Ukrainian coach Ruslan Kostyshyn spoke about his experience at Aksu, which he left in April this year.
- Ruslan, you have worked for Aksu Kazakhstan for a season and a half.
- Approximately. "I left Aksu in April in the course of the season.
- Did you leave on your own accord?
- I would not say so. I left Aksu by mutual agreement. The team's results were falling. I think I lost control of the locker room and the team management in general. The chemistry between coach and player was gone.
- You didn`t find common ground with the young Kazakhs?
- That is not the point. In my first season(Kostyshyn was appointed January 19, 2022 - ed.) the majority of the team were Kazakhs, and the foreigners were 6-7 people. But in the championship for 2023 there were more foreigners, and this upset the balance. And to some extent, the locker room was lost(Aksu now has a Brazilian, a Serb, a Kyrgyz, a Portuguese, a Nigerian, a Ukrainian, Artur Murza, a Belarussian and a Russian - ed.).
The problem in Kazakhstan is that contracts are only signed for one year. Before the 2023 season, many of the team's leaders - captain, top scorer and centre midfielders - left. We also lost our goalkeeper, Ukrainian Evgeniy Kucherenko, who had been without goal almost every game. After him we still did not have a good goalkeeper. We were waiting for them to come back in the winter, but no. In the end we had to rebuild the team. Dealing with transfers turned out to be the club's biggest problem.
At the end of 2022, we almost missed out on the European competitions, finishing in sixth place. And in 2023, at the time of my dismissal, we were in 11th place.
- Was the situation correctable? After all, after you, the team dropped to the last place...
- It is possible. I think I still could have equalized. But I really wanted to go home, so I returned to Ukraine. Now I'm at home, with sirens and bombings. I put up with it, like any Ukrainian.
There were other nuances that made it difficult to work in Kazakhstan. But I don't want to talk about it. People are sometimes sensitive to the words in the media. In Ukraine, everything is simple - said and said. But it is not so everywhere.
- Was it possible to convince the management of Aksu?
- Sometimes. I said during the training camp in winter 2023 that that`s not how we make our lineup. Then I was brought four foreigners, three of them were Belarusians. They didn`t even have a training camp, they started in the second round. This is also a misbalance.
In general, the attitude of the management towards me was good. They trusted me and did not interfere in my management of the team.
- In general, the championship of Kazakhstan is weaker than the Ukrainian one?
- Ukrainian leaders are definitely stronger. And it`s hard to compare the mid-seeds, the difference is smaller.
- Is there any support for Ukraine in Kazakhstan?
- Every Kazakh hotel has a TV set with Russian news broadcasts. But the young and middle generation is for us. But the older generation is cautious on the subject.
In Pavlodar, where Aksu is located - everyone is for us. When the war started, we asked to play Ocean of Elzy before the games - nobody refused us.
- Aksu had Russians Islam Zhilov and Ali Hajibekov.
- They are from the Caucasus, they also suffered a lot from Russia. And the attitude towards Putin is not very good.
Anton Terekhov