Former footballer of Donetsk "Shakhtar" Oleksandr Sopko detailed how he sees the future of the "miners" under Arda Turan.
Oleksandr Sopko (photo: shakhtar.com)— "Shakhtar" needs a complete reboot of its philosophy, its approaches to understanding what a tasty game is. If this refers to modern football that brings pleasure to fans, coaches, management, and, most importantly, the players — it should be an intense game with pressing and good organization of play in defense. In this context, the model proposed over the last five years — it has already worn out. The reason for this is probably that championships were too easily won by "Shakhtar", the warm bath that the footballers were in was too comfortable, and, most likely, the opponents were too weak. Therefore, the football that was declared — technical, with an emphasis on attack — did not develop, and over the last year, it has begun to degrade. There are many reasons — coaching turmoil, and the motivation of footballers who saw themselves at best as national team players, and usually — in transfers and transitions to foreign championships. It is calmer there, life is better, families want to go there. All of this naturally weighed on the footballers, and the competitive level within Ukraine did not allow players to grow. Hence the degradation. And even the emphasis on Brazilians, that they can jump from "Shakhtar" to a European top club — this has also not worked out. Those Brazilians who were bought — the material is very raw, and it will take a long time to work with them. The character and psychology of these players are different, and if compared with past years when Lucescu was there, the then Brazilians came to a championship of a different level, growing among good and strong players by European standards. Now, however, the Brazilians have dissolved into our below-average level, which is enough for them — salaries are good, and there is hardly anyone to compete with, one or two games with "Dynamo", plus a few European Cup matches. And that’s all.
So the reason for the current failure of "Shakhtar" — it is not of one year. Everything was gradually accumulating, the club did not timely restructure regarding the direction of development. And if one could say that there was bad luck here, that someone in some moment proved to be stronger. But this was not the case; on the contrary — gradually, step by step, a fall was observed. One can count on fingers the games where "Shakhtar" demonstrated high class, as much as the opponent fell at some moment. In the majority of matches with the "miners", the game was played very boldly and effectively. The second half in the execution of "Shakhtar" — the team constantly trembles, misses in the last minutes, does not know how to achieve a result.
As for Turan, saying something about him as a coach is difficult. He led "Eyupsport" to the higher division in the Turkish championship, where the team finished sixth in its very first season. Seems like success. But one thing is to lead to the higher division due to organization, mobilization, and courage. And then, when you have to cut a diamond from the diamond, when the team aspires for the championship, then there are already other requirements, goals, responsibilities — there a coaching experience is needed, and a track record should be behind. Turan does not have that yet, so his invitation, in my opinion, is a certain risk, as the coach lacks the experience of fighting for first place in the championship, has no proper experience in communication with players, mainly the conversation is about Brazilians — language, psychology, the ability to choose words. This is very important for a coach who sets high goals.
On the other hand, when they say, like the coach is experienced, how many years he has worked, he has chewed his teeth on this matter, knows everything in advance — I am also afraid of such, since they most often function by stereotype, the experience that presses on them, which ultimately makes them afraid to improvise, afraid to make some revolutionary decisions, afraid to develop. And he works mainly on established stereotypes and intuition. And in our championship, this factor does not work since our teams are unpredictable — they can lose miserably, or they can gather and with will and character pull out a match. Therefore, regarding the coach, I personally have complete uncertainty. But the fact that the search and change of coach is justified — this factor is absolutely objective, — the expert is convinced.
