«Ural» was one of the pleasant surprises at the start of the season of the Russian Premier League. The president of the Ural club, Grigory Ivanov, told how he and like-minded people built a competitive team in the wild 90s and can you hope for the Champions League if you are not financed by state-owned companies. Ural»
By the time I joined Ural, I had been playing futsal for 11 years and knew many. I want to say that in those days, in the 1990s and 2000s, futsal was much cleaner and more comfortable. Everyone knew each other, played the touring system, came to the city for three or four days, there were always matches between referees and club leaders. We played with them, then sat, freely communicated and resolved all issues. There were a lot of unexpected things in football for me, but nothing — I got used to it.
«Uralmash» went to the First League. The guys who helped the team apologized and said that they could no longer support her. Other funding was needed. The governor created a new joint-stock company and asked Dmitry Alexandrovich Pumpyansky to help. Since we worked together in futsal, he told me: «Come on, go, practice and make a team.» We arrived at the beginning of March, and at the end of the month the season had already started. In less than a month, we signed contracts with everyone and even managed to go to one training camp. distribution of football uniforms, 40 sets, suits, sneakers, warm jackets. That's how it all started.
Then the First League was different — five or six teams applied for the exit, and we flew out in the first season, but a year later returned. We played in the first division for eight seasons and in 2013 we were promoted to the Premier League.
At first there was nothing — no bus, no club office. I am grateful to the people who started with me, helped, for example, Oleg Leonidovich Chemezov (vice-governor of the Sverdlovsk region — ed.), who was the first chairman of the board of directors of Ural and loved football very much.
After relegation to the second division, there were no thoughts that this was not mine. How would it look?! I had to work even harder to get the team back in the first division. When they did, they took third, seventh places, they were often close to reaching the Premier League, but a little bit lacking. To return the team to play, to have football in our city — for me it was a matter of honor. Thoughts to quit everything never appeared in my life. And probably won't.
About football dreams
Twenty years ago I dreamed that there would be football in Yekaterinburg, that they would love it, that they would go to it, and not to the teams that come to visit. Now people in the city know that there is such a team — «Ural». The fans are walking. Last season we had more than 30,000 fans at the Cup game against CSKA. At the World Cup, not so many gathered at all matches. With «Rostov» now on a weekday at a not very convenient time, 10 thousand came without a fan card. Now my dream is to hear the Champions League anthem at the Yekaterinburg Arena. But when will it come true? You can dream. I dream that our team — from Yekaterinburg, from the Sverdlovsk region — will play in the Champions League.
I I agree that it is better to play (in the Asian Champions League — ed.) than not to play. But we will come there, and the Japanese and Australians will tell us that they will not play with us. We must return — they are waiting for us in Europe. When everything is over, we will be returned immediately.My biggest dream, like Sergei Nikolayevich (Galitsky, the president of Krasnodar — ed.), is to have 11 of my own people in the starting lineup. But so far this is not possible. Our academy was opened only two years ago, but the fields have only just been completed. Our academy trained in the arena, played on the quarters of the field. It was hard, but now at the stadium where we are based, there are two fields with natural turf and one with artificial turf. I think our guys will grow faster.
On financing the club and coaching
The funding situation has not changed in recent years. Our budget is small, we always lack money. Everyone is trying — the government and the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, TMK and the Sinara group are trying to increase the budget and we lived with dignity. But we don't have salary delays. For all the time that I was in the club, I was once detained for three months — in 2008. Never happened again! Why did they always come to us? We have stability.
The team's budget has grown compared to last season thanks to the governor, sponsors and trustees. However, it remains quite modest in terms of the league.
I have never thought about getting a coaching license. I am not a coach, I am a football manager. I do other things, but my place is next to the team.
About the main transfers in the history of the club
We had a lot of guys who came and helped us a lot in the development of the club. The same Roma Pavlyuchenko and Pashka Pogrebnyak are the stars. They gave a lot to young guys. The same Fedya Smolov. I think that we helped him return to big football. He played for us, scored a lot of goals and, moving to Krasnodar, twice became the top scorer of the Russian championship and the best player in the country. We can be proud that we gave him a way and returned him to big football.
I don't want to offend anyone. We had a lot of good players: Dynamo goalkeeper Andrey Smetanin, who played with us for a season and a half, bronze medalist of the Russian Championship in the «Zenith» Lech Katulsky, who played with all our greats — with Arshavin, Kerzhakov and Bystrov.
Oleg is just our everything. Now he is injured and went to study. He said that if he liked it, he would continue to study. And if not, maybe it will come back. I think Ural will be his priority if he wants to come back. I really want him to come back. It's too early for him to finish, he still has a lot to give to young players
Of course, I believe that the time will come when the pupils of the Ural football will again play at the World Cup. There were five people at the Maracana (the main stadium of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil — ed.) who were related to Ural. The same Maxim Kanunnikov — Tagil. He and Oleg, born in 1990, played together. Yes, he went to Zenit when he was young, but his roots are here, he started here and has grown to the Russian team. Igor Smolnikov from Kamensk-Uralsky — went to the Lokomotiv school, but our roots are ours. Our land is full of talents.
There was a guy on the «Marakana», whom I consider my football son. For me, Shatov is a very close person. There were goosebumps then. That's what we need to strive for, that's what we've come to. It was not in vain that we lived our lives, it was not in vain that we brought up football players.
Our young guys began to appear — look at the same «Wings». At that time there were a lot of bad habits, the guys disappeared, left football. Only football fans remained. We have lost a whole generation. Now Krasnodar, Dynamo, Spartak, CSKA have many young players. The guys are growing. Good time — you can play, train on good fields.
Before, look where you played. They showed Kaltan, where Sasha Golovin grew up. They trained on something incomprehensible — they made it to the units who were in love with football and are very talented. And now the flow of young football players — in Dynamo, Krylia and other teams play at the level of the Premier League.