"We need to improve our character and aggression"

On Monday, August 4, the third round of the Russian RPL Football Championship will end with a match between Rubin Kazan and Sochi. Sochi residents, who returned from the first league in the spring with the help of transitional matches, failed the start of the season. They lost soundly in the first two rounds of the championship to Moscow Lokomotiv (0:3) and Tolyatti Akron (0:4). In the first match of the Russian Cup, the southern club lost to Dynamo Moscow in the last minutes (2:3). In an interview with Izvestia, one of Sochi's old—timers, midfielder Artyom Makarchuk, shared his opinion on the failures at the start of the season, explained how to improve the results, and commented on the successful start of his former club, Baltika Kaliningrad.

— What do you attribute Sochi's weak results at the start of the season to?

— It's hard to say. If we take the first game against Lokomotiv, then overall we played well. Most of the time it was a draw, but in the last seven minutes we let ourselves down. They lost their concentration. And in the RPL, if you lose concentration, that's it — they score a goal for you right away. That's how three goals appeared in seven minutes.

— Is there a reason to panic?

— There were problems in the first matches, but they are not systemic. They are more related to our dedication, loss of concentration, and our mistakes. This applies to the end of the match with Lokomotiv and almost the entire game with Akron. It was already better in the cup game with Dynamo. If we have the same dedication as in this match, plus we add in game interactions, then everything will be fine.

— I asked about the panic largely due to the fact that the first two matches of the championship were lost with crushing scores, and it is difficult to attribute this to any accidents.

— The way we played against Akron is unacceptable. Especially in the RPL. There are no excuses. And I have nothing to say. We approached this game without character, if I may say so.

— Since 2022, when the Russian Cup is played in the current format with group stages, Sochi has never reached the playoffs. Are you going to take this tournament seriously now?

— I don't divide tournaments into important and unimportant ones. And I'm not guessing ahead of time what the results will be. I'm just moving from game to game, like everyone else. A match of the Russian Cup, the Russian championship or a training session — it doesn't matter, you have to go out everywhere and give yourself to your work on the field.

— Are there difficulties with mutual understanding with the Sochi newcomers, most of whom joined the club already during the preparatory training camp?

— There are no problems with mutual understanding. After all, football people have come to us. You just need to add character. And I think everything will be fine with us.

— It is clear that Anton Zinkovsky, Mikhail Ignatov, Sergey Volkov, Dmitry Vasiliev and other newcomers who came to Sochi this summer will strengthen the team, and it will be possible to solve serious problems, as your team solved two or three years ago?

— And two or three years ago, what tasks did we solve? Are you talking about silver medals?

— Let's start with what happened after the silver medal in 2022, and before the relegation to the first league, Sochi finished confidently in the top ten in 2023.

— It's possible.

— When Sochi was eliminated from the RPL in the spring of 2024, many people praised your team anyway for how it improved after the winter appointment of Robert Moreno as head coach, and how it took points from top clubs. Why did this quality not remain in the first League last season, or now in the Premier League?

— It's hard to say, it's hard to compare. The First League is generally a different football, a different championship. Before last season, the guys and I said that we have a good squad, and the team will calmly attack, play as a team through passing, through possession of the ball. But we ran into the resistance of our rivals.

Basically, everyone in the world has now learned to play football at the level of at least sitting back and defending. Everyone has certainly learned how to play defense. That's why it was difficult for us in the FNL to open up the opponents' defenses. Everyone was fighting, everyone was running — it was difficult to figure out any team in terms of tactics.

In the RPL, all teams have a certain pattern of play, and in the FNL, the participants are more focused on fighting, on emotions, so that they run a lot. I think that's what hit us last season — a lot of people at Sochi didn't understand which league they were in. There is a kind of football there, but the championship is strong and very difficult.

— It seemed that now that you got out of this meat grinder of the first league, it might even be easier in the RPL when the opponents are not playing completely defensively against you. Why haven't you been able to use it yet?

— We just need to be more aggressive. And in general, in everything — to run more, interact more, be more aggressive on the field. The Cup match against Dynamo showed that we can improve. Compared to the game against Akron, we already looked like a team — we gave everything on the field and played structurally. We were able to resist Dynamo.

— Was the credibility of the head coach of the Roberto Moreno team influenced by the story when he temporarily left for family reasons before the May second leg against Pari Nizhny Novgorod (3:1), and then returned and began to prepare you for the RPL season again?

— I don't want to talk about it.

— A couple of years ago you played for the Russian national team. It is clear that it was difficult to wait for a call-up from the first league, but now, having returned to the RPL, do you expect to attract the attention of the coaching staff of the national team again?

— The question is rhetorical. Of course, there is hope for this. It's always there. If there was no hope, then I would go to Kaliningrad and stay at home (Makarchuk is from the Kaliningrad region. Every day you wake up and think about how to make yourself better. If you make yourself better at the club, you'll get into the national team. I'm not thinking right now about exactly how to get into it. But I'm thinking about playing for Sochi as often as possible and helping them win. Then the national team can also be converted.

— Speaking of your home region and your former club, are you surprised at how successfully Baltika started in the RPL after returning from the first league? Were you impressed by the away draw with Dynamo (1-1) and the crushing victory over Spartak (3-0)?

— I don't follow them much, so it's hard to say anything.

— But you played twice against Baltika in the first league last season.

— From the matches when we played against them, and from what I saw when they played against other teams, it was clear that Baltika was well prepared physically. This was also noticeable in the first matches of this season. Plus, there are skilled players there. All this combined has produced this result.