Aleksandr Khatskevich: "I will definitely return to Ukraine"

Dynamo Kyiv legend and one of the best Belarusian coaches Aleksandr Khatskevich celebrates his 50th birthday. Before the important date, "Nasha Niva" called the famous Belarusian - many of his answers will surprise you. "We don't ask about the place of residence and Milevski," he warned at first.

- Everyone is tired of the war. I myself am travelling around Europe right now, meeting with displaced children, their parents and people who are helping them. There is a lot of fatigue, not only physical fatigue. You cannot convey the feeling when you see these eyes, when you see these children, parents. Somebody has suffered physically from all of this. But the people of Ukraine have a goal - to protect and liberate their land.

As long as I have such a mission and I can help in some way, I do it with pleasure. Material is the simplest thing: I took and transferred money to the account of a certain fund or organisation. If you have a head, two hands and two legs, you can earn money, and nothing will happen to you if you help. And sometimes a kind word helps more than money.

That's why when I have an opportunity and I am invited to such events, I always drop everything and go to another country or another city, or fly if necessary.

- How do you feel before your 50th anniversary?

- It's just a number. One person will say: shit, it's already fifty! But for someone else it is "only fifty". Time can't stop, and you have to live today: love your parents who gave you life, love your wife, love your children and grandchildren, appreciate and respect your friends, learn to say "thank you" to people. To continue learning and developing, to dream and believe - why not? And also to rejoice in the successes of your relatives and people close to you, to please them, to overcome difficulties.

If you have the opportunity, you should help people. Now is such a time that many people overcome difficulties, but I am grateful to them: difficulties show what you are worth and what people who used to be close to you are worth, with whom you continue to go on, and whom you erase from your life and memory.

It is clear that at 50 there is a certain baggage of knowledge and experience, first of all life experience. But for me it is "just fifty". When I go to a karaoke bar, I can feel twenty years old, and tomorrow I sit in a good restaurant in a suit and tie and feel more mature.

- Are you thinking about returning to Ukraine?

- Today I have certain restrictions in travelling not to the EU countries. Therefore, I can't return to Ukraine or Belarus. I will definitely return to Ukraine, I hope it will happen as soon as possible. I live there, my home is there.

- You called your last two jobs - Rotor Volgograd and Karmiotissa in Cyprus - a mistake . Why?

- Regarding the first team: yes, I admit my mistake. In football terms, it's a penalty, a red card and a suspension, and I don't want to talk about them anymore. It knocked me out a lot. I don't want to say anything about that country or even remember that I worked there.

About "Karmiotissa" - the situation is different here. Regarding football, selection of players, working conditions and growth - everything in the club was at a very good level. I joined the team after five games. Yes, the club had a bad start, they decided to change the coach - it happens in football.

But after my departure "Karmiotissa" changed four or five more coaches (Alexander left the team a year ago - ed.). The problem is not in the coaches, but in the fact that the president turned out to be a completely non-football person.

- I remember the game of the Belarusian national team with France under your leadership. Full stands, unity of the team and spectators, a draw with a top team. Will we ever see such a thing in Belarus again?

- This time, when both the fans and the team will be united, will definitely come. Of course, I remember that match - a game of the World Cup qualifying cycle, the whole stadium in white jerseys of the national team, everyone is supporting. Unfortunately, we did not win, but we did not lose. A couple of days later there was a similar match with Luxembourg, when the whole stadium was also with the national team.

Now you won't see such a thing, it's all artificial in Belarus, especially since the national team doesn't play in Belarus now. We wouldn't see such sincerity and support now anyway, it's impossible.

- If you were in the place of a player of the Belarusian national team, who was forced to organise a penitential press conference, what would you do?

- Today you should have a clear understanding of which side you are on. Today it's impossible that you play for one team, and the next day you're pinned down - and you raise your hands and ask for forgiveness. It's like a guilty first grader who has no experience yet, and he says: "I was used, I didn't realise what I was doing". Today there is white and there is black. As Ranevskaya said, people are like candles: they either burn or they get fucked. I just feel sorry for the people who are repainting themselves today, it's hypocrisy.

- Can there be a new Valentin Belkevich in today's Belarus ?

- Belarus has always had great footballers, such as Mustygin, Malofeev, Pudyshev, Prokopenko, Zygmantovich, Gotsmanov, Aleinikov, Belkevich. They were people with their own core, with their own charisma and their own destiny, but they were all united by the fact that they were loved by the fans. I am sure that a new Belkevych, Aleinikov, Prokopenko, Pudyshev will definitely appear.

I do not know how the current generation plays without fans. Yes, there was kovid, but then empty stadiums were a forced measure. This game is created for people to come to it, to pass their love for the team and the national team from generation to generation. Without fans, there will be no footballers.

- What was Valeriy Lobanovskiy's top quality as a coach? Are there similar coaches now?

- He worked as in chess, where every action is calculated, had his own assessment of the effectiveness of actions, saw the situation a few steps ahead. They say that he was ahead of his time, he saw how football would develop further.

Everything is decided by personnel, selection of players, but the most important thing in all this is intelligence. He selected intelligent players who complemented each other, and he was a very intelligent coach himself. For him it was very important not only football intelligence, but also life intelligence: for a football player to be an interesting interlocutor not only in his profession, but also to understand life.

- Do you mean education?

- Yes. However, education can be secondary, but education should be higher.

- Are there any coaches like him in Eastern Europe now?

- For me, there were two footballs in that generation. Valeriy Lobanovskiy's power football and total football, which Johan Cruyff started to use at Barcelona, then Dutch coaches and Guardiola started to develop it. Football is evolving, but I am sure that Lobanovsky would be in demand in today's football.

- Who would you name as a head coach in your career?

- It's easy for me to answer here, because I didn't change teams very often. First of all, it is Nikolai Nikolaevich Nekozyrev and Mikhail Stepanovich Bratchenya, my first coaches. To many people these names will not say anything, but these are the two coaches who first taught me to love and understand football. The other coaches, with whom I worked further - in the double of Dynamo Minsk, in Dynamo itself, in Dynamo Kyiv and in the national team - only helped me to improve professionally and learn to understand life.

- You have been married for more than 20 years. What is the secret of such a long relationship?

- I can name only two words - trust and respect. It sounds simple, but try to live like that yourself.

- What is the ideal holiday for you ?

- If with my family, then in the mountains, if with friends, fishing. The place is not important, the main thing is the company, so that family and friends are close. You can call the Alps, you can go skiing in Ukraine. It does not depend on the number of stars.

- What moment do you consider the most important in your career?

- I do not remember exactly how old I was then, probably ten years old. Nowadays kids may not understand how it is when parents can't afford to buy skates, rollers or a stick, but back then life was very different. My parents couldn't afford to buy me the skates I wanted. With a friend who lived in the next doorway, I went to hockey and lied to my parents that I was going to football.

When I got to the hockey school, they gave me skates and a stick. I kept them at a friend's house so that I could skate and play hockey in the yard, but they were already my personal skates. The football coach came over and told my dad that I hadn't gone to football for about a month, and I told my parents I was going there. When my dad took the belt, that was the turning point in my football career.

- What moment in your career do you consider the most difficult?

- If about coaching, I remember the time when I worked as a head coach in the 2016/2017 season at Dynamo Kyiv. At the end of the season, we were two points behind Shakhtar Donetsk, as we did not play the game with Mariupol, where we were counted as a defeat (Dynamo refused to play in Mariupol, as the city was 20 kilometres away from the frontline of the Russian-Ukrainian war - ed.). That is, we lacked a victory in one game for the championship.

If we talk about your career as a player, it was the loss to Bayern in the semi-finals of the Champions League in 1999, when you were one step away from the main European club trophy. I realised that I would never be so close to winning that cup again.

- What was it like?

- Ask any sportsman what it's like when you see the finish line and then the lights go out - and everything goes out and you haven't won it. I'm not talking about football - any sport.

- How do you move on after something like that?

- Tighten your belt, be patient and keep working, set goals again. At any age and in any activity there should be a dream.

- What are your dreams now?

- Right now I dream of seeing my parents.

- You said in one of your interviews: "As a true Belarusian, I know how to make witch hazel". What else is among your specialities?

- At that time I said that I know how to make draaniki, which are flourless. Believe me, if they have flour, it's not draniki. In general, I can cook you anything you want from potatoes: boiled potatoes, steamed, mashed, mounded, fried, draaniki.

Vera Belotserkovskaya