Today is the first training session after the summer break. What is the plan for the team to get ready for the new season? There’s not much time with the start of the pre-season tournament and the Super Cup match right after it.
“Yes, the break was quite short for the majority of the players, it has been around three weeks since the last match of the previous season, so I think everyone’s fitness levels are good. In the next couple of days we’re going to test the players to see what condition they’re in, and after that we will start working in our usual training camp schedule to get ready for the upcoming tournament. We’re going to play three friendly matches and start preparing for the first official game of the season, which is the Super Cup match.”
Is there any difference when the training camp is held in St. Petersburg?
“I would say there’s no significant difference, a training camp is a training camp, the intensity stays the same. The only thing is that in St. Petersburg it might be difficult to find the teams to face in friendly matches, but this year we have a great opportunity to participate in the tournament. We have quite interesting and strong teams to play against, so there’s no point in traveling anywhere, we have everything we need here in St. Petersburg.”
The teams in the PARI Premier Cup are well known. What do you think of this tournament? Is the fact that it’s held in St. Petersburg going to give you extra motivation?
“It’s a nice chance for us to face strong teams. We played against Fenerbahçe and Red Star recently, and the matches had good intensity and levels of competitiveness. It’s a great opportunity for us to get ready for the new season.”
When are the players who are absent today going to arrive?
“Since we’ve split the break time between the players and tried to give a chance to rest for those who left for vacation later or were playing for their national teams, they’re going to join us a bit later. Some of the players will arrive on 28 June and the other ones will catch up on 1 July.”
Right now they’re being replaced by young players. Who is going to train with the first team temporarily and who is going to stay long-term?
“It depends on the training camp and how everything will go for us. Now the youngsters have a great opportunity to show what they’re capable of in the upcoming matches. All of the decisions regarding who gets the playing time and how much will be made based on how well they do during training sessions. Speaking of names, it’s the same players who participated in our training process at the end of the previous season: Moskalenchik, Vasiliev, Kozlov, Baranovskiy and Saus. Ilya Kirsh and Bogdan Moskvichev both have small injuries, so we’ll see if they will be able to keep training with us and play. These are the young players who joined us for this training camp.”
Are they going to keep training with you until the other first team players arrive or will they stay for the whole training camp?
“I think they’re going to stay for the whole training camp, at least up until 4 July. Though speaking of our further plans, our decisions will depend on the amount of players we would have available and on the results of the matches.”
Is Malcom set to come back now?
“Without a doubt he is coming back. We haven’t received any specific offers for our players. The agents are doing their job, so if there will be an offer for one player or another and the club would approve, we’re not going to hold anyone here.”
The question regarding the goalkeepers: at the moment you have four of them. Are they all going to stay or the changes are still to be made?
“We’ll see. Now we have four goalkeepers, but all of the decisions will be made closer to the start of the season. We’re going to decide how many goalkeepers will stay with us, three or four, during this training camp.”
