Transformational recession and football

My old subscribers know that I love football and have been a fan of FC Lokomotiv since 2002. Using the example of what happened to my favorite club in the 2021/2022 season, you can understand what a transformational recession is.

If we take a segment from 2017, Loko achieved high results:

• Season 2017/2018: Russian Championship won

• Season 2018/2019: championship silver, victory in the Russian Cup and Super Cup

• Season 2019/2020: championship silver

• Season 2020/2021: championship bronze, victory in the Russian Cup

High results at the same time did not mean that the team is in order. At the international level, Lokomotiv, like other Russian clubs, looked faded. But the main thing is the price that led to these results. If I try to formulate a short approach, it was as follows: buying past the peak of their careers, older players of a relatively high level, then selling them at prices below the purchase price, then finding and buying new players of a similar profile. In short, plugging holes. Yes, of course, the Miranchuk brothers played in Loko, there was Barinov, but in general everything worked that way. Plus, a bloated staff, low selection efficiency, highly paid football players who, either because of injuries or because of loss of form, sit on the bench and do not play. It is clear that it was impossible to live like this any longer.

That is why in the 2021/2022 season it was decided to transform the team. In the 17/18 season, the average age of the starting line-up players reached 30.1, in 18/19 - 30.3, 19/20 - 29.7, 20/21 - 29.5 years. In order for the team to progress, transfers could be profitable, operating costs were seriously optimized, and the club itself broke out of the vicious circle of buying and selling players for a couple of seasons, on the one hand, staff optimization and the creation of a normal sports department were required, who is engaged in selection, analytics and other normal work for modern football, and on the other hand, rejuvenate the squad by recruiting talented players from other championships and conduct much more active work within their own academy. And it was also necessary to change the playing style and create conditions under which every young footballer would be motivated to regularly jump above his own head.

In general, this is exactly what Loko tried to do in the 21/22 season. It is hardly possible, of course, to say that everything was successful. There were strange transfers, and the choice of a frankly bad coach, and a number of managerial miscalculations. But even if these problems did not exist, we still would hardly have seen the same results as before in the 21/22 season. It cannot be said that the club failed, 6th place with a gap of 2 points from 4th place and 5 points from 3rd place is not a failure. This is quite a logical transformational recession. The team is rebuilding, tactics are changing, the players and the coach are groping for the game. Even with a higher degree of efficiency of the restructuring, the team would still take a place below the already familiar one.

Football is already there. This young team is trying to play something interesting, despite the fact that so far not everything is working out (rather little).

But! Now the average age of the starting line-up is around 22.5 years. The number of staff has been optimized - instead of 500, the club employs 200 people. A full-fledged sports department has been created, selection is underway, pupils of the club are actively debuting for the main team, a number of football players demonstrate a high level of motivation and learn from their mistakes, legionnaires, despite the situation, they say that they will stay at the club, because they believe in the project, and there is no one left on the bench who does not play, but receives the salary of a European player (except perhaps the Finnish national team player Borya Rotenberg 😂).

And after the transformational recession, growth is possible. I believe in this young locomotive.

What is the moral for the economy? Rebuilding is always painful. But if you are trying to become more modern, you have a full chance of progress. If you don’t change anything for years, and then you are forced to transform, you will have to fall longer and more painfully. Moreover, there are no opportunities for copying best practices.

Grigory Bazhenov 2022-05-27