Alexander Bukharov / Photo: © FC Zenit
Former Russian national team striker Alexander Bukharov told in an interview with Match TV how he encountered depression during his performance at Zenit.
Between 2010 and 2014, Bukharov played 81 matches for Zenit and scored 17 goals. Together with the St. Petersburg club, he became the champion of Russia twice and won the Russian Super Cup once.
— You said that you yourself are to blame for all the problems at Zenit. If you analyze it now, what exactly didn’t work out?
— Specifically, I lost the competition to Kerzhakov. That’s the whole point. Before that, I won the competition against Adamov and Milosevic, but here I lost. Zenit was a very strong team, I think. He had a great selection of players. In Spalletti’s scheme there was one striker, there was no place for me.
— Did the depression and all the ensuing consequences arise precisely because of the lost competition?
– Well, of course. When you don’t play, you don’t feel like part of the team. Even these championships at Zenit are not as valuable as at Rubin. In Kazan, I felt that I had put a lot of effort into gold: I scored 16 goals, which means I deserve to receive this medal. In St. Petersburg, I still scored as a substitute, but I was not a solid starting player. Therefore, two feelings arose.
— How did you deal with feelings of depression?
– I didn’t fight. I was probably more offended by everything simply. The position of the child – you bought me, you must now put me in the squad. But people have a completely different opinion – they bought me so that there would be competition. For me it didn’t fit in my head: “Well, how? Since they paid so much money for me, they should put me in charge and I can do nothing at all. “Okay, then I’ll train at half strength.”
I started to push myself to the point where I was overweight, I didn’t get enough sleep before training… Some situations arose related to alcohol. The same incident with a drunken brawl in Pulkovo is not an isolated incident, Bukharov told Match TV.
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