"We'll be on pins and needles until the RFU decides"

The Russian football season ended last week, but the full line-up of participants in the next Russian RPL championship is still unknown. This collapse occurred due to the financial problems of Khimki, due to which the RFU did not grant them a license to participate in Premier League competitions, although they finished in 12th place and avoided relegation on a sporting basis.

The regulations do not specify a clear procedure for replacing the club in such cases. As a result, only this week the RFU has to decide who will replace Khimki. Initially, it was believed that it would be the 13th-place Pari Nizhny Novgorod, which had to play transitional matches for the right to remain in the RPL. Nizhny Novgorod lost to Sochi, who played in the first league." (2:1; 1:3). And they found themselves in limbo, since it is possible that Khimki will be replaced, for example, by Ural Yekaterinburg, which played in the first league, which got into the joints, but lost them to Akhmat Grozny." (2:1; 0:2).

In an interview with Izvestia, one of the leaders of Paris NN, midfielder Alexander Troshechkin, shared his emotions from the defeat at the joints and the failed season as a whole, spoke about the reasons for the failures and told how he reacts to uncertainty about the future of the team.

— Paris NN had no problems with the mood for the first match against Sochi (2-1), although there were rumors even then that after not issuing a license to Khimki, your team could take their place even if they lost in the matches. Why couldn't we get ready for the return game?

— A number of episodes did not work out in our favor. Plus, the interpretations of some episodes were not done in our favor.

— Are you talking about the cancellation of the red card of the Sochi player and the penalty in your goal?

- yes. It is clear that we are to blame. But I can't say that we were under-tuned. In my opinion, the team had a reconfiguration. There were technical errors that were unusual for us.

— Do you think that the judges' interpretations of episodes not in your favor were not accidental?

— It's hard to say. You just know, when there are controversial episodes, there are several of them. And all of them are slightly interpreted in the same direction... It is clear that later it will be assessed as the fact that the judges did everything right. ESK (RFU Expert and Judicial Commission. — Izvestia) will take the side of the arbitrators in any case. Everyone understands everything perfectly.

— Did the events at Pari Nizhny Novgorod that happened during the last year affect the fact that the team found itself in the zone of transitional matches and lost them?

— This is all a consequence of accumulated fatigue. Incredible accumulated fatigue. And now it's unclear what will happen next, everything is in limbo. After all, on Saturday, the day of the last round of the championship, we thought for five minutes that we would not play anymore and were going on vacation. And then it was announced that we were playing play-off matches after all. In the end, unfortunately, they were played like this.

— Who announced to you that you will not play in the joints?

— I mean, that Saturday, at the end of the 30th round, they first announced that they would not issue a license to Khimki. And everyone thought that logically, they should now announce that Akhmat and Orenburg will play in the transitional matches from the RPL. And then, five minutes later, the news appeared with the dates of the matches, and there Paris NN was designated as the participant who would play with Sochi. In those five minutes between the news, many people already thought that the season was over for us, we were staying in the RPL and going on vacation.

— You were talking about the effect of accumulated fatigue.

— Yes, there has been a lot of negativity since last season.

— Inside the club or outside?

— It was the opposite inside. I'm definitely not talking about the internal situation at the club. If there were problems, they came from outside, when you try to deal with negativity, but because of poor results it doesn't work. We had a normal working team inside — I can't say anything bad about that. Anyway, that's how I feel— maybe I'm wrong.

"Akhmat's victory gives Paris NN a better chance to stay in the RPL."

Maxim Shnaptsev, a football player from Pari Nizhny Novgorod, talks about the situation with the allocation of places in the elite division, the defeat in the play—off matches from Sochi and dissatisfaction with his playing time in the season

— Was this negative influenced by the story when in September a PDF file appeared on telegram channels with a pre-season analysis of the Paris NN squad from sports director Alexander Udaltsov, where some current players were given negative ratings?

— I don't want to talk about this particular case, but generally speaking, we have probably been covered in a negative way in the media over the past year. And it started last season because of the results, when we had a series of defeats last spring, and we barely stayed in the RPL following the results of the transition matches with Arsenal Tula." (1:2; 2:0). And then we were mostly in a negative mood — it's very difficult to turn the situation around. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Let's see what the RFU decides now.

— Is it outrageous that even at the end of the season no one knows which club will play in the RPL?

— In any case, we need to play better. Although, of course, the RFU has pushed in this situation — it is necessary to prescribe the regulations more clearly in advance. And the licensing should be postponed to a slightly earlier date, so that by the middle of May everyone understands who, what, and where.

— How will you live in the coming days until the RFU decides who will replace Khimki?

— We'll be on pins and needles. But this will probably be the last such week.

— If Paris NN is relegated to the first league, what will you do? Will you stay at the club or will you look for options in the RPL?

— It's hard to say right now. I can't answer yet. We'll see. I hope it won't happen that Paris NN will end up in the FNL.