"It was necessary to find a replacement for the departed leaders in order not to drop the bar"

In May, Krasnodar football club became the champion of Russia for the first time in its history. Maxim Buznikin, the head of Krasnodar's breeding service, is one of those who played a key role in shaping the championship team. He has been working at the club since 2012. Before that, he built a stellar career as a striker in the second half of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s, winning six championships and two Cups of Russia with Spartak Moscow and Lokomotiv.

In an interview with Izvestia, Maxim Buznikin shared his emotions from the championship, told how the contract with the key attacking player of the team John Cordoba was extended, and also compared this Krasnodar with Spartak Oleg Romantsev and Lokomotiv Yuri Semin.

— What emotions did you feel from Krasnodar's championship?

— In the first minutes after the end of the match with Dynamo, I couldn't believe that this had happened. It seems that I had already realized for months that Krasnodar was capable of winning gold. I've been waiting for this. But still, the very moment of success is something incredible. And I still haven't fully realized what the club has done. We still need to realize this. But the main thing is that Krasnodar has given a fantastic holiday to the city, having achieved such success.

— How did you manage to take the gold?

— Many factors have developed. We took into account the mistakes of last season, when we almost fell short of the championship. Since then, the team has learned to achieve results in decisive matches, even when the game is not going well. It seems to me that this influenced the success, although there is no one universal answer here — there are too many nuances in football, on which victory in the tournament depends.

— While the team was celebrating the championship on the field after the match with Dynamo, you stood on the sidelines for almost an hour, giving an interview to Match TV, without leaving the air. Didn't you want to break off and run to celebrate?

— I wanted to. I wanted to, of course. When the champion's cup was raised, the ribbons flew — all these, of course, were wonderful emotions. And, of course, I wanted to join in, run, and not stand still. But what to do?

— You have an amazing respect for the work of the media.

— Speaking in front of the media is also a kind of show. Moreover, I have already won my cups.

— How did the Krasnodar championship team assemble?

— You can't describe it in five minutes. Perhaps someday I will tell you in detail how it was all done, but probably not now - there is still too much work to sum up, even after winning the championship. I can only say that this is a long, painstaking job. To assemble a champion team is not done in one or even two years.

— How many sleepless nights does it take to watch potential newcomers?

— There are periods when everything is fine with my regime. And sometimes you really have to watch a lot of matches, even at night, to understand what level a potential Krasnodar newcomer is, how well he fits our style of play, and so on. This is the specifics of our work.

— As a person who has won more than one Russian championship with Spartak and Lokomotiv, did you feel before and at the beginning of the season that Krasnodar was capable of taking gold?

— No, there probably wasn't anything like that. It's just that we all calmly did our job and wanted the team to at least not become weaker than it was in the previous season, when it finished second and had a chance of gold until the last round. We lost a number of top players last summer, and two of them were solid core players in very important positions — goalkeeper Matvey Safonov and central defender Junior Alonso. It was necessary to find a replacement for them so as not to drop the bar. As a result, Diego Costa was acquired to replace Alonso, Safonov was successfully replaced by Stas Agkatsev, who has long grown to the core within our team. But at that moment, we weren't thinking about taking the gold or any other place. We just tried to maintain the quality of the composition.

— There were almost no football players with championship experience in this Krasnodar. None of the Russians had it, including the highly experienced Fyodor Smolov. Probably, no one has won so many trophies in their career compared to you. Does this experience matter when building a team that is fighting for first place?

- no. It helps in my work somewhere. But from the point of view of a football player, championship experience is an acquired thing. I think that the Krasnodar team just finally acquired him after several years of fighting for the highest places.

"We will do everything to experience these moments of joy again"

Krasnodar football player Alexander Chernikov — about the emotions of the first championship in the club's history

— Is it similar to how Lokomotiv acquired it when you were there? When you joined it before the 2001 season, Yuri Semin's team won another Russian Cup, got into the Champions League group stage for the first time, but lost the championship to Spartak once again due to disappointing point losses with outsiders. And the following year she took the first gold in history.

— Yes, I'm telling you that this is acquired through experience, through the gradual growth of the team. Semin built that Locomotive for 10 years. From beginning to end. I built it all up bit by bit, after which the team became one of the best in Russia and performed well in Europe. In Krasnodar, we have also been striving for success for more than one year. About the same as that "Locomotive" under Yuri Palych.

— In terms of the attacking style of play that Sergey Galitsky demanded from Krasnodar, is the team similar to Oleg Romantsev's Spartak, in which you played?

— I wouldn't draw such parallels anyway. Because Spartak is Spartak. When we won championships under Oleg Ivanovich, it was a different era, a different championship. Romantsev also built his team very scrupulously, having built more than one championship team in that decade. But when he started coaching Spartak, he also had a good legacy from Beskov. In this sense, we have also tried and are trying to maintain a certain continuity at Krasnodar. In many ways, thanks to this, the club has gone from the first league to the championship in just over 10 years.

— A year ago, Zenit repeated Spartak Romantsev's record for the number of championships in a row and clearly wanted to break it on its 100th anniversary. As a person who is directly involved in half of those Spartak championships, are you happy that Krasnodar prevented Zenit from taking the seventh gold in a row?

— First of all, the emotions are not from the fact that we did not allow Zenit to do something. It's because you've done something yourself. And of course, this makes the emotions special. This is the equivalent of the work we've done in a few years. And it's nice to feel it.

— What does it feel like to take gold from Zenit and Spartak, unlike you, who spent tens of millions of euros on transfers over the past year?

— This is all the tip of the iceberg. In fact, everything is much more complicated — about Zenit, Spartak, and Krasnodar. Zenit sets maximum goals for itself every year and has the appropriate resources for this. And uses them. But he also created the foundation in the form of a team, a coaching staff that has been working for them for a long time. Therefore, he feels very good at the moment. Spartak's situation is a bit different. And we have our own — we also laid our foundations for a long time, then built houses and finally built them. We need to continue working to keep the bar we set.

— Was it difficult at the beginning of the season to agree on a new contract with your leader John Cordoba?

— Now we can say that it was important to do all this on time, because Cordoba's contract was ending this summer. We understood that it was necessary to resolve this issue in advance. Fortunately, John also had a desire to stay in Krasnodar, and we decided to continue our cooperation with him. In the end, everything turned out the way both sides wanted.

— Is it true that he was close to joining Spartak in August?

— These are the nuances of the negotiations, which may become known someday. But the most important thing is that Cordoba was happy to stay with us. And we see the result of his decision in the form of an absolutely fantastic season performed by John, who played a very important role in this championship.

— How often do you communicate with the owner of the club Sergey Galitsky?

— Communication is going on in a completely normal mode. When we need to confer, we meet in person and discuss the work. Sometimes, when you need to call, we call. There's nothing original here.

"Everyone wanted to give a gift to Galitsky"

Krasnodar football player Yuri Gazinsky — about the gold of the Russian championship and whether he believed in it at the beginning of the season

— Galitsky spoke more than 10 years ago about the desire to recruit the team only with the club's students. Has he given up on the idea since then?

"You'd better ask him."

"But is it possible?"

— In football, teams, especially those claiming to win the championship, are not made in five minutes. And to prepare a good pupil is even longer and more painstaking work. Krasnodar Academy has proven that it can grow and produce players of the highest level. Someone ended up playing with us, someone in other clubs. But the main thing is that our club and our coaches know how to work with local guys and bring them to the highest level.