Shanghai Day: Dynamo will host a tournament with Chinese teams

Dynamo Moscow football players will play two matches with Chinese clubs at the training camp in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As part of the Dynamo Global Challenge tournament, Roland Gusev's team will play against Shanghai Shenhua and Chengdu Rongcheng. These meetings will be one of the main events for Russian football during the winter break. The first of them will be held in Abu Dhabi on January 23rd.

Meetings with the Chinese

In mid-January, Dynamo flew to Dubai for their first winter training camp and have already spent the first week under the leadership of head coach Rolan Gusev, who was confirmed in this post in December. In preparation for the second part of the season, the club, together with its title partner BetBoom, managed to organize a number of strong sparring sessions for him. In particular, two Chinese clubs that finished in the top three of the national championship last November. Shanghai Shenhua became the second, and Chengdu Rongcheng became the third.

The new Dynamo head coach noted the importance of playing with such teams, especially not from Russia, since since 2022 our clubs have a rare opportunity to gain international practice. The special flavor of the first match against Shanghai Shenhua is given by the fact that it is led by the former head coach of the Russian national team Leonid Slutsky.

— Of course, it is interesting to take part in such a tournament, to play against such opponents — after all, this is an international experience, - said Rolan Gusev. — First of all, we are preparing for the championship through these games. As for Chinese football, we don't have that much information about it. We are more interested in the results of Leonid Viktorovich's team. For example, I learn a lot about her from talking to Vasya Berezutsky (Slutsky's former assistant at Shanghai. The team won the Chinese Super Cup, and it was just short of the championship in the national championship. We watched a couple of games of both clubs, with which we will play matches. And we hope to use them to prepare for the second part of the season.

Leonid Slutsky has been working at Shanghai for the third year now. Twice his team finished second in the Chinese championship. He also noted the importance of the pre-season tournament in Abu Dhabi to prepare for the next national championship, which starts in March.

— Many thanks to the organizers for the invitation — it is always a pleasure for us to play not only in the Chinese championship and the Asian Champions League, but also with leading Russian teams, — said Slutsky. — It is clear that the collection is always a collection. It is considered primarily as a stage of preparation for the season. But in any case, this game with Dynamo will be the most rewarding experience for both the fans and us.

Pavel Pivovarov, CEO of Dynamo, believes that the tournament will play a role in strengthening Russian-Chinese relations.

"This is the first time we have entered the winter training camp, where we are holding an international tournament together with our partners," Pivovarov said. — Many thanks to the clubs from China for agreeing to participate in it. I think the tournament will strengthen relations between fans from Russia and China, and between the countries.

Gusev and Slutsky

The match between Dynamo and Shanghai Shenhua will have a special flavor due to the confrontation between the head coaches of both teams. Not so long ago, a scandal broke out around them. Rolan Gusev became the acting head coach of the Blue and white team in November, replacing Valery Karpin. After one of the matches at the head of the team, he gave an interview to the famous blogger Sergey Egorov, in which he criticized the physical condition of the team, rating it a "two". He did not directly criticize his predecessor — the Spaniard Luis Martinez, the physical training coach from Karpin's staff, got the most.

On the air of the YouTube show "This is football, brother!" Slutsky harshly attacked Gusev, calling his words the height of unethicality in the coaching profession.

— While you're a coach, throwing stones at your colleague, with whom you worked at the headquarters, is the last thing that can happen, — Slutsky said at the time.

Later, the former Zenit captain Vladislav Radimov, who played with Rolan Alexandrovich for Dynamo in 1999, joined the haight against Gusev. Interestingly, both Gusev and Slutsky are considered iconic figures for CSKA, although they have never crossed paths there.

"It will be great if Gusev remains at the head of Dynamo."

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Gusev played for the Army team in 2002-2007, winning three Russian championships, three Russian Cups and the 2005 UEFA Cup with them. In 2007, he left the red-blues, and in 2009 Slutsky became their head coach. It is noteworthy that in 2012, Gusev, who had finished his career as a player and had not yet started coaching, publicly criticized the work of the then CSKA coach after the club took third place in the national championship, although in those years it rarely fell below second place and did not qualify for the Champions League.

—According to its current composition, CSKA is not inferior to anyone in the Premier League, so the result of the season cannot be called satisfactory," Gusev noted at the time. — When players at the national team level do not show the appropriate game in the club, the coach needs to think about it.

However, in the future, he positively assessed Slutsky when he won three championships with CSKA, and also, unlike many experts, he spoke correctly about the results of his work with the Russian national team at the 2016 European Championship, when ours failed without leaving the group, and Slutsky left his post under fire.

The criticism of Gusev himself because of his statements on the results of the work of Karpin and Martinez ended with a public apology from the young specialist, who stated that he should not have expressed his opinion in this form.

Now he and Slutsky met on January 22 in Dubai at a press conference dedicated to the tournament. And they shook hands. Slutsky noted that he was far from Gusev as a player, and Gusev symmetrically compared himself with Slutsky as a coach.

New headquarters

Before the press conference in honor of the tournament, Dynamo held a presentation of the new coaching staff, as well as a new player. Rolan Gusev is a graduate of the club, for which he played in 1995-2001. He returned to it as a coach in 2023, joining Marcel Lichka's staff.

Prior to that, the 48-year-old specialist had experience working at the CSKA Academy, as well as at the head of the youth team of the Russian army and youth national teams. In May 2024, Gusev was the acting head coach of Dynamo after Lichka's resignation. Then he remained at Karpin's headquarters and served as chief after his departure.

His assistants were two other legendary Russian national football team players — Yuri Zhirkov, who played with Gusev for CSKA during the club's major victories, including the 2005 UEFA Cup, and Roman Sharonov, a two-time Russian champion with Rubin Kazan, who played with Gusev for the national team at the 2004 European Championship.

Sharonov has the most coaching experience — he was in charge at Rubin in 2019, after which he was replaced by Slutsky. And then he led SKA Khabarovsk in the first league. Zhirkov, who graduated from coaching courses last summer, will be working in this capacity for the first time. However, Gusev does not consider his assistant's lack of experience to be a problem. He cited the example of Sergei Semak, who ended his playing career at Zenit in 2013 and immediately became an assistant coach to the St. Petersburg team Luciano Spalletti.

Later, Sergey Bogdanovich joined the head coaches of Ufa, which he sensationally led to the Europa League, and in 2018 returned to a similar post at Zenit, with whom he won six championships.

After Gusev's remarks about Luis Martinez, special attention was paid to whom he would bring to the headquarters to do physical training. This role was entrusted to the Argentine Augustin Quillabor. According to the head coach, Dynamo helped him find this specialist, and the decision to hire him as an assistant was influenced by the feedback from Osman Ferreira, a former CSKA left-back with whom Gusev and Zhirkov played.

Quilliard will be assisted by Juan Gomez, who has experience working for Atletico Madrid head coach Diego Simeone, one of the most successful specialists on the planet over the past 15 years.

Dynamo will play the second match of the tournament with Chengdu on January 26. The current season in the RPL will resume at the end of February. There, the blue and white are still in tenth place in the championship after 18 rounds. They also continue to compete in the "RPL Path" of the Russian Cup, where they will play two semifinal matches with Spartak Moscow in March.