"Evseev says what he thinks, that's why we love him."

The current Russian Football Championship draw will end in a month. In the remaining rounds, there will be a fierce struggle at the bottom of the table to maintain registration in the Russian Premier League (RPL) for next season. Dynamo Makhachkala is among its participants. The year before last, this club entered the Premier League for the first time in its history and is fighting for survival in it for the second season, having one of the smallest budgets among all 16 clubs. A year ago, he finished 11th and avoided relegation to the first league without transitional matches. This season, the Dagestani team is in the same position six rounds before the end.

But the gap from 15th place (the direct relegation zone) is only three points, and the residents of the transition zone (13th-14th places) are ahead of Makhachkala residents only in terms of additional indicators with equal points scored. In an interview with Izvestia, Dynamo midfielder Nikita Glushkov assessed the club's standings, shared his expectations for the upcoming April 19 home match with Zenit St. Petersburg and commented on the scandals surrounding the current head coach of the team Vadim Evseev, who receives fines from the Control and Disciplinary Committee of the Russian Football Union (KDK RFU) for mate during the interview.

— Is the current situation very stressful when it is not possible to break away from competitors in the struggle for survival?

— Of course, it accumulates. Especially when we lose points, as in the last matches against Baltika (2:2) and Lokomotiv (1:1), when you lead two games in a row against very good opponents, but you miss in the endings and miss out on victories. Of course, this is unpleasant. It's a lot more offensive every time. But we are athletes. And we have to fight it.

— You have a match ahead of you in the championship with Zenit, to whom you lost in the Russian Cup in March (0:1) due to a scandalous penalty kick into your goal, which was later recognized as erroneous by the ESK RFU. Are there any revanchist sentiments because of that episode?

—No, not really. It's just that in general, you're doubly attuned to teams like Zenit, Krasnodar, Spartak, Lokomotiv, and CSKA.

— What do you need to do to win against Zenit or at least draw with them?

— Show your game. In the cup match, we were generally able to do this. It remains to play at home in the championship.

— Does Zenit seem like a championship team now?

— Their whole team is causing concern. So let's see how it goes. In any case, we have two difficult matches ahead of us with the two leaders of the championship — Zenit and Krasnodar. But we need to solve our own problems, so we will try to bring interest to the championship race so that they follow us. We will do our best to succeed.

— How did you react to the recent scandals surrounding Vadim Evseev, who, after the last two matches, expressed himself emotionally in a flash interview with Match TV using profanity, for which he was fined by the RFU KDK?

— Yes, he didn't react at all. They were fined... thank God, there was no disqualification — that's the most important thing.

— How do you feel about these scandals surrounding the head coach of your team?

— Yes, I can't say that I don't swear either. Men and boys often get overwhelmed by emotions somewhere. But if the KDK has decided so, then it has decided so. Vadim Valentinovich always says what he thinks. That's why we love him. So he didn't try to find any other words here either.

— Many people believe that his behavior will not be understood in Dagestan, where, taking into account local customs, they have a sharply negative attitude towards those who swear.

— I think there are about equally many people in any place who are divided into one and the other. Someone somewhere supports this behavior, someone somewhere condemns it. It's like that everywhere. Regardless of the region. I think there are no questions for Vadim Valentinovich in general. The answer to everything in the field is the results that we will show.

— In the past years, many players of Dynamo Makhachkala have repeatedly noted the constant contact with the team of the club's president Haji Hajiyev, the legend of our coaching workshop. Your leadership was partially changed this winter, and Haji Muslimovich was made honorary president, meaning he was effectively sidelined from making key decisions. Did he communicate less with the team after that?

— Yes, it's noticeable. We see less of him now.

— So the head coach has become a completely autonomous figure?

— Our head coach has always been an autonomous figure. We have always had a coach in this regard. It doesn't matter what his last name is. Both Khasanbi Eduardovich Bidzhiev and Evseev are autonomous figures in our country.

— Are you optimistic before the finish of the championship?

— We'll see at the end of the season. It's important to stay in the RPL. To be honest, we scored fewer points in the last rounds than we wanted to. On the other hand, many were sure that we would lose to both Baltika and Lokomotiv. But as a result, we are now upset by the draws with both teams, and we understand that we could have scored four points more.