"For me, this Zenit championship was the hardest"

The Russian Championship gold won by Zenit St. Petersburg a week ago was the 11th for the club. He surpassed Spartak Moscow in this indicator. If we count from the times of the USSR, then now the blue-white-blues have 12 victories in the national championship. The only one who is directly involved in all these triumphs is the team's goalkeeper coach and advisor to the chairman of the board, Mikhail Biryukov.

In 1984, he won the USSR championship as the main goalkeeper, and in the last 20 years he has won the Russian championship 11 times as an assistant coach. In an interview with Izvestia, Biryukov explained how the current victory stands out, commented on the play of goalkeepers Denis Adamov and Evgeny Latyshon last season, as well as the end of the career of Mikhail Kerzhakov, who had been in reserve since 2024, but before that, the long-term main goalkeeper of Zenit.

— Emotionally, does the new championship stand out much from the previous ones?

— It seems to me that this is the hardest championship of all.

— Even if you count your goaltending championship?

— I think so, yes. I think this is Zenit's hardest championship. At least for me.

— What is its difficulty?

— Everything was pretty tight until the last round. Although in the last two championships the fight went to the end. A year ago Krasnodar became the champion, two years ago we became the champions, but before the last round we were not in the lead, and Zenit rose to first place not only due to their victory over Rostov (2:1), but also because Dynamo lost their match to Krasnodar." (0:1). And now, in the last round, everything depended only on us — we had to win against Rostov, and then we are the champions. This placed a lot of responsibility on the team. And I'm glad that we won in the end.

— What do you think about Zenit's goaltending team last season?

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— I am very pleased with both Denis Adamov and Zhenya Latyshonk. Yes, Zhenya started the championship at the base, and then Denis won the competition at this stage. But each of them has contributed to this championship. Like Misha Kerzhakov, who helped us all a lot with his work in training and his professionalism.

— What would you say about the end of Kerzhakov's playing career?

— I'm actually very happy for him — he had a great career as a goalkeeper. Misha is the biggest professional in our team, in the goalkeeper shop. I am very glad that I have worked with him for so many years, and I really hope that he will stay at the club and continue to help Zenit in his new capacity.

— Will he coach goalkeepers at the base with you and Yuri Zhevnov?

— It's hard to say anything yet, but I hope that it will be so.