KANCHELSKIS ON WHY HE’S BACKING SPARTAK -
The former Ibrox trickster explains to Matthew Lindsay why resurgent Rangers will struggle to get past his old rivals in their Europa group
HE may never quite have managed to perform to his very best on a consistent basis or fully justify the substantial outlay that it required to secure his signature during the four years that he played for Rangers.
But a moment of impudence during the Scottish Cup semi-final against Ayr United at Hampden in 2000 endeared Andrei Kanchelskis to their supporters forever.
With his side coasting to an emphatic win over their lower-league opponents in the second-half, Kanchelskis, to the delight of one half of the stadium and the outrage of the other, stood on the ball on the edge of the opposition penalty box and put his hand to his forehead. “I was looking for my forward,” he later explained. “Where was my forward?”
It was not, it is safe to say, the sort of stunt the winger would have attempted during his Dynamo Kiev days in a game against Spartak Moscow. Kanchelskis knows all about intense football rivalries. He remains the only man to score in the Manchester, Merseyside and Glasgow derbies. The febrile atmosphere generated by the meetings between United and City, Everton and Liverpool and Celtic and Rangers never seemed to faze him.
The matches that he played in his native Ukraine for Kiev against Spartak at the start of his career undoubtedly prepared him for the rigours of those encounters. That fixture may, due to the break-up of the old Soviet Union, have disappeared from the football calendar since. But for more than 50 years it was the most fiercelycontested and hostile in the country.
“I played against Spartak when I was starting out with Dynamo Kiev,” said Kanchelskis this week. “It was a game very much like Celtic against Rangers in Scotland. It was a very, very big match. For a long time, winning was everything to the players and the fans. Whenever we met there would always, home or away, be 100,000 supporters there without fail.”
Not, then, an environment for showboating. The respect he has for Spartak, who Rangers will take on in the Europa League at Ibrox on Thursday evening, has still not left him 30 years on.
Kanchelskis has been pleased to see his former club return to European football after an extended absence and make an impressive start to Group G. They are on top of their section following a draw against Villarreal away and beating Rapid Vienna at home. He feels, however, that another victory this week may well be beyond them.
“Spartak Moscow are a very famous club in Russia and a very popular club,” he said. “I would compare them to Manchester United in England. They’ve won a lot of titles, they are a big club and have a lot of fans. I think it will be very difficult for Rangers. Rangers are not at the level they once were.
“When I played in Glasgow they had a lot of famous players, a lot of very good players. At the moment, that is no longer the case. It will be hard for them. Maybe in two or three seasons’ time when they have been able to get better players in and build the club up further they will be able to compete. But for me Spartak Moscow are the favourites just now.”
The financial backing of owner Leonid Fedun, the vice-president of multinational energy corporation Lukoil and an oligarch with an estimated personal wealth of more than £6 billion, has not enabled Spartak to become the dominant force they once were in Russia or make a significant impact in Europe in recent years.
Indeed, after losing 2-0 to Rapid away and drawing 3-3 with Villarreal at home, they are currently bottom of t he group. Fedun himself has compared them to a leading English Championship club in both standard and spending power in the past.
Still, Kanchelskis, now managing Navbahor Namangan in Uzbekistan after stints in the dugout at, among others, Ufa, believes the level of player at their disposal is still superior and he suspects Rangers may toil to retain their unbeaten record.
“There is a lot of money at the big clubs in Russian football, at Zenit Saint Petersburg, Spartak, Krasnodar and Lokomotiv,” he said. “That’s not so much the case at other clubs in the league, but the big teams are very rich.
“Spartak have some very dangerous attacking players. Their Brazilians, Fernando, Luis Adriano and Pedro Rocha, are outstanding. They also have a very good young goalkeeper in Aleksandr Maksimenko, who has just come in this season.”
Spartak are currently managed by Massimo Carrera, the former Juventus and Italy assistant coach, who guided the Okritie Stadium club to their first Russian title in 16 long and difficult years at the end of his first season in charge last year.
But Kanchelskis revealed that a third-placed finish last term has left him vulnerable. “Carrera is a good and experienced coach,” he said. “He is very popular with the fans as a result of the league win. But this is a very important season for him. He is only under contract until 2019. If his side don’t win again then he may be sacked.”
Current Rangers manager Steven Gerrard may well have strengthened significantly since being appointed in the summer and done well this season, on the continent especially, as a result of bringing in the likes of Lassana Coulibaly, Jon Flanagan, Connor Goldson and Allan McGregor.
But Kanchelskis – who cost the Glasgow club £5.5 million from Fiorentina back in 1998 and is, along with Giovanni van Bronckhorst, the fourth most expensive player in their history
– warns it is unrealistic to expect too much given the exorbitant sums many of their foreign rivals are able to spend.
“The club is not like it was before when I was there when there was a lot of money and there were a lot of big transfers involving top-quality players,” he said. “Rangers need time to get back to where they were before when they were winning titles, dominating the Scottish game and playing very well in Europe. But hopefully that will happen soon.”
Despite winning every honour in Scottish football – he helped the lavishly-assembled Dick Advocaat side to complete a domestic treble in his first season in this country – Kanchelskis rarely if ever scaled the heights here that he had during his time with either Manchester United or Everton.
He had issues with fitness and injuries, with the aloof Advocaat and the distant Dutch contingent in his squad, and latterly with Alex McLeish, during his time at Rangers. When he moved on after four years the overriding feeling in the stands was he had failed to live up to the expectations fans had of him.
Nevertheless, he has only happy memories of that period in his life and enjoyed returning to Ibrox last season greatly during a promotional tour for his outstanding autobiography, Russian Winters.
“It was good to be back,” he said. “I loved playing for Glasgow Rangers. It was a very nice time. I have some great memories of playing at Ibrox. It is a great club and I was very lucky to play there. I liked Scotland. The people were very nice and friendly.”
As well as representing some of the most famous club sides in European football during his illustrious playing days, Kanchelskis played no fewer than 59 times for the USSR, CIS and Russia and took part in both the Euro ’92 and Euro ’96 finals.
He was delighted to see his country do so well, on and off the park, when they staged the World Cup this summer and is hopeful that it will have a positive impact on both the club game and the national side there.
“It was an excellent tournament,” he said. “The organisation and the security were very good. A lot of people came to Russia from all over the world and enjoyed themselves.
“And the Russian team did okay as well. They are not at the level that they were before, when they were the USSR. But they did far better than expected. It was a dream.
“It was good for the Russian fans to see Harry Kane, Lionel Messi, Luca Modric Cristiano Ronaldo and goodquality teams like Brazil, England, France and Spain.”
Andrei Kanchelskis could once have held his own in that exalted company. The same could be said of Rangers at a decent level in Europe too.
Their ex-player doubts they can rediscover their former glories or even for that matter get the better of Spartak Moscow at the moment. But he is optimistic that in time they will be able to. He will be looking on from afar with interest to see if they can.
When Rangers have been able to get better players in and build the club up further they will be able to compete