Artyom Dzyuba / Photo: © Personal archive of Artyom Dzyuba
The best scorer in the history of the Russian championships is preparing to fight for survival in the RPL. But what about ambition?
Artem Dziuba is an outstanding striker for Russian football, no matter how anyone treats him. Four-time champion of Russia, multiple winner of the Cup and Super Cup of the country, the owner of a number of personal records and the absolute hero of the home world championship.
Today, however, the demand for the 34-year-old striker has fallen to a minimum. Artyom, who is in the status of a free agent, can move to the Moscow Torpedo, which occupies the last place in the RPL.
Does Dziuba deserve such an end to his career?
How Dziuba and Ronaldo are similar
Parallels with the Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo suggest themselves. No, no one argues that the ex-forward of Real Madrid and Manchester United is a player of a fundamentally different level. But painfully similar career ending for both. Judge for yourself. Both are titled players who won a lot where they could win. Cristiano became the European champion with Portugal, and Artem gave the whole of Russia a fairy tale at the home world championship. Although six months before the tournament he was not considered at all as a team player.
Ronaldo and Dzyuba are people with a difficult character, but at the same time able to achieve their goals. Being in the center of a scandal is not a problem for them, if it allows them to later become a champion or top scorer. And now, at the end of their careers, both turned out to be essentially useless to anyone. Cristiano pathetically and scandalously left Manchester United and assured that he would continue his career in Europe, but eventually left for Saudi Arabia. Artem, leaving Zenit, said goodbye to the club dressed as Deadpool. No scandals, but, on the contrary, very beautiful.
It seemed that Dzyuba would cling to the last chance to prove himself in Europe. Otherwise, why was it necessary to leave the familiar and already native St. Petersburg, where it was possible to stamp records and titles. But the Russian decided to try something new and extreme for himself. However, the transition to the Turkish championship turned into a failure. And not only through the fault of Artem himself. The fact is that the head coach of the Adana Demirspor club, Vincenzo Montella, did not particularly want to sign Dziuba, so he basically marinated the Russian on the bench. Although Artem scored in his debut match for the team.
Option with “Torpedo” – a chance for salvation?
One way or another, the Russian forward failed to make a European breakthrough. I had to think about what to do next. Dzyuba did not want to end his career. But to return to the Russian top club, apparently, he also fails. Either the salary requests are too high, or these top clubs themselves do not believe in the prospects of the 34-year-old striker. So there was a variant with the Moscow “Torpedo”, which firmly settled at the bottom of the standings of the championship of Russia.
But Ilya Gerkus is now in charge there, who has long had a good relationship with Artem. He invited the striker to his Lokomotiv even when he worked in Cherkizovo. Then Dzyuba was in conflict with Roberto Mancini at Zenit, and Loko was in desperate need of a striker. Yuri Semin was also in favor, but at the last moment everything fell apart at the level of the board of directors of the Moscow club.
And now Herkus got a new chance to work with Dzyuba. Another thing is that Artem will train not with his good friend, but with the tough and ambitious Andrey Talalaev. The legend of Russian football Andrei Arshavin doubts the success of the Dzyuba-Talalaev connection.
– Torpedo needs everyone who can score. They don’t see another striker who can guarantee quality. Dziuba will have time to gain match practice at the training camp. The CIS countries, I think, will not cope with his salary. Andrei Viktorovich is still in Torpedo, whether they will work together is not a fact (laughs). In my opinion, Torpedo still has little chance of salvation, ”Match TV quotes Arshavin.
Dziuba is not the first to overcome difficulties and prove to everyone that he is able to succeed. Now he has a great chance to do it again. And probably the last one.
