The midfielder of Kharkiv “Metalist 1925” Ivan Kaluzhny shared that during the winter transfer window he held negotiations about a transfer with the German “Hertha” and the English “Plymouth”.
“The option with ‘Hertha’ was more than real. We met with the leaders of this club. When we started communicating with them, we outlined our conditions, and they responded: yes.
Then negotiations were held, I told them: ‘If you want, I can transfer now, just talk.’ But when there were 5−7 days left before the transfer window closed, they said: ‘Let’s do it in the summer.’ I said I wouldn’t want to wait until summer.
There were very tough negotiations with ‘Alexandria’: the club didn’t want to let me go even in winter. Yes, they understood they would lose money, but, as I was told, for them the result that season was more important than money.
With ‘Plymouth’ everything was also concrete, just like with ‘Hertha’. I had already sent my passport, but I wanted ‘Hertha’ more. Because at that time ‘Plymouth’ was at the bottom of the Championship, 9 points away from the safe zone. I thought they wouldn’t stay in the division. But then they got a chance to get out of that hole — the team started getting good results (as a result, ‘Plymouth’ still dropped out of the Championship, — ed. note).
Later, when Talovirov began to play for ‘Plymouth’ (Maxim Talovirov moved to this club in January, — ed. note), I watched the team’s matches and saw that the atmosphere there was the same as in the Bundesliga. But we made that decision because at that time I wasn’t alone, there were agents, and together we made that choice.
The choice in favor of ‘Metalist 1925’? This is a club from my hometown. At that time, there was hope that the war would end and I could return home. Yes, my family and I considered moving abroad, I have two small children. But it turned out that we stayed, and we are happy here,” Kaluzhny said on the YouTube channel “TaToTake”.