"We looked decent against the Brazilians"

This week, the players of the Russian youth national team will play two away friendly matches with their peers from Uzbekistan. The games will be held on June 5 and 8 in Ferghana. Ilya Ishkov, a midfielder from Ural Yekaterinburg, is one of the most experienced players in the current youth team. He became widely known in the fall of 2023, when he missed a penalty in the Russian championship match against Moscow Lokomotiv (2:2), after which he began to cry and was comforted by the star striker Artyom Dzyuba, who was then playing for the railwaymen.

In an interview with Izvestia, Ishkov, who turned 20 on May 25, recalled the penalty shootout episode, told what a trip to Brazil with the youth national team had given him, and also commented on Ural's departure last year and explained what he had brought to big-time football from futsal (mini-football), which he played. up to 14 years old.

— What do you expect from the two matches in Uzbekistan?

— We are waiting for interesting matches. We'll also study the opponent — we haven't watched the video of his game yet, we've only analyzed our own game. But we are training, getting ready, getting to know new guys, four players born in 2006, who first appeared in the youth national team. Everything is going as usual. We're making connections, we'll sort out the opponent, but we'll still build on our game.

— In 2023-2024, you went on a tour with the youth national team to Brazil and Uruguay, where you played with local teams. What did it give you?

— It was fun to see how guys about our age or a little older play there. Where they train, how they eat, and how physically fit they are. And, of course, how they play. Everyone says that guys in Brazil are very technical from a young age. I wanted to test myself against their background. Well, we arrived and saw. Undoubtedly, the guys there are all individually strong. But we looked decent against their background — we won two out of four matches, and drew two more. I would not say that we are weaker than them at the youth level. It's just that later, between the ages of 20 and 23, they progress more than us. And they go to European clubs. And if we talk about our current age from 16 to 20, then some of the Brazilians are also doing great in Europe during this period, but otherwise our level is no weaker, at least in terms of team play.

— Maybe that's why it seemed in those matches that you were no worse than the Brazilians, because you beat them through teamwork?

— Undoubtedly, team interactions influenced the outcome of those matches to a significant extent. But I would not say that we were individually inferior to them. Some of our goals were scored precisely due to individual actions.

— You said that you watched where they train.

— Yes, we came to the base where Ronaldo "Zubastic" once trained. We looked at the fields, the locker rooms. I can say that there are ordinary locker rooms. There is no such thing as we have in Russia at top stadiums. There are ordinary locker rooms and fields. Although I think that in the top Brazilian clubs everything is about the same as ours. And where we were, there were wooden benches, an old toilet, and other things that many people in Russia saw in old gyms. Not to mention that everything is not as spacious as in the best bases. In general, at the Ural base in Yekaterinburg or at the base in Novogorsk, where we train with the youth national team, everything has long gone far ahead. On the other hand, they only get stronger in such conditions. And then you can't just break them. I think we are training in much more greenhouse conditions.

— Maybe this motivates them to break into the top clubs in Brazil or even break into Europe?

— Yes, probably. But I can't say that we have problems with motivation. It's just that our game is a little different — we still want to train and progress in order to win something with our team. The motivation to play football is not only because of the money, but simply because of the love of the game. If you do something, you get pleasure from it. In this sense, they are in Brazil, and we in Russia are motivated by the same thing, to play football.

— During the three years of suspension from international competitions, the Russian youth national team has hardly played at home, so few people can watch it live, and sometimes on TV, since your two away matches with China last year were held behind closed doors. Can you explain what kind of football your team is trying to play?

— Our principle is to play low through the pass. But we also start from how the opponent builds his defense. If he has a high defensive line, we can play long passes. If the opponent is actively pressing, we can go low from defense to attack. In general, if they let us play football and don't close down, then we will always play from the bottom. If they don't let us play, we can use long passes to push their line back in the right way.

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— Considering that you did not study at a sports boarding school, but at a gymnasium, how did you manage to combine it first with mini-football, then with big-time football?

— I was lucky that my older brother Ivan studied at this gymnasium first, he is the goalkeeper of the mini-football team Sinara. And the parents already knew the headmistress. I've been able to get there since I was six years old, since I was a pre-school kid. And all this time, the headmistress and the teachers went to meet each other when it was necessary to go somewhere for competitions or according to their age. They gave me the opportunity to do tasks remotely, which I then sent to them.

— Was it more difficult for my brother to combine sports and studies?

- no. To be honest, he was a better student than me. Somehow I managed to do everything, both in school and in mini-football. Maybe he copied better than I did (laughs).

— You did not comment on the story of the missed penalties in the match against Lokomotiv a year and a half ago. How did you survive it then?

— Of course, I immediately realized that I had framed the team and the fans who came to the stadium. The most insulting thing was for the boys in the Urals, who ran and plowed for 90 minutes in this match, for Mikhalych (Viktor Goncharenko, Ural's head coach. — Izvestia), who entrusted me with a place in the squad, gave me a chance at the RPL level. Separately, I was ashamed in front of Eric (Bikfalvi. — Izvestia), who trusted me to shoot a penalty. As a result, we lost two points — rather, they were not enough for us in the end to stay in the RPL, avoiding the joints. But thanks to the team for their support in the locker room. I apologized to her and tried to repay her later in other matches for this.

— Was it Bikfalvi who entrusted you with the penalty shootout?

— I think I took a corner and the ball hit someone from Lokomotiv in the hand. The referee awarded a penalty, Eric took the ball and asked me, "Are you going to kick?" I replied, "Yes, I want to hit you." When I didn't score the first penalty, and the referee showed that the Lokomotiv player had entered the penalty area before the kick, and it was necessary to interrupt, I threw the ball to Eric. He came up to me. Denis Kulakov also came up. And I said to them, "If I have a chance to hit again, can I do it again? I'm sure they'll get it the second time." Probably, excessive confidence played a cruel joke.

— So there was no such thing as sometimes happens when a player grabs the ball from the main penalty taker and wants to shoot himself?

— No, of course not. I would never have snatched the ball from Eric and said I would hit it. It's wild for me. Moreover, Eric is a legend of the club, he spent 11 years in it.

— What do you associate with the departure of Ural, when they successfully started the season, after five rounds they even led together with Krasnodar?

— Yes, there were four wins and a draw in the first five matches. And then there was a long series without victories. And they could have interrupted it in that match with Lokomotiv, where I didn't score a penalty. I don't know, maybe it was the loss of points at the end that broke us down. If you won then, you could feel the taste of victory. But they didn't feel it. And then everything went wrong. Moreover, we played well in the spring, but something stopped going on.

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— And why couldn't you immediately return directly to the RPL last season?

— To be honest, there is no specific reason. Our whole season in the first league has been such that we play one match well and the second one poorly. Then two matches were good, then bad again. There was no stability. And I can't give you a reason why we couldn't join the RPL directly.

— The team was led last season by Oleg Shatov, who just recently finished his playing career. How did you both manage to leave mini-football for big-time football in Yekaterinburg at different times?

— Probably, we are just both technical football players from Vizovskaya (VIZ-Sinara, the old name of a mini-football club in Yekaterinburg. — Izvestia), with unique coaches and training.

— What did mini-football give you when you switched to big-time football?

— Technique and quick decision-making.

— How did Shatov get used to being a coach so quickly?

— He played football at a high level. He has a lot of experience, so it's not surprising that he started coaching like that. Especially with his character, which is quite combative. I think he will become a top coach with his approach to the profession and his love of football.