Vice-captain of Akron told how the team lived in the first part of the season.

– The summer-autumn part of the season has ended. How would you assess its results for Akron?

– Of course, with our start it is difficult to somehow evaluate this segment positively. When you start the season like this, it’s hard to aim for some high places. As Guardiola said in his book: if you lose in the first eight rounds, then you can no longer fight for the championship. The same thing happened to us. We failed eight starting rounds, were in the red zone and then slowly got out of it. But other teams are also gaining points. So far, we are at the bottom of the standings, and the intermediate result is unsatisfactory for a club that set higher goals. I can’t say that we are in the right place. So, at the moment we are not ready to solve such problems. The key here is at the moment, because in football, as in life, everything changes quickly.

We will have to work hard in the winter at the training camp, to analyze such a start of the season – where we have not finalized. Change all this, in general, and enter the spring part with a different team. We do not need to think about some global tasks. We need to move from game to game, and then something will emerge. I still think that our team has changed a lot in terms of the game pattern – I think many have noticed this. We have our own style. The most important thing is to achieve results.

– Can such an unconvincing start to the season be due to the fact that the team was not mentally ready to play the first number?

– If we go back to last season, where we also started unsuccessfully, there was a wider tournament – more participants. But don’t forget about the calendar. In the first rounds, we had only one home game against Shinnik and five away games. Whatever the backbone of the team, it is always more pleasant to play at home, because we got used to our field, we held training camps on it. Of course, this is not an excuse – one of the factors.

The second reason why we started like this is that we had too high expectations, and we became hostages of the training camp. I said this in the locker room, this is purely my opinion – I can be wrong, but I see it that way. We played with RPL clubs: we won and drew, we looked solid in the game. Somewhere there was even surprise, because we were not inferior to them in anything. Like it or not, subconsciously you ask yourself the question: why can’t you play with the teams of the First League. But this is a completely different tournament with different specifics. There are few playing teams, many play for the result. In the first rounds, we fell into both a psychological and a physical hole. There is no single reason that explains all the failures. There was a chain, many factors. We set our expectations high, lived by those expectations, and when things started to go wrong, we fell into a hole. In some matches, it happened, I myself did not understand what we were playing. It was clear that this was a different team: in the spring there was one, the same at the training camp, and after the first defeats we did not recognize ourselves.

– You’re Akron’s vice-captain, and in Keelin’s absence, you had to put on a bandage for a long time. Were there moments on the field in matches when the team became unmanageable?

– We have experienced guys who do not need to be strongly managed from the inside. There are moments that we can discuss somewhere even in a raised voice, but nothing more. The team is still managed by the coach. Whatever authority a football player has, he is a player. A coach is needed in order to conduct your orchestra.

– The most positive match in terms of the quality of the game and the result of the match in the first part of the season?

– I can not say that there were few good matches. In terms of the quality of the game, we played a lot of good matches, maybe not for the entire 90 minutes, as everyone would like, but in segments, and sometimes for the most part of the game, we look good on the field. In fact, I really liked the way we played matches with Rubin and Veles. I can also highlight the games with Neftekhimik and Volga. Even if we take the last games with Tula and Khabarovsk: in the first half we played well in terms of ball movement, creating scoring chances. It is clear that we are not yet implementing them in the proper volume – I hope we will break through soon. The most important thing now is that we create them. It’s bad when there are no such moments, and you don’t understand how you can win. It’s another matter when you are always near someone else’s goal, the ball flies around the penalty area, you only need to substitute your foot, bring it there. At the moment, we cannot substitute anything yet, which means that we need to bring it there with blood. This is something we need to work very hard on.

– In the spring, it turns out that the team needed one ball to win.

– Then we had a completely different drawing of the game, it would have cost here without comparison. Each coach has his own requirements, his own vision of football. Frankly, in the spring we found ourselves in a situation where no one understood what we were going to play. There was a mess with the coaching staff. The new coach arrived three days before the resumption of the season and, of course, within this framework, he began to build a game from defense. We rallied, understood the situation and that we could not show some kind of sparkling football. We were in the middle of the standings: we could both fall down and get closer to the “joints” – this is a feature of the FNL. A good example is the game in Krasnoyarsk, where, if we won, we would occupy an intermediate position in the play-off zone. There was a high density, and after the tournament ended, the teams from 7th to 10th place had the same number of points.

– Can you now say that at this stage this is the strongest Akron you have seen?

– In terms of the style and quality of the game – probably yes. I can’t say that we were bad under previous coaches – we had a certain style even then. Now a coach has come to Akron, who is famous for his style not only here, but also in previous teams – Baltika and Kuban. This style, I think, suits us and we like it. It is clear that we do not succeed all at once. I think the football we are striving for is difficult. When you choose to dominate the field – control is not for the sake of control, but to score, it takes time, patience and a lot of running work. Even if we take the average Instat figures for the match, we began to cover a greater distance.

– And which match would you like to forget as soon as possible?

– Immediately before my eyes is the match in Naberezhnye Chelny – even more not because of the final score, but because I did not understand at all what we were playing with KAMAZ. I then took the ball and tried to immediately find an attacker, but we lost the whole fight and rebounds. It feels like we just weren’t on the field in that game. Before that, in Kazan, we lost to Khabarovsk 0:3, but there was no such feeling there – there were completely different moments, which, I think, influenced the result.

– You are the best in Akron in terms of goal + pass, you have eight points. Setting aside personal goals, is it bad for the team when the cornerback is the leader in this indicator?

– Last year, he was also the leader in the team – only in assists. Of course, it’s not normal when the cornerback in the goal + pass system is in the first place in the team, although many consider me to be the defender of the attacking plan. The front row players should be the leaders and no one should approach them. While this is so, and to some extent ironic.

– How do you feel about the fact that so far many rivals and experts do not see Akron as a serious competitor and say that teams like Akron must be beaten? Is the recipe for this hat-tossing attitude from the outside – a more stable game over a certain time period?

– Whatever one may say, we have a young club. They still keep an eye on it and see how it will develop. If we draw analogies with other private teams, for example, with Krasnodar, then at first I didn’t take this club seriously, because I knew that there was a club No. 1 Kuban in the city. At first, fans did not go to them, no one understood what kind of club it was.

As for the results, it is not the series that you gave out that is important, but a stable game throughout the season. Take our current situation: we have to come out of it with our heads up, bite with everyone. We will be reckoned with when there are victories. Yes, the third season in the First League, but we are still treated like a beginner. Before the season, I didn’t read anywhere that we were one of the favorites of the tournament, we were recorded in them. We are also reading this and we cannot close ourselves from it in a dark room.

You need to go out for a victory in every game, so the authority of the club will be won. But again, due to their style: at the same Krasnodar, all the coaches preached the same style. Someone will say that they have not won anything, but I think that this is a very interesting team that has always been interesting to watch and that good players have played for.