The difficult fate of the Tatars in Tatarstan. Why is Zhafyarov not successful in Ak Bars?
Dmitry Storozhev September 15, 2023, 1:30 PM Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
Damir just can’t find himself after leaving SKA.
On Thursday, September 14, the first “green derby” of the new KHL season took place. In the traditional confrontation, “Salavat Yulaev” turned out to be stronger than “Ak Bars” on their ice. Although the beginning of the match did not foreshadow such a result, in the seventh minute the Kazan team had a two-goal lead and everything seemed to be heading towards the guests bringing the matter to a victorious end. However, the stellar attack of the finalists of the last Gagarin Cup was neutralized by the defense of the Yulaevites and goalkeeper Alexander Samonov, who played as reliably as possible after conceding early goals.
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One of the participants in this attack last night was Damir Zhafyarov. The only Tatar by birth in the Ak Bars lineup still cannot adapt to the team. Although Damir moved to Kazan with the status of potentially one of the main stars of the “Leopards” in the new season. At the very least, he was expected to be a top-6 striker: in Torpedo and SKA, Zhafyarov was among the team leaders, and almost nothing foreshadowed the same in Ak Bars, the club for which, according to the player himself, he has been ill from childhood (in this particular case, one may believe), things will be different. To have the opportunity to play in Kazan, the striker even agreed to a salary reduction: instead of the planned 80 million rubles that he should have received under the old terms of the contract, Damir will earn 60 this season.
Zhafyarov’s adaptation – according to him too – was good, but with the start of the preseason matches it became clear that not everything was going as well as the forward said. During the Kazan tournament in August, Damir showed poor performance, so Ak Bars coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov had to defend the player several times in the press: “He came to another team, maybe the requirements for him are not be the simplest. Although there is nothing complicated. Something bothers him as we watch. We hope everything goes well,” said the Kazan coach after the match against Barys in the TANECO Cup.
And a few days later, after the end of the tournament, Bilyaletdinov again had to answer the question about Zhafyarov’s condition: “How can I explain the reasons for Zhafyarov’s expressionless game? I spoke to him the day before and asked him the same questions. What state is he in, how does he feel, comfortable, uncomfortable. Everything suits him, everything is fine. Maybe he needs more time to be able to play like he knows how.”
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But time passed and Damir still did not feel comfortable, so in the Apertura Cup match against CSKA we only saw him on the third line of Ak Bars. Like in the next game with Traktor. During these two games, Zhafyarov spent a total of 23 minutes on the ice and received a two-minute penalty, after which he was moved to the reserve for the game against Sochi. A rather unpleasant event for a player who only missed five games in the last regular season.
The match against the southerners is so far the only time when the striker was not included in the Kazan team this season, but the next two matches he spent as striker number 13, receiving only 10 minutes of play in total. During this short period his only effective action so far in official matches with the Ak Bars shirt took place: in the match with Kunlun, Zhafyarov’s goal was not key, but it helped the team to convincingly beat the Chinese club .
Video rights belong to KHL LLC. You can see the video on the league’s official website.
Damir first started the match with Salavat on the first line, located on the left flank in combination with Ilya Safonov and Alexander Radulov. However, this trio turned out to be only nominal: the players almost did not appear together on the ice, and Zhafyarov himself was not remembered for anything at all, having played a nondescript game even against the background of the Ak Bars attack that he put out and, after two goals, it came on only for rare episodic periods.
Of course, it is too early to draw far-reaching conclusions: in such a long season, Damir will still have a chance to establish himself in the Kazan team. However, today – and this is a fact – Zhafyarov seems like a foreign body in the Tatar club system. Considering that the striker will have more than enough motivation to show up for his favorite childhood club, we can expect him to do everything possible to achieve this goal. But this must be done as quickly as possible; Otherwise, in a club with such fierce competition, a difficult fate may await you, and then the next change of record will not be far away.
