"After the penalty in St. Petersburg, everyone in the team was smiling"

In the Russian championship, eight rounds before the finish, an intense struggle for survival is unfolding, with Dynamo Makhachkala among the participants. The team occupies the 12th place, which formally ensures the retention of registration in the RPL without transitional matches. However, the Dagestan club is separated from the joint zone (13th-14th places) only by additional indicators with equal points, and only three points from direct relegation. Last season, Dynamo managed to keep its place in the elite without transitional games, having successfully spent its debut year in the Premier League.

The winter break of the current championship has brought serious personnel changes. The head coach, Khasanbi Bijiyev, resigned, and was replaced by Vadim Evseev. The president of the club, Haji Hajiyev, assumed the position of honorary president. Of the managers under whom Dynamo joined the RPL, only General director Shamil Gazizov remained in the club's structure.

In the spring, Makhachkala residents played four matches in the championship: they won two victories and suffered two defeats. In addition, the team was eliminated from the Russian Cup, losing to Zenit St. Petersburg (0:1) after a high-profile penalty in their own goal.

Dynamo midfielder Nikita Glushkov, in an interview with Izvestia, shared his emotions from that episode, assessed the team's results in the spring and told what changes had occurred with the arrival of Evseev.

— How would you rate the team's results in the March segment of the championship on a five-point scale?

—Maybe three." Three minus even. Everything was divided into home and away matches. It was good at home — victories over Rubin (2:1) and Orenburg (1:0), away defeats from Krylia Sovetov (0:2) and CSKA (1:3). Therefore, three with a minus.

— Why such results?

— We still have very different results at home and away. And not for the first year already. We scored a lot more points at home last season. It's hard to say why this is happening. In the case of the match against CSKA, perhaps the pitch got in the way. Although they usually say that the field in Makhachkala is in the way.

— Was the pitch in Moscow at the CSKA match worse than in Makhachkala when you played Rubin in the snow?

- of course. Did you see the pitch at the match against CSKA?

— It is difficult for me to compare it with Makhachkala, because it was snowing there at the match with Rubin.

— Well, that's it. At the same time, every journalist said that our field in Makhachkala was bad, that it was the worst there. And now that we've played CSKA on his field?

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— I did not say that it is the worst in Makhachkala.

— Well, not all of them, probably. Perhaps I'm generalizing too much. But many people were talking about our field. But now that everything is fine with him, for some reason no one says: "What a good field you have, well done!"

— How did you survive that controversial penalty in the cup match in St. Petersburg?

— No one thinks about it anymore. Why get upset about it? We are already used to these solutions. Everyone was smiling at that moment. And there were smiles after the game. That's why it's fine. What can I say about this?

— Doesn't it feel like if you don't mention this at least for show, this will continue every tour?

"That's right. They only say it when it happens in a match against Zenit. When we play with Nizhny Novgorod (0:1), no one really talks about it.

— Are you talking about the decisive penalty in the match against Pari Nizhny Novgorod, when the referees called a foul on Maxim Shnaptsev?

— No, that penalty was awarded correctly, I'm not arguing. But there was an incomprehensible deletion in that game. Before that, in the match against Sochi (0-0), they did not give a penalty in our favor. But they don't talk about it. They only talk when something like this happens to Zenit. Or if there is a game with Spartak, CSKA and Lokomotiv. Because these are top teams. They're in plain sight. And when referees make such mistakes in their matches, the whole country talks about it.

— Shnaptsev recently told me in an interview that he has a provocative style of play, that he likes to get his opponent emotional. I used that episode with you as an example.

— I just had a lot of emotions in that game. Because, I repeat, in the game with Sochi, they hadn't taken a penalty before, and then with Nizhny Novgorod, they were eliminated. So it's definitely not about him. And God is his judge if he does that.

— What has changed at Dynamo after the winter change of the head coach in terms of game and human development?

— Everything has changed. At least we've changed our tactics. We play four defenders. We try to play offensively. This is probably the most important thing. In human terms, it is incorrect to compare two people. Especially for adults. So let's skip this point.

— In the winter, Haji Hajiyev also became honorary president, and there were changes in leadership. Did it affect his participation in the life of the team?

— It's hard to say, because we haven't spent much time in Makhachkala in recent months. At first, there were foreign training camps in winter, then there were a lot of away games in March.

— Will the game that you are showing now be enough to stay in the RPL without transitional matches, as in the last championship?

— If we play the same way, we win all the matches at home and lose away, then this will probably be enough to stay in the RPL.