CHAPTER 28

1976 Markarov - Ararat coach

1976 Ararat - silver medalist of the USSR Championship

1976 Ararat - finalist of the USSR Cup 1976

Team prizes "For the best goal difference": 1976 (spring)

This season is the beginning of the coaching biography of the famous striker Eduard Markarov. And, I must say, a very good start: "Ararat" is the silver medalist of the spring championship of the country, the finalist of the USSR Cup ...

Not only the young players of "Ararat" pass the test of strength, hardening by battle, the head coach also passes it. Will his hands drop? I think he will survive, because not even a year has passed since we all admired his inimitable, purely Markarov's ability to score winning goals in the most important matches. Yes, even now he is still there, on the field, and now with his eyes closed he will determine where the partners are. And if they trust him, if young players see him as the idol of their football childhood, then today we can already say that Markarov's coaching debut in the major leagues has taken place.

                                                                                     Sergey Shmitko

The release of "grandfather" (a respectful nickname for Viktor Aleksandrovich Maslov) came as a surprise to many. Sports leaders believed that he was already aged, he could not work with the same energy and offered Markarov to head Ararat. Eduard had a counter-proposal - for a year he worked together with Maslov, and then, having already gained experience, he would single-handedly lead the team. Markarov's proposal did not pass. A significant role in his agreement to accept the team was played by the persuasion of the Ararat team themselves, who promised support to the novice coach. And Markarov, rolling up his sleeves, took on the coaching "collar". First of all, he returned Nikolai Kazaryan to the team, showing the opponents, who have grown like mushrooms, that he is counting on the help of the "old guard". “Veterans must be protected,” Markarov considered. “Who can learn from young people if not from them! "We now have capable young midfielders who can play constructively. Everyone already knows Oganesyan. But he still does not risk taking the game on himself. Independence is a great incentive. Therefore, I think it's time to look for a place in the middle line and young Keropyan - this player has very good data. And in front, in the attack, whether you like it or not, you need to play Andriasyan: he is the sharpest player, very inconvenient for the defenders and the goalkeeper. Without him, of course, our middle line will lose something, but but the young ones will turn around with might and main.

It is impossible to solve the problem of a worthy replacement for veterans who left the team in one year. It takes time to bring them to the main composition. I would especially like to mention Parsadanyan, Sahakyan, Khalajyan and Keropyan.

Like many years, the gates will be protected by Abrahamyan and Demirchyan. We also took a young goalkeeper Hovsepyan from the Polytechnic team. The line of defense has not changed. Young Parsadanyan and Azaryan will play alongside the experienced Gevorkyan, Sarkisyan, Mirzoyan, Mesropyan and Martirosyan. The midfield line looks more stable today. Andriasyan, Oganesyan, Bondarenko, N. Petrosyan, Minasyan, Sahakyan and Sergei Davidov (former Baku resident), who joined us from Chornomorets, are represented here. Things are more difficult with the acquisition of the line of attack. Who will be the partners of Kazaryan and S. Petrosyan, time will tell.

The team held the first stage of training sessions in Eshery, near Sukhumi. We are satisfied with the results. But the second stage was not entirely pleasant for us. Due to bad weather and unprepared fields, we lost ten days of work. I had to return to Yerevan ahead of time and conduct my training in Artashat, where all the necessary conditions have been created to prepare for the pionat. We are preparing for the new season with undoubtedly greater loads than last year. The volume of training sessions has increased, discipline has become stricter. We don't want to play the way we played last season. We only want to play beautiful football. After all, every match is a kind of performance.

Before the start of the championship, we will hold several control meetings. On March 27, we will enter the fight for the USSR Cup. The team is determined to fight for this honorary trophy and extend the registration of the Cup in Yerevan. On March 30, a meeting with the USSR national team is planned. And, finally, on April 4, the first calendar match for the national championship with Spartak Moscow.

It was expected that before the match with Spartak during the grand opening of the national championship, Markarov the football player would be seen off. But in a hurry they forgot about it. Markarov reacted philosophically: "All these are the little things of life."

In connection with the difficult international calendar of the USSR national team (European Championship, XXI Olympic Games), the internal calendar was reorganized in its interests. Two separate championships were held - spring (from April 4 to July 13) and autumn (August-November).

The spring championship for "Ararat" started unsuccessfully. First, he lost to Spartak Moscow (0:1), then a draw with CSKA (0:0) followed. Outwardly, Markarov remained calm and willingly talked to reporters: “After the match with Spartak, I was frightened for a moment of meeting with my players. I was afraid to see distrust of me in someone’s eyes. I would have caught the slightest nuance of such distrust! They were sincerely upset. There is nothing good in losing, but I even somehow calmed down, believed even more in the guys and in my own strength.

Today's "Ararat" has a lot of questions. We need to play combinations, look for new attack options. Already now we have begun to do a lot in a new way.

I mean both a thorough medical examination - only during the pre-season preparation it was carried out with us three times - and the abolition of the day off after the control and friendly games, which we now consider as ordinary training sessions, followed by bringing unsuccessful tactical moves the day before to their logical conclusion, and a set of recovery measures after heavy training loads, and self-control, and much more.

We understand that this is only the beginning, but it has already been done. We all participate in the training process together, we comprehend each exercise together, we know in advance what purpose it serves. It's nice to see that the players are consciously doing a huge amount of work. But not so long ago, it was believed that this was not characteristic of Ararat.

Perhaps, some people believe that yesterday's player should not start his coaching career from the position of senior coach of a major league club. There is a reason for this, of course. However, who better than he knows the strengths and weaknesses of his teammates? After all, you can still tell with every nerve cell there, on the field, even with your eyes closed, where the partners are at such and such a moment, what is being done in front, what is behind. You know in what mood the players went to the match, who is working at full strength, and who is underperforming ... You do not have to puzzle over why this or that player acted unsuccessfully. And if, moreover, your personal relationships with the players have been tested over the years, if they trust you, if, finally, you yourself feel that you can be useful to the team, then why not decide one day? I'm still with the players on "you", but they already know: what I could miss yesterday as a football player, today I can't miss as a head coach. In "Ararat" everything is built on friendly principles, but sometimes I have the right, as they say, to bang the table with my fist, but they don't ...

The season is not going to be easy, the autumn championship will be especially difficult. Given its one-round nature and the draw of the fields, all major league teams will undoubtedly make every effort to achieve victory in every match. This autumn championship will be a real test for us."

Today, at a distance of more than a quarter of a century, when the championships of 1976 have already become history, one can only marvel at the insight of Markarov.

Let us return, however, to the spring championship, in which otherworldly forces decided to help Ararat through Nikolay Kazaryan: “I am very grateful to Markarov that he believed in me and persuaded me to return to the team. I have been playing in the team of masters for eleven years, and these years the training of forwards was not much different from the training of defenders and midfielders.Only this year, when "Ararat" began to train Markarov, they began to pay more attention to shots on goal in conditions as close as possible to the game.We forwards often stay to work after training. In the "spring" championship we became silver medalists, and for a long time I was the leader in the dispute of scorers. And this championship began for us with unsuccessful matches in Yerevan with the Moscow teams "Spartak" and CSKA. The third game was in Minsk with local Dynamo. And the day before the match, a woman called me in the hotel room and said that she was a clairvoyant and that tomorrow Ararat would win the match, and I would be the author of the only goal. happened. In the autumn championship we again played in Minsk - so the lot decided. Another call from a mysterious stranger followed. This time she predicted a 2-1 victory for us, and the role of the author of the decisive goal was again given to me. And again she was right! The first goal was scored by Khoren Hovhannisyan. Then the Minskers equalized the score, and just before the final whistle I scored the second ball. So don’t believe after that in otherworldly forces.”

After the Minsk miracle, "Ararat" won several victories and took the lead in the championship. Before the thirteenth round (oh, this “damn dozen”!) “Ararat” was one point ahead of the Moscow “Dinamo” that was chasing it. The leaders were facing a face-to-face duel. In the event of a victory, "Ararat" became the champion "within five minutes", but if the result was a draw, it would continue to lead (two rounds before the finish line).

... The second hand had only two laps to run. Muscovites from the right flank were preparing to take a free kick. The players of both teams accumulated in the Yerevan penalty area. The last chance to print the gates of "Ararat". Evryuzhihin sends the ball to the opposite side of the Yerevan penalty area, Novikov jumps out above all and returns the ball to our goal. And there, Dynamo Shepel takes off towards the ball and sends it with his head into Hovsepyan's goal. A shameful defeat that deprived the team of gold medals.

Summing up the results of the spring championship, Nikita Pavlovich Simonyan noted: “Yerevan Ararat has long been the leader of our championship and was seen by many as its potential winner. However, silver medals are an indisputable success of the club. - such venerable players as Ishtoyan, Zanazanyan, Kovalenko and, finally, Markarov. young coach E. Markarov found a good replacement and prepared the team well both for playing in the championship and in the Cup. technical equipment, a penchant for improvisation. Matches with the participation of "Ararat" invariably look with interest."

In addition to silver medals, "Ararat" became the owner of the prize of the Ukrainian magazine "Start" for the best difference between goals scored and conceded, and the team's captain Arkady Andriasyan was ahead of all the scorers in the dispute (Nikolai Kazaryan was one goal behind him) and won the prize of the editorial office of the newspaper "Trud ".

Success in this championship allowed Eduard Markarov to enter the history of Russian football. He became the first and only local coach who led "Ararat" to the medals of the USSR championship!

The spring championship has passed, the autumn one has begun. "Ararat" successfully advanced to the USSR Cup. On the way to the final, the following teams were replayed: SKA Rostov (1:0), Lokomotiv Moscow (1:0), CSKA (2:1) and Dnepr (2:1). The second finalist was Dinamo Tbilisi, which had never owned the prestigious crystal trophy before.

"Ararat" entered the game in a weakened composition. Broke the thumb of the right hand goalkeeper Abrahamyan. The place at the gate was taken by debutant Avetis Hovsepyan. Having not recovered from the injury, Nikolai Kazaryan was forced to appear on the field in the second half. But the biggest loss for the team was the absence of its badly injured captain and leader Arkady Andriasyan.

In the first minutes of the match, the Ararat team created a sharp moment at the Gogia goal: Nazar Petrosyan sent the ball from the right flank to the opposite edge of the Tbilisi goalkeeper, and Khoren Hovhannisyan actually hit the empty goal, but managed to hit the crossbar. The ball bounced right on Robert Khalaydzhyan, but one of the Tbilisi residents took it. This moment, apparently, broke the youth of "Ararat", and they later failed to resist the experienced Dynamo, who acted brilliantly that day and deservedly won.

The finish of the autumn championship took place in a dramatic struggle, as a result of which Spartak Moscow left the top league, lagging behind only one point behind a group of five teams - Ararat, Dnepr, Zorya, Krylya Sovetov and " Miner".

Summing up the results of the year, Eduard Markarov was frank and self-critical: “Of course, there is no complete satisfaction with the performances of Ararat last season. And it’s not about the places the team took. we would probably take fifth or seventh place. But, I repeat, in the end, I don’t want to evaluate the performance of my team with points and places, but with the quality of its game, its prospects. From this point of view, I am satisfied with something, a lot "Ararat" has greatly rejuvenated, and young players, each individually and collectively, have proven themselves well. But only in those matches when experienced players played next to them. When in the autumn championship they were provided by the se -because our leading players have not played due to injuries and illnesses, it turned out that young people are not yet ready to fight at the highest level.All this makes us now think more about the future than about the past. to find means of strengthening the game of the team as quickly as possible by maturing the youth and acquiring experience.

I confess that I did not even imagine how difficult the transition from players to coaches is. Of course, he understood that it was not easy. But what is so difficult!.. From the player's point of view, all team problems seem to be not so difficult to solve. When you become a coach, then sometimes you are faced with the fact that you don’t know how to approach the solution of a particular issue. I want to emphasize that I do not mean purely methodical points, training plans, tactical issues. Here I didn’t have any difficulties, my great playing experience helped me to build the educational and training process correctly. But in organizational matters, I, as a young coach, frankly, swim. I will probably stop being afraid of them with time. There is one more moment, already purely football, about which you have to think a lot. The fact is that many young players, coming to the team of the major leagues, are not able to cope with high loads as easily as those who have been playing in the team for 5-6 years can cope. This means that it is necessary to prepare even the players of the main squad in different ways. It is not easy, you have to search in this area.

The class of our football has certainly grown, but the leveling of the class of teams in the major leagues is taking place at a certain average level. The general dissatisfaction, in my opinion, is predetermined by the fact that we too rarely see manifestations of the highest football skill in the performance of our masters. Unfortunately, we don't have many high-class players. Therefore, in matches there are almost no bright game episodes, unusual improvisational decisions, subtle and clever combinations that only outstanding masters can create. And since they are not there, then even those games that take place at a good level are not impressive. That is why we sometimes say too harsh words about our football. I think that as soon as outstanding performers appear, we will have no reason to be dissatisfied. Is it possible to make them appear faster? After all, talents are not created artificially, talents are born. But in order for them to open up, so that they are not overlooked, it is necessary to conduct the entire football business in an appropriate way. This is our coaching duty, and organizational efforts should be directed to this."