"The FNL is not a league where you can stay in euphoria for a long time"

There are eight rounds left in the first league (FNL-1) of the Russian Football Championship. Recently, there was a match of the teams competing for the second place — it gives the right to direct entry into the RPL. Rodina Moscow beat Ural Yekaterinburg at home (3:1) and is now four points ahead of it. In an interview with Izvestia, Alexey Zinin, Rodina's sports and operations director, assessed how ready the club is to enter the elite of Russian football, commented on the situation with winter training camps, part of which the team usually holds in the UAE, spoke about the demand for its players from RPL clubs and commented on the career of former head coach Frank Artiga, who headed Rubin in the winter.

— Is the club as an organization ready for the RPL?

— I can say that in the year of our debut in the first league, when we got to the joints (the 2022/2023 season), I had a feeling that this sporting success was far ahead of our true development. Now you can even judge by the fans and our attendance how the Rodina football club has grown over the years. For example, there were a lot of fans at our match with Ural (4 thousand — Ed.). According to the current mood in the team and the club as a whole, be it the academy, the youth team and the rest of the teams in our system, we are ready for the RPL. Now it remains to prove it by deed.

Are you financially ready for the RPL too?

"We're ready." The most important thing is to get there. And I wouldn't even talk about the Premier League right now. The first phrase that Juan (Diaz, the head coach of Rodina. — Ed.) said to the team in the locker room after the victory over Ural, "This is what our task right now is to think about the next match with Sokol.

I would have said those words myself if the head coach hadn't said them. The FNL is not a league where you can stay in euphoria for a long time. She punishes me very harshly for this. Already in the spring part of this season, we had a moment when we were leading 2-0 against SKA in Khabarovsk and missed our chance.

— After all, this is the only point loss by Rodina in five spring rounds so far. Maybe the players just didn't get enough sleep after the flight to the Far East?

— Leonid Slutsky once said a cool phrase: "The theoretical basis can be applied to anything." So that missed victory in Khabarovsk can be summed up by the fact that we didn't get enough sleep that day, or by the fact that we considered our goals in that match already achieved. Therefore, there is no need to think about the RPL yet — you need to think about the next game.

— Last winter, Rodina held one of its training camps in Dubai. Given the current fighting in the Middle East, are you thinking about where to go next winter if the current war drags on?

— The world is changing so rapidly that... I don't know. I think everything will probably be back to normal by then. We have a hotel booked in Dubai for next winter. Our club has the opportunity to track information about what is happening in the world of the sports industry. Therefore, if Dubai becomes unavailable during this period, we will find the resources and opportunities to conduct high-quality training camps elsewhere.

— Are there any alternatives that are similar in terms of service, given that Turkey, where you held the second training camp, and Cyprus, which was traditional for our clubs in the old days, are also unsafe now - where did UAVs reach after the outbreak of the war in Iran?

— We just had a match with Ural — if not a key one, then definitely one of the most important. We won it, which is very important, with a two-goal difference, and this gives us an advantage in personal meetings in case of a tie with the Yekaterinburg club. Against this background, we are not exactly thinking about where to hold training camps next winter. I can only say that we will definitely find a place where they can be organized efficiently, even if there is no such opportunity in the UAE, Turkey and Cyprus at the same time.

— If Rodina joins the RPL, how much will it be necessary to strengthen the current squad?

— I must say that we believed, believe and will continue to believe in the guys who are playing for Rodina now. It's too early to talk about it, but if we end up in the RPL, then the backbone of the current team will, of course, remain. There will be newbies too. Point-by-point.

— In 2023-2024, you discovered Spanish coach Frank Artiga, who was then working at Rodina, for Russian football. Are you surprised how he turned out to be in demand in the RPL: last season at Khimki, now at Rubin? Are you surprised how a significant part of our football community criticized his arrival in Kazan, which, they say, takes the place of Russian coaches?

— I don't know, Frank and I had a good breakup. I think he has gained good experience in Russia and is now a stronger coach than when he joined us. Let's see how he goes from here — it's very interesting.

You need to understand that foreigners are always in high, special demand. Everything is simple here: if by the end of the season Rubin occupies a place at least not lower than the one where Frank accepted it, and shows a high-quality game, then he himself will remove the public negativity. But it seems to me that now if a person has come, then he definitely deserves to be allowed to show himself, and not to be hindered or put under unnecessary pressure.

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— Is there a lot of demand for your RPL players now?

— There is always a demand from the RPL for our team's players. And last winter, as well as last summer. Many of them are aware of this. But we have agreed that we will continue to move forward together. These are our players, in whom we believe.

— Was the demand at the level of specific offers?

- yes.

— Did you offer a lot for the players?

— In many such situations, we don't even get around to talking about money. Of course, it is always important for us to know the opinion of the player himself. Therefore, we have agreed with the leading players that we will not consider offers in the winter — we are counting on them, they are counting on us. So when they call from somewhere and talk about their interest in a football player, they ask how much we want for him, we get an answer.: "We want him to stay with us and solve the problem together with us." At the same time, we never hold anyone back, we hear our players. And we are glad that they want to be with us and fight with us to get into the RPL.