A sad ending looms in the story with the new contract of Georgiy Dzhikia and Spartak. The team captain has been without playing practice for four months, his agent is collecting offers from other clubs (including European ones), and the red-white bosses are simply silent, apparently waiting for the end of the agreement — May 31. The Sport correspondent is trying to understand the dead-end story.
Fedun is no longer a habit. The situation is as follows: 30-year-old Dzhikia, who was part of the championship team of Massimo Carrera, lost his place in the starting lineup due to a series of offensive injuries, as well as the arrival of the powerful and high-status Serb Srdjan Babich. It would seem that this is an ordinary situation for professional football, in particular, where such concepts as competition and the level of play, and not loyalty and past merits, are at the forefront. So what's the problem?
Under the new leadership, a lot has changed in Spartak: the dispositions and roles of many previously important factors have changed. Against this background, the position of head coach Guillermo Abascal has strengthened, whose influence not only on the team, but also on the club as a whole, as many sources say, has become almost comprehensive. The Spaniard has a considerable amount of trust from the management, and he easily got away with not the most successful results in the fall and even a blatant conflict in Grozny. Huge amounts of money are spent on transfers for the coach, and the team’s application allows Spartak to duplicate each position.
But none of this means Guillermo is untouchable. Abaskal is a young and not very well-known specialist in the world (and even in his homeland), who can score as many image whists in the Russian championship as possible in a situation with sanction pressure on Russian football. In addition, the management of the capital's club understands that it is wrong to focus on one coach. Not in the sense that this is dictated by the strengthened habit of the times of Leonid Fedun, but by the considerations that we must be prepared for the fact that Abaskal will not go well in the spring. And so far this is exactly how it turns out — Spartak has not scored a single goal in three RPL matches since the beginning of the year. It is no longer realistic to compete for the championship, and even the 15-million-dollar newcomer Ugalde does not guarantee a place in the top three.
“On the one hand, no decisions on changing a coach should be made on emotions immediately after the match. On the other hand, this is football. Here, everything can go unexpectedly and not according to your plan. Strategically, the club must be ready for any turn of events. Therefore, I think it’s right to have a plan B,” said the general director of the “red-whites” Oleg Malyshev in a January interview with RBC.
Tired of scandalous flair. What does Dzhikia have to do with it? Despite the fact that it is now customary to talk about some kind of conflict between George and the head coach. Allegedly, the captain is hurt by the small amount of time and the specific attitude towards himself. Allegedly, Abascal is fixated on Babich and stubbornly does not want to put two left-footed central defenders in the lineup. Allegedly, the coach himself should have initiated the negotiation process long ago and almost begged Dzhikiya to stay for a few more seasons.
The footballer himself seemed to indirectly hint at this, saying that he does not play not only for gaming reasons. But let's assume: what if it's not the coach, but the management? What if the new management, wanting to part with the long-tired scandalous flair, decided to restore order with a strong hand, starting with the agency environment? Maybe this situation is an intention to show who’s boss?
Jikia's agent Vadim Shpinev spoke brightly in the press, finding both understanding and receiving hate for «washing dirty linen in public.» According to him, said in an interview with “Championship”, there will be no new agreement if Abascal remains. In addition, the management is in no hurry to start negotiations, although they promised to do this in January: “He will fully help the team, will not weave any intrigues, will not make personal likes and dislikes public. Georgy will conscientiously and faithfully fulfill the duties of a football player and team captain «I respect the player's choice, although I have a personal opinion about it all.»
With the last sentence, the agent seems to be trying to remove responsibility and pressure from the client, but it seems that there is no turning back for Jikia. An extremely harsh and at the same time frank statement lit the fire. Against the backdrop of everything that was said, it was hard to believe that the contract would be renewed.
“Then Dzhikia himself took the floor: “We won’t hide the fact that we talked with the leaders and today with the coach. There are no intrigues, conflicts. Everyone is only focused on working both at the training camp and in the future. As for some personal moments, then I would like to close the topic of intrigues, scandals, so that in the future we do not return to this. I would like to focus on football and on acting in the interests of “Spartak” (quote from “Sport Express”).
These words should have extinguished all discussions, but the process could no longer be stopped. Perhaps such a statement should have been made by George before the statement of his representative, now this is seen as an attempt to smooth out the negative background and relieve himself of some responsibility.
Shpinev’s comment yesterday only confirmed: Dzhikia has become even closer to leaving Spartak.
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“He works, trains, and I do work related to his future employment. Dialogue not only with Spartak. “I have the right to carry out my work, since I am a FIFA agent,” Shpinev said. — We are open to dialogue — the Turkish championship and so on. Georgy is competitive. It's different now compared to the fall. It is clear that he has been without playing practice for four months. It's annoying. What happens next is up to Oleg Malyshev to decide whether to keep it or not. These are club matters, we don’t get involved in them, we have no right,” the agent added.
In the summer, if the departure does take place, few will perceive Jikia as a victim, because the victims’ agents are trying to resolve conflicts, and not give birth to them. But, of course, it’s also not worth removing responsibility from the management of Spartak, and I would like to ask why the process of the (still possible) separation of Spartak from the captain could not have been handled humanely? Remembering the history of Spartak, we can sadly state that this is a rhetorical question.
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