"Because of the style of play, Krylia Sovetov is unlikely to sign Dzyuba"

The Russian Premier League teams are gradually coming out of their vacations and starting preparations for the new season. This week, the first training camp started for the Samara Wings of the Soviets, who fought for survival for almost the entire last championship, but made a breakthrough in the end and avoided relegation to the First League.

In an interview with Izvestia, team defender Ivan Lepsky shared his expectations for the new season, assessed the likelihood of Artyom Dzyuba joining Krylia, told which teams he liked at the World Cup, how the Russian national team could perform there, remembered how he played in a match of future media football teams, and listed the best places in his native Kamchatka.

"The Valley of geysers is one of the most beautiful places on the planet"

— How was your vacation?

—That's fine. At first, I spent a little time in Samara — about five days. Then I spent a lot of time in Moscow, Orenburg and again in Moscow.

— You are from the town of Vilyuchinsk in the Kamchatka Territory. When was the last time you were there?

— Last year in winter. Everything is beautiful there as always.

— What would you recommend visiting there if someone goes there for the first time?

— You won't see anything special in Vilyuchinsk. The maximum is a bay and you can meet a bear somewhere. And if we talk about Kamchatka in general, then, of course, I will name the Valley of Geysers — probably one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Again, you can watch the bears. You can contact my grandfather for this — he works in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve. But in general, you can take any excursion, go on a boat, see whales. There are a lot of interesting things there. You can go fishing again.

— Have you left there long ago?

— At the age of 11.

— You said that you can meet a bear in your hometown. Have you seen him live?

- of course. He was really far away. So we saw him and ran away.

— So when they say about the Far East that it's a place full of Amur tigers and Kamchatka bears, it's not so far from the truth?

— Not so far from the truth. Sure. When I was skiing as a child, I periodically saw bear dens on the mountain. You can't see the bears themselves — they hibernate in winter. But you can see the dens. It's very toughening to live in such an environment.

"Dynamo can fight for the championship with Schwartz"

— What do you expect from the upcoming season with Krylia?

— We must continue to play the same way as the first and last five matches of the last championship. And everything will be fine.

— Why was it almost impossible to play the rest of the matches as well as the first and last five meetings?

— We spent the first five rounds last summer on the excitement from the beginning of the season. We managed to win back in the first match against Akron (1:1), then beat Nizhny Novgorod (2:1) in the last minutes. That's it, that's it. Vadim Rakov did a great job. And overall, the team played well. At first, we played more on the edge, plus our opponents have not yet picked up any key. And last spring, they added to the last five rounds, because they clearly realized that they had to save themselves from relegation from the RPL. And we did everything for that.

— The spring breakthrough occurred after the change of head coach Magomed Adiev to Sergey Bulatov. What has changed in the team's game?

— With Adiev, they mostly tried to play a little longer, more behind-the-back passes. And with Bulatov, they began to do this less often and tried to play from the bottom. It also helped to some extent. Krylia's football has changed. And we stayed in the RPL.

— In the first half of June, there were rumors that Artem Dzyuba might transfer to Krylia Sovetov. Can you imagine him in your team with the current style of play?

— His transition does not fit at all with the football that Bulatov plays. Although I don't know, maybe Akron, when Dzyuba played for them last two seasons, had a plan to make long passes to him so that he would already throw the ball to his partners.

— At the same time, even in the First League, Akron also seemed to be a team playing from the bottom.

- yes. And as we can see, their football has changed, taking into account the striker, who is under two meters tall. But I think it's unlikely that Krylia will sign Dzyuba. Purely based on the style of the game.

"If we had fewer injuries, the team's results would be better"

Krylia Sovetov football player Sergey Bozhin — about the reasons for the autumn failures of the Volga Region and the secrets of survival in the RPL

— Is this lowball game more convenient for you as a defender under Bulatov?

- yes.

— Are they allowed to move forward more?

"That's not the point. Even with Adiev, I was constantly moving forward in the three central defenders. It's just that playing from the bottom is more convenient for me. I've been so used to playing all my life — they taught me that back at the Dynamo Academy. I like to play football through close passes, through cutting passes.

— During the last season, there were constant rumors about financial problems around Krylia due to billions in debt owed to Rostec structures, which were closed in the winter. Are you having difficulty with money now?

— No, no, it's okay.

— How did you react to the recent return of Sandro Schwartz to the post of head coach of your hometown Dynamo Moscow?

— I think Dynamo can fight for the championship again. I didn't play under Schwartz — I joined the main squad after he left, under Slavis Jokanovic. But from talking to the guys, I know that, for example, now, even before arriving in Moscow, he congratulated one of the young football players on his birthday. It's about Timofey Marinkin. That is, he has already won over the players.

— Were you surprised by Dynamo's problems last season, when the team was stuck in the middle of the table, which led to the dismissal of Valery Karpin after the first round?

— I didn't follow Dynamo's game in such detail, but naturally, when a coach comes to a team and leaves it after six months, it's strange.

"Russia could get out of the group at this World Cup"

— Are you following the World Cup? Did any of the national teams make an impression?

— USA. We played very well in the first match against Paraguay. First of all, I liked Pulisic, who terrorized Caceres throughout the game. Secondly, it's a great team game — all the midfielders are moving, especially Tillman and McKenney. The USA deservedly won 3-1, although they could have scored more. We completely controlled the course of the game. I also liked Ecuador in the first half against Ivory Coast. It looked very good. I didn't watch the second half anymore, then I looked at the statistics and realized that the Ivorians had already driven them there and won.

— What would Russia look like at this tournament if it were allowed to qualify and passed it?

— At least we would definitely have a good chance of getting out of the group. Of course, it depends on which group. If it's France, Spain and Portugal, then there's less chance. If there is an average group, then there are. And, plus or minus, we would have a chance to repeat what Russia did at the home World Cup in 2018.

"We have no financial holes left"

Dmitry Yakovlev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Krylia Sovetov, talks about closing the debt to Rostec, defeating Dynamo and preparing the field in Samara

— When you made your RPL debut for Dynamo in 2023, the media league had just gained popularity, where the most famous teams at that time were 2Drots and Amkal. Even then, many people noticed that back in 2018, you played for 2Drots against Amkal in a friendly match, when there was no media league at all. How did you happen to be there?

— The guys from Dynamo and I, there were about five of us, wrote to my wife from 2Drots (Evgeny Babenko, founder of the 2Drots media club and its president. — Ed.). They had a challenge when they filmed for their YouTube channel how children from CSKA play against children from Lokomotiv and so on. Well, we wrote to them from Dynamo, came, shot a couple of videos in one day. And then I suggested to my Wife to organize something. And a few years later, they shot another video, it was already 2018. Immediately after that, Zheka called to play in this match. Everything happened spontaneously.

— Back then, there weren't those specific rules of the game by which we now know media football, such as orange cards, putting the ball in with a foot out?

—No, not really. We just played football according to the usual rules. An ordinary friendly match organized by bloggers. It didn't even smell like a media book then.

— Doesn't it feel like the media football hype has subsided now compared to the first half of the 2020s, when it was just being promoted?

— Probably, yes. But this is a common occurrence. When something new begins, special attention is focused on it. But maybe I'm only judging by myself. I also followed the media league a couple of years ago, but now I don't follow it. There are a few more teams, and some of the exclusivity of all this has disappeared. On the other hand, in 2018, when we played in the match between Amkala and 2Drots, I thought it would end with only one game. And in the end, you see how everything has grown.