"Throwing oars in the championship is wrong"

Six rounds before the end of the current Russian Football Championship draw, Dynamo Moscow is in the middle of the standings, where it was stuck in the first part of the season. Rolan Gusev, who was appointed head coach of the team in the winter, partially improved the results, lifting the blue and white from tenth place to seventh. But it's already unrealistic to catch up with the leaders and compete for medals — Dynamo are 11 points behind third place.

But they have a good chance of winning the Russian Cup. To do this, Gusev's team needs to win only two matches of the tournament. First, on May 7, Krasnodar hosted in the return leg of the RPL Paths final (the first match ended 0-0 in Moscow). And if successful, they will win on May 24 in the Superfinal against Spartak – CSKA, the winner of the Path of the Regions final.

In an interview with Izvestia, Dynamo midfielder Anton Miranchuk explained the intense emotions from the away victory in the last championship match against Akron Togliatti (the blue and white led 2-0, allowed the opponent to equalize at the end of the meeting, but immediately Konstantin Tyukavin scored the winning goal) and told how to win the game. The Cup of Russia.

— Your team was very emotional celebrating the winning goal at the end of the match against Akron. Why did you react so strongly to success in a game that has no tournament significance for you?

— First of all, we had not won four matches in a row before. Secondly, the end of the game with Akron turned out to be difficult. In principle, it is always difficult to play there. That's why the emotions were special. Moreover, we won the match in the last minute. No matter who you play with, when a team shows its character like that, it always evokes great emotions.

— So you're not going to put all your energy solely into the Cup? Are you ready to fight in every match in the championship?

— Yes, of course. I think we have a long enough bench and generally good teams to play in both tournaments. Therefore, it would be unfair to allocate a Cup in this case. It is wrong to throw oars in the championship and not tune in to the championship matches. Still, you need to keep a brand and a name. Therefore, we do not separate these two tournaments.

— What result will you be satisfied with at the finish of the championship, given that it is almost impossible to rise from the middle of the Dynamo table this season?

— It's hard to say. Now we're just going from match to match, playing to win every game. The task is simply to rise higher. It's already hard to show or invent something supernatural here.

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

Dynamo Moscow football player Daniil Fomin — about the spring results, the fight for the Russian Cup and Zhirkov's canopies

— Dynamo fans and management are waiting for their first Russian Cup victory since 1995 this spring. As someone who has won this trophy three times with Lokomotiv, what advice would you give your current team before crucial matches?

— Play the same way as with Akron, show character. It is the character that will be important in the first place. It seems to me that in such decisive matches, when it is already very difficult, it is already very difficult, and leadership qualities are evident in everyone. The main thing is that everyone fights for each other. It's more important what kind of atmosphere there is in the locker room. If everything is fine in the locker room in terms of mood, atmosphere and motivation, then all this will be transferred to the field.

— And what should Rolan Gusev do in the remaining month to achieve this goal?

— I'm definitely not an adviser in this situation. What is required of me, what the coaching staff suggests on their installations, is what a football player should do.

— Is the current Dynamo capable of fighting for something serious next season if it shows the same football from the very beginning as it did this spring?

— If you don't think about all this for a long time, then what's the point in training, going through training camps, playing something? Then it all makes no sense. Therefore, naturally, everyone will work at their maximum, because all football players want to win something and achieve something in their careers.