The central match of the Sunday program of matchday 19 of the RPL will be played in Moscow, where Dinamo will face Lokomotiv. Yuri Semin is a trainer who mainly interacts with railway workers. It is true that in his career there was also a Dynamo period. However, he hardly remembers it with pleasant feelings.
Another strange period of Semin’s work:
The 52 strangest days in Yuri Semin’s career
Why Semin did not return to Lokomotiv after working for the national team
In 2005, Semin left the Russian national team after failing to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. The coach replaced Georgy Yartsev in the team, with whom he had a poor start in the qualifying round. Under Semin’s leadership, the Russian team never lost in seven matches, but also did not qualify. At the end of 2005, the coach left the national team and explained why he made this decision.
“Combining work in the club and the national team is impossible, and working only in the national team turned out to be too unusual for me. Coaching a club and the national team are two different things: in the club you are constantly alert, but in the national team the breaks between matches are too long,” Semin argued.
Yuri Semin in the Russian national team
Photo: Mike Egerton/Getty Images
It was assumed that after leaving the national team the coach would return to Lokomotiv, but that did not happen. Semin himself explained why the comeback did not happen: “Why didn’t I return to Lokomotiv? A very difficult question. Especially for Lokomotiv fans. I want to tell you: not everything depended on me. Probably, regarding our opinions on the development of the Club, the management of Lokomotiv and I stopped understanding each other. Furthermore, during my absence from the club many things happened that were incomprehensible to me.”
Semin also criticized his successor Vladimir Eshtrekov. According to Yuri Pavlovich, he did not maintain the atmosphere of unity between the club, the players and the fans. Semin noted that Lokomotiv stopped allowing young fans into the base and prohibited them from hanging some non-offensive banners.
“While I was at the club, not a single acquisition was made without the head coach. This year there was a whole stream of newcomers, but, in my opinion, none were successful. It is also incomprehensible to intervene in purely training matters, when the changes were made almost from the podium. Eshtrekov could not maintain the necessary work environment, hence the results,” Semin criticized his successor in 2005.
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The coach had a conflict with the players and the Dynamo management delayed salaries
Before signing a contract with Dynamo, Semin spoke with all the important people of the club. He met with Chairman of the Board of Directors Alexey Fedorychev, Chairman of the Central Council Vladimir Pronichev, Chairman of the Board of Directors Sergei Stepashin and General Director Yuri Zavarzin. Very solid list!
“I got a very interesting job. People invest a lot of money in the team, they want to develop all of our football and not just one club. They have truly large-scale projects. Thus, in June we will have a base, one of the best in the country,” Semin recalled.
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In June no base appeared. It was delivered only two years later. Before the start of the season, Semin was confident that, together with the management, he would raise Dynamo. Two years earlier, the blue and white team avoided relegation with great difficulty (saved by Oleg Romantsev) and then only occupied eighth place, despite the massive purchase of the Portuguese. By the way, before the start of the 2006 season, his colony was somewhat reduced: Nuno Fresho, Jorge Ribeiro and Maniche left Dynamo.
In the winter training camp, Semin had a conflict with another Portuguese, Costinha. According to one version, the midfielder did not like that his boots were not cleaned after training. According to another, he simply did not find them near his room, where football players usually display their shoes. As a result, Costinha defiantly stayed off the field for the entire session. The situation became tense and Semin expelled the foreign player from the training camp, and then the Portuguese was transferred to the reserve team.
In the spring of 2006, the coach made it clear: Costinha would not play with him. “Under no circumstances should a player manage the club or the training process,” Semin argued. -He must play. Costinha is currently training with the reserve team. He did not want to play for another team, although he could have moved to another Russian club or gone to Brazil. He won’t play in front of me. Absolutely correct”.
Costinho with Semin was sent to the blue and white team
Photo: Igor Utkin/TASS
But Costinha has his own version of the conflict. A few years after leaving Dynamo, the Portuguese explained why he left the Moscow club.
“I was surprised when they suspended me from training. They suspended me just because I arrived with normal shoes. I notice it right away: I did not demand that anyone clean my boots, as they later tried to present to the fans. That day the boots simply disappeared. The coaches and management that suspended me from training were disrespectful. That’s why I decided to terminate my contract with Dynamo.
Costinha added that with the arrival of Semin there was a clear division in the team between friends and enemies. According to the Portuguese, the time came when the Russian players entered the locker room first, and the foreign players were only allowed in after the local players changed their clothes and left. Or it happened that Russians and foreigners were sitting in different corners. Costinha said that with Semin the Dinamo of that time played worse than with any other coach.
The 2006 season turned out to be a nightmare for Dynamo.
Photo: Vitaly Belousov/TASS
From there it only got worse. The club experienced delays in the payment of salaries and the team showed disgusting results on the field. There is nothing to say about the interior environment. And Semin had a fight not only with Koshtinha, but also with Dmitry Parfenov.
“During one of the matches, Semin spoke harshly to me,” Parfenov recalled. “I couldn’t contain myself in response. It was a work situation, but Semin got offended and said something bad to management about me. And the coach often confused the names of the players and called me Popov. The Portuguese had a special place in Yuri Pavlovich’s team. Forward Derlei threw a water bottle at Semin. And he got almost nothing in return: just an educational conversation.”
At the end of 2023, Semin became part of the new version of the “golden” party:
Loskov repeated his legendary goal with CSKA! Semin again won the “golden” match against Gazzaev
Semin worked for Dynamo for a circle and left the team in 15th place
Semin lasted only half a season at Dynamo. 15 games, one win, seven draws, seven losses, 10 points are terrible statistics for a coach accustomed to successful results. In August 2006, Dinamo was defeated by Torpedo (0:3), after which Yuri Palych resigned.
Yuri Semin
former Dynamo coach
“I left because of the interest of the club. For the first time in my coaching career I had differences with a large group of players. The club was unable to place the bums within the framework of the civilized performance of professional duties. I will never accept the dictates of the players. Resigning means getting lost.”
Yuri Semin as Dynamo coach at the Lokomotiv stadium
Photo: Vitaly Belousov/TASS
The coach added that some players neglected the tasks they received in the facilities before games. Furthermore, they did not show adequate dedication. According to the coach, it was not the club that led the players, but the players who led the club. “As soon as you threatened a footballer with a fine, the response was: ‘Before you fine, give him a salary,'” the coach recalled.
Semin left Dynamo when they were in the penultimate line of the table. Instead, the team was managed by Andrei Kobelev, who kept it in the elite division. And two years later he led the blue and white team to the bronze medal in the Russian Championship. Semin then worked with Dynamo Kyiv, Lokomotiv, Gabala, Anzhi, Mordovia and Rostov.
