Kutuzov: “Gancharenko is the best coach of Belarus in the last 10-20 years”

Former BATE and Milan footballer Vitaly Kutuzov called Viktor Gancharenko the best coach in Belarus over the last 10-20 years.

On Tuesday, ex-CSKA coach Gancharenko took charge of the Belarus national football team, signing a four-year contract.

— How did you take the news about Gancharenko’s appointment as head coach of the national team? Is this the right choice?

— I perceived it positively – this is a new milestone, the changes that everyone was waiting for. Whether the choice is right – time will tell. I’m not a fan of our coaching school, I have something to compare it to. I worked with Soviet and European coaches. But Gancharenko is the best coach in Belarus over the last 10-20 years. Now Viktor Mikhailovich will have to take the rap for our entire coaching department, because the results of the specialists were, to put it mildly, not very good: they were not able to solve big problems or build combat-ready teams. To this day we say that Bernd Stange was one of the best to coach the national team. There is still a lot of discussion about the departure of Carlos Alos, who did a good job, but something was missing. Viktor Mikhailovich will need to prove to critics that our workshop is alive. I hope it will be interesting, the team will start playing and being combat-ready, we will find our own pattern of play, which will not be easy for our opponents. If we take it globally, the dream of fans is to achieve great goals. But let me emphasize: it will be oh-so difficult for Viktor Mikhailovich to achieve this. If you take all the Belarusian successes, then most are associated with him.

— You are not a fan of the national coaching school, but you said that under you, Carlos Alos would not have appeared in the national team.

— For me, Carlos Alos did not have enough background and knowledge, although he did some things well. Something special was missing that could have been used to level out the difference in class. Carlos Alos is not Jose Mourinho, he is an ordinary Spanish coach who has not coached serious teams. He did a good job, but I can only rate him a three plus or four minus on a five-point scale. I would say that Carlos Alos is a second or even third Spanish tier coach. Despite this, he performed at a fairly good level. You can take your hat off to him for his work,” Betonmobile quotes Kutuzov as saying.