Four Four Two - UK (2020-11)

FourFourTwo November 2020 79

A nZHI

MAKHACHKALA

Theylivedthedreamofsuperstarsignings,Europeanfootballandfirst-class

travel,bankrolledbya billionaire– butnowAnzhiareinRussia’sthirdtierand

strugglingtosurvive.FFTlearnswhy,fromthosewhoenduredthemadness

J

ust imagine you’re a young player

trying to prove yourself at a modest

local club that isn’t meant to achieve

anything. That is, of course, until it’s

transformed, virtually overnight, into

a mightily ambitious global magnet

for world football superstars, with designs

on winning the Champions League.

For Ali Gadzhibekov, that was the reality –

although, as he tells FourFourTwo, life with

Anzhi Makhachkala back then was more

like “living in a fairytale”. When billionaire

Suleyman Kerimov bought Anzhi in 2011,

adventure first started. He had won gold at

the 1988 Olympics as assistant to Anatoliy

Byshovets, when the Soviet Union stunned

Brazil 2-1 after extra time in the Seoul final.

Gadzhiev helped to mastermind that famous

triumph over a team containing five players

who would one day start the 1994 World

Cup Final, including Romario and Bebeto, but

he would never have imagined that he’d be

coaching a Brazilian superstar himself more

than two decades later.

In 2010, he had returned to Anzhi for the

third time in his career, and subsequently

managed to keep the newly-promoted side

in Russia’s top flight. Soon, though, he had

more pressing concerns than league survival.

“The Dagestan president, Magomedsalam

Magomedov, asked me to meet Kerimov and

help convince him to buy the club,” Gadzhiev

explains to FFT. “We talked about everything,

especially how important football was to the

development of the region. It was well known

that Kerimov was ready to enter the football

local boy Gadzhibekov was just starting out

in the Russian club’s senior squad, aged 21

and largely oblivious to the wild times ahead.

For the humble Republic of Dagestan, it

was a magic carpet ride that lasted two and

a half years, featuring high-profile arrivals,

million-pound Bugattis, bodyguards, literal

bags of cash... and an abrupt, disastrous end.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROBERTO

Gadzhi Gadzhiev, the best Dagestani boss in

history, was at the helm when Anzhi’s great

Words Michael Yokhin Additional reporting Caio Carrieri