In September last year, Ilsur Metshin, the mayor of Kazan, was appointed as the new president of Rubin Kazan. Metshin filled the empty seat after the previous president Valeri Sorokin who, together with head coach Rinat Bilyaletdinov, saw his contract terminated the week before as a result of Rubin’s awful start to the season.
Sorokin was for a long time one of the most hated men in Kazan because of the negative turn Rubin took under his control. He became president of Rubin in 2012, and infamously stated that he was ‘absolutely indifferent to football’. The new president soon appointed Andrey Gromov to be the chief executive of the club, and the two of them quickly started a war against Rubin’s legendary head coach Kurban Berdyev who was the main force behind Rubin becoming a Russian top side and winning back-to-back championships in 2008 and 2009.
Berdyev, as well as the players and staff members, openly criticized especially Gromov but also Sorokin, which lead to Berdyev being sacked in December 2013, and several key players, like Aleksandr Ryazantsev, Bibras Natcho, Roman Eremenko and José Salomon Rondon, left the club soon after.
Now, two-and-a-half year after Berdyev’s departure, optimism is gradually returning to Kazan. The squad has gone through a smaller revolution, and the expensive foreigners are now mostly replaced by young and ambitious players, while Rubin have also moved into the brand new World Cup stadium Kazan Arena.
There is however one thing missing – the head coach. Following the dismissal of Rinat Bilyaletdinov, Rubin hired his assistant Valery Chaly to replace him, but even though he has elevated the club to the middle of the table, it is clear that he doesn’t have the capacity to take Rubin back to the top, and the club is therefore actively looking for a new head coach.
In December last year, former Romanian international Gheorge Hagi admitted that Rubin had offered him €4 million per year to take over as head coach, but also that he couldn’t leave his current club Viitorul, which he founded in 2009, and for those reasons he declined the offer. It does however seem that Rubin hasn’t forgotten about the Romanian legend as LOOK TV reported on Thursday that Hagi had signed a contract with Rubin, whom he’d join after the season.
Whether this is true or not remains uncertain, and Rubin’s press chief Mikhail Stepanov has already denied the rumours, stating that the only thing the club is focusing on is to finish the season strongly and to regain the fans’ trust in Rubin.
Just after his appointment, Metshin made it clear that with Rubin being one of Kazan’s most recognizeable landmarks, the club had to be brought back to its former glory. To do this, he hired Ilgiz Fakhriev as chief executive, a man with plenty of experience from the world of football, as he worked for Rubin in the early 2000s, and was the man behind getting Berdyev to Kazan.
Kurban Berdyev (left) after Rubin won the league in 2008.
Hagi is however not the only coach linked with Rubin. With Gromov and Sorokin gone, and Fakhriev back at the club, nothing stands in the way of Berdyev, who is currently in charge of FC Rostov, returning to Tatarstan, and this is a question both parties have had to relate to several times in the past couple of months.
“As for me, ” Berdyev said on the day Metshin was appointed president, “Rubin is my team and my heart belongs here. I’m Rostov coach now, but if Rubin would make me an offer, I’ll think… Everyone should understand that Rubin is forever in my heart
Another option is Yuri Semin, who is currently unemployed after he was sacked by Anzhi earlier this season. Semin is best-known for his work at Lokomotiv, whom he turned into one of the best Russian clubs during his many years at Cherkizovo.
What all these coaches have in common is that they are all known for their abilities to build foundations that last for many years, which is what Rubin needs at the moment: a man who can create something that last. One major difference however is their age. With Berdyev and Semin both being in their 60s, they might not be able to stay at Rubin for the time needed.
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