On May 14, the Lokomotiv Moscow football club announced that it would not renew the contract with head coach Yuri Semin, who had long been the main legend in the history of the team. With it, Lokomotiv won 12 trophies out of 14, and two years ago for the third time became the champion of Russia. Since then, Semin has not passed: last season the team took second place, now also comes second. Nevertheless, the war of Semin and the club’s bosses has been dragging on for a year now, and now the coach has lost it. Gleb Chernyavsky, author and editor of Sports.ru, explains why Semin did not arrange the leadership of Lokomotiv.
Semin is not used to giving in. In the nineties, he ran out onto the field and canceled the penalty, and for the sake of the team he took planes by storm
Yuri Semin 73, but he does not age at all. He is in great shape, and in training he still does game exercises with his team. And over the years it only gets more energetic. The administrator of Lokomotiv, Anatoly Mashkov, found Semin back in the 1980s and remembers him different: “In his youth, Yuri Palych was calmer, it became more emotional and more active over the years – what life is like with us now.”
It started back in the 90s. Once Semin canceled the already awarded penalty. We played away with Uralmash, lost in two goals and were supposed to get one more: a penalty was put into the gates of Lokomotiv. Semin did not agree and rushed across the field to the judge. He got scared, pushed the ball back and assigned the usual free kick. As a result, Loko pulled out the match – 4: 4.
Semin was even ready to take the planes by storm. In 1992, Lokomotiv flew from Nakhodka and the whole team was late for registration. At the counter, Semin was told that all 30 tickets had already been sold, and a new flight next week.
“We see our plane, the gangway is standing, but they are not letting anyone in,” said former Loko player Ravil Sabitov. – Then Palych gave a cry: “Forward!” Like a revolution: they climbed over the fence, went to take places on the plane. The stewardess is indignant: “You are superfluous, free up space, otherwise we will not take off.” We included the fool: “Who is superfluous? Our tickets, we are not to blame for anything. ” Then the police arrived, yet they pulled us out of there. As a result, each traveled in his own way. Together with someone I went up to the loaders: “We need tickets.” “Give me the money.” “No, tracksuits are just that.” And then there was a deficit. For costumes and flew away. “
Semin is loved by Lokomotiv fans. He won almost all the club’s trophies, returned at 70 and made the team champion 14 years later
Yuri Semin – the creator of the “Locomotive”, which is now. Before him, it was an abandoned and little-needed club: not a single championship, one silver medal and two won cups of the country – in 1936 and in 1957. The logical result is 200 spectators at the matches. But in 1986, Semin came, convinced the railroad to give more money and in two seasons brought the team to the big leagues. By the beginning of the 2000s, he brought it to perfection: Lokomotiv won several cups of the country, twice became a champion, made Real Madrid with Inter in the Champions League and turned into a top club.
In 2005, Semin briefly – and unsuccessfully – led the national team, and then for almost ten years he searched for himself anew: then the Moscow Dynamo with a full squad of Portuguese of different quality; then Kiev “Dynamo” with one championship in four seasons and the UEFA Cup semi-finals, overshadowed by the defeat to their most important rival – Shakhtar; it’s not a very impressive return to Lokomotiv and a place outside the top three. Then the Azerbaijani “Gabala”, the weak “Mordovia”, the rapidly impoverishing “Anji” – by 2015, it seemed that Semin was losing the track, as Oleg Romantsev and Valery Gazzayev were the champion coaches of the past era.
But in 2016, Semin returned to Lokomotiv, won the cup, and in the season of 2017/2018 he suddenly made the team a champion – after 14 years. Around that victory there were a lot of memes: for example, the team even played in away white uniform at home, and people from the club confirmed that this was not just. It turned out that Semin has believed in white T-shirts since 1986 – then Lokomotiv won in white in the opening matches, but they did not change their form either. In total, since 2016, Semin has won four titles.
Of the 14 trophies without the Semin-trainer, Lokomotiv took only two Russian Cups. And one of them is when he was a club president for a year.
Semin cursed with all the leaders of Loko. He wanted complete power in the club
In order to better understand both Semin and the background of his resignation, one must take into account that the head coach in the USSR is a special status. The coach of the Premier League club was the sovereign boss in the team, and his decisions were simply not disputed. For example, the goalkeeper of Lokomotiv, Sergei Ovchinnikov, was called to Spartak several times in the 90s, each time he went to Semin, who, in response to each offer, gave him either an apartment or a car, just in case. Semin got used to it when he was still a player, so it’s wild for him to make football decisions at the club.
As a result, Semin clashed with every club leader – even with Valery Filatov. For 15 years they had been building the new Lokomotiv together, and in 2004, right after the second championship, they had a fight over transfers. Filatov, by the way, is still on the board of directors of the team, which supported the resignation of Semin.
The most high-profile was the conflict with Olga Smorodskaya – the first woman – the president of the Russian top club. As soon as she headed Loko, she immediately announced that she would control everything: “I was the commander on the potatoes, and in the construction team in all student events.”
Smorodskaya demanded to disassemble the matches immediately after the final whistle in her office, set the team in the spirit of “narrower defense, wider attack” and without knowing Semina sold the players.
Yuri Palych lost in this war and was fired, but finally pricked Smorodskaya with an aphorism, which became a label: “Everywhere they write that Semin has a conflict with Olga Yuryevna. “I have no conflict with Olga Yurievna – she has a conflict with football.” And indeed, she left the club after a few years without any particular achievements.
After the third arrival in Loko, Semin became the opponent of the new president, Ilya Gerkus. He was very close to Europe: he came up with a bunch of activities, with him in Cherkizovo before the games a real western “matchday” appeared, he ordered Pokras Lampas calligraffiti in the stadium square. And of course, Herkus was sure that it was not the coach who was responsible for the transfers, but the sports director, and he hired a person from the German club Schalke. For Semin it was especially painful.
Compared to the times of Smorodskaya, Herkus and Semin were quarreling tactfully, and Yury Palych responded to all attacks with victories. The Lokomotiv championship meant the defeat of Hercus – Semin took power and became responsible for everything as he wanted. In the end, he released a book in which he walked hard on Hercus – he eventually left Lokomotiv.
The new president, Vasily Kiknadze, used to be a member of the Lokomotiv board of directors and back in 2017 supported Herkus in the war against Semin. And he was also against the full power of the coach. Kiknadze chose a wait-and-see tactic and attacked only in difficult moments for Semin. For example, when the team took fourth place in the Champions League group and did not fulfill one of the tasks for the season – reaching the European part in the spring. Semin resisted as best he could, but by May he was still squeezed.
However, the club clearly did not explain what was wrong with the coach and why Semin needed to be removed now when the team is in second place in the championship.
Semin was criticized a lot for outdated working methods. But this is a very controversial rebuke
The recurring claim to Semin is allegedly outdated working methods. For example, very hard training. There is a version that it is because of this that the forward of the Russian national team Fedor Smolov fled to rent in the Spanish “Celta”, which is not at all one of the giants.
In fact, it was precisely the desire to stay young, change and develop that Semin kept on coaching in 2020 – and now he is not fishing with Romantsev and not in the State Duma with Gazzaev.
Back in the 80s, Semin always spent vacations on trips to Europe to learn new things and use advanced methods. Modern trends are monitored, for example, by its headquarters. All recent seasons at Loko Semin were helped by former club defender Oleg Pashinin. He turned out to be a very capable coach, being responsible for tactics and direct work with football players at the club.
And goalkeeper coach Zaur Hapov (also once played in Loko) said that they teach the goalkeeper of Lokomotiv and the Russian national team Guillerme a special jump from a place without a step – that is how Barcelona goalkeeper Mark Andre ter Stegen jumps. And more recently, for the goalkeepers of Lokomotiv, they ordered a special gun for 250 thousand euros – so that it strikes at certain points with the necessary force.
“Semin has always been attracted to young people,” said Sergey Ovchinnikov, the former goalkeeper of Lokomotiv, recently. – He is now almost at the same level with us. He always had a craving for things. ” Another ex-Loko footballer Dmitry Sychev agrees with him: “Palych always loved to go to Stuttgart: there was a stock store Hugo Boss. Oh, how he loved to go in there, rummage around. ”
Semin himself said that he talks a lot with young people and especially for this started an Instagram. And if before he wore a ridiculous hat-cockerel, now he looks as stylish as possible.
Another powerful quality of Semin is the mastery of desk games, which allowed him to compete on equal terms with his formal leaders, using, among other things, the sophisticated Lokomotiv management system (the club is owned by Russian Railways, and everything is quiet there). And yet, the Soviet attitude that the coach is always the head has diverged too much with modern realities. It is difficult to believe in the next coming of Semin.
