"The most important thing is that the team has emotions, and it shows them"

Dynamo Moscow successfully spent March under new head coach Rolan Gusev — the team won the first three spring matches in the Russian championship, and also passed Spartak in the Cup. (5:2; 0:1). However, after the defeat from the red-whites, the team began a series without wins — a loss to Zenit (1:3) and draws with Orenburg (3:3) and Krasnodar (0:0) in the first match of the RPL Path finals.

Dynamo broke an unsuccessful streak this week by beating Akron 3-2, snatching victory in the last minutes after missing a two-goal advantage. Six rounds before the finish of the championship, the team remains in the middle of the table, but retains its chances of winning the trophy in the Russian Cup.: On May 7, she will have a return match with Krasnodar, and if successful, a Superfinal on May 24 against Spartak or CSKA.

In an interview with Izvestia, Dynamo captain Daniil Fomin explained why the team is not betting only on the Cup, and also talked about working with Gusev and his assistant Yuri Zhirkov.

— The winning goal against Akron was celebrated very vigorously by the Dynamo players and coaching staff. Why such emotions?

— The most important thing is that there are emotions. We haven't won in a long time. And the game against Akron was very difficult. We played with a big advantage, but, as often happens, there was a goal in our goal before the break, then a stupid penalty at the end of the game. As a result, after 2-0, we got 2-2 out of literally nothing. But we scored the winning goal, won the match and celebrated emotionally. May it be such a good springboard for further matches and further victories.

— Your winless streak has led to the idea that Dynamo mentally considers every championship match as a stage of preparation for key Cup games. Was there a desire to prove that you don't divide these two tournaments by their importance?

— I would like to say that there can be no such thing when a Dynamo-level team plays well in one match, and in the next five it allows itself some kind of misalignment and a wrong attitude towards the game. We were preparing, we wanted to win. And as a team, we took a step forward by snatching the victory. We will also prepare for the next match against Pari Nizhny Novgorod. We play for the club, for the fans and for ourselves. Therefore, we must continue to do our job — the season is not over yet. We have a lot of matches before the cup game with Krasnodar. We are preparing for them as seriously as possible. No one is thinking about the Cup yet.

— Is there a minimum bar for points and a place in the championship table based on the results of the remaining six rounds?

— There is no such thing at all. It's clear that the first part of the season was bad. But now we are not thinking much ahead, we are moving from game to game. We have something to prove to ourselves. Therefore, we need to win and move forward on the positive side, on confidence — both in the championship and in the Cup.

— Did Dynamo retain the emotional and gaming fervor that it had in the first half of March, when everyone was beaten up?

— We've definitely kept the emotional one. This is confirmed by the emotions that you noticed when we celebrated the winning goal against Akron. This is confirmed by the emotions after the goal at the end of the cup match with Krasnodar, which was not counted due to offside. I think there are right emotions in the team. We play every match until victory. We achieved it with Akron. Hence the positive mood with which we must move forward.

— Do you need to motivate yourself for the rest of the championship with some local goals? For example, to catch up and overtake Spartak.

— We don't think about what place we have and how many points we have. We go from game to game. And as a big club, we have no right to divide matches into important and unimportant ones.

— What Dynamo is showing this spring, can it help to fight for something serious in the next championship if we keep everything in its current form?

— I don't like to think hypothetically. But now, after the winter break, we have four wins, one draw and two losses in the championship. Not a bad schedule. We need to continue in the same spirit, improve as a team, improve in the game, so that next season we don't start from scratch, but have a concrete foundation on which to move forward.

— Stanislav Bessmertny recently recalled how Rolan Gusev, working as Marcel Lichka's assistant, made overhangs during training sessions while working out standards and joked, comparing his broadcasts with chocolates. Can you remember something similar in his performance?

— You won't remember anything specific right away. But Roland Alexandrovich has such football humor. This is how he can present any episode in training or theory. And it brings its own positive, dilutes the atmosphere in the team. That joke that you remembered quoting Stas also comes to my mind. But there was much more. I repeat, our head coach has a good sense of humor.

— Are the awnings in his performance really that good?

— Yes, he performs well. Yuri Valentinovich Zhirkov can also do this with his left foot. They are also "delicious" programs.