Former striker of the Russian youth team Alexei Gasilin, who now plays for the blogging club Amkal, spoke about the problems in the transition of young Russian football players to adult football.
– From the Russian team (under 17 years old), with which you became the European champion in 2013, many players came out who achieved some success – Golovin, Barinov, Zhemaletdinov, Mitryushkin, Gasilin …
– … There are also Chernov and Sheydayev, who plays quite successfully with Qarabag in the Europa League. There is Khodzhaniyazov… Almost everyone started to play. In our Premier League, they would all play. And Zuev, who is now in Khimki, but was in Rubin and Rostov…
This generation is one of the most successful in recent years. But what happened next?
– We do not have a normal transition to adult football, and then there was none. But now, at least our leading clubs have begun letting young players out on loan. We were all from leading academies – Zenit, CSKA, Spartak and so on. But there was no trust. You can be strong at 18, but Zenit is a team that wants to win and they need ready players here and now. It was difficult to compete with such masters.
When I played on loan at Schalke, and I came there after the U-19 European Championship in 2015, they included Leroy Sane (the same age as Gasilin; after Schalke, Sane became the champion of England with Manchester City and the champion of Germany with Bayern – his current club – Sport Day After Day.) and Thilo Kehrer, who was at PSG and now plays at West Ham. They were on the same level as me. I scored more and gave. The same goalkeeper Alexander Nübel, who is currently playing with Sanya Golovin in Monaco. They were all with me at Schalke 2. And they have an understanding that their player needs to be educated and sold.
They gave Leroy Sane 18 games that season, he scored three or four goals and was sold for 50 million to Manchester City. Probably, Zenit could do the same with us, but our teams are not designed to sell their players. Although they could. It seemed to me that at that moment we did not have such a transition between youth football and adult football. We were no weaker than the leading players in Europe – and Asensio played against us, and Mbappe. This was also shown by our results. We were no worse than them. Maybe if we were developed like that, then we would probably all play in the Bundesliga, ”Gasilin quotes “Sport Day After Day”.
