislava (January 25). After those matches, we’ll probably know much better how things are with Rubin and how the condition of the players is. As Gagarin would say: poechali!
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