CSKA and Russia boss Slutski's claims to fame
Monday, August 10, 2015
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With CSKA Moskva boss Leonid Slutski to lead club and country, we discover how a lost cat helped transform a lower-league keeper into the 'Russian Mourinho'.
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Leonid Slutski will be coaching club and country in tandem after it was announced on Friday that the CSKA Moskva boss would lead Russia for the remainder of their UEFA EURO 2016 campaign. UEFA.com presents a guide to Fabio Capello's 44-year-old replacement.
His coaching career was founded on disaster
• Slutski's playing career came to a sudden end in 1990 when the 19-year-old Zvezda Gorodische goalkeeper sustained multiple injuries – including a broken left kneecap – in a fall while trying to rescue a neighbour's cat from a tree. Three years later, he completed his sports science training and took his first coaching appointment, with Olimpia Volgograd's Under-12 team.
He is regarded as a footballing genius
• The young coach made a massive impression at Olimpia, moving up to the first team, where he helped the likes of Denis Kolodin and Roman Adamov towards the senior national side. "He might be the most intelligent man in football in our country – and maybe in the whole of Europe," then-Olimpia president Nikolai Chuvalski said. "He is the encyclopaedia of football! He had thousands of VHS tapes of matches. Mark my words, he will be coaching Russia one day!"
He is not called the 'Russian Mourinho' for nothing
• Slutski was coaching in the top flight by the age of 34, guiding FC Moskva after a spell with the club's reserves. Moskva's general manager famously compared him to José Mourinho, since neither had played professionally and both went into coaching young. Known as the 'Russian Mourinho' ever since, he proceeded to meet his coaching idol at Chelsea in 2005. The 'Special One' told Slutski the key to coaching was "the ability to manage players – you will not achieve anything without that". Slutski returned to London with a group of Russian technicians some time later, with the Chelsea boss making a point of coming to greet him. "I wish you luck," Mourinho reportedly told him.
He gave Sir Alex Ferguson a run for his money
• In 1999, Slutski featured in a television comedy show, singing a famous song from a Russian cartoon with the words: "I am a genius coach, I don't need any help/I will find a flaw, even in Manchester's game." That jokey prediction came true in November 2009 when – in his first European game in charge of CSKA – his team earned a 3-3 draw at Old Trafford after conceding an equaliser in added time. They went on to reach the quarter-finals for the first time, where they lost out to eventual winners Internazionale. Mourinho presented Slutski with three bottles of wine after the tie as a mark of his respect.
He has almost left CSKA more than once
• After a 4-0 reverse to Dinamo Moskva in September 2011 – CSKA's heaviest defeat under Slutski – the coach went straight to the club's fans to beg forgiveness for an unacceptable performance. "I will offer my resignation, no problem," he said, but if he offered to stand down, CSKA owner Evgeni Giner was having none of it, electing to persevere with the man who had won his first trophy, the Russian Cup, a few months earlier. He considered stepping down again after a UEFA Europa League play-off loss to AIK Solna in August 2012, explaining: "I have already written a few letters of resignation, but they were never accepted."
He justified the Army Men's patience
• Giner's patience was rewarded as his players helped to carry Slutski shoulder-high when he steered CSKA to the title for the first time in May 2013 – the club's fourth post-independence triumph. "Some clubs change coaches a few times a season, but we know that it is stupid," said CSKA defender Vasili Berezutski. "Leonid Viktorovich [Slutski] had his chances and took them." The following year, CSKA retained the championship, winning their final ten games to burn off Lokomotiv Moskva. "Everyone used to say he would never win anything, but now he has won it for a second season in a row," beamed Giner.
What happens next?
• The next four months will be the busiest in Slutski's career, with the best part of 30 matches to oversee with CSKA and Russia. He must take on Sporting CP in the UEFA Champions League play-offs before the national side host Sweden on 5 September. However, Slutski is as calm – or as jittery – as ever. "Every game I have ever faced in my career scared me, and that's still true," he said. "The only difference is that there will be a few more of them from now on."