Avangard terminated the contract with head coach Mikhail Kravets
Avangard failed to start the Gagarin Cup quarter-final series: two defeats at home against Lokomotiv. And yesterday the Omsk team was literally destroyed – 0:7. The club management could not bear the humiliation and urgently fired Mikhail Kravets.
Resigning a head coach in the middle of the playoffs is nothing new for the Hawks. But did Kravets deserve such treatment? And what is the club counting on?
“You yourself must understand that today you were lowered under the sewer”
The confrontation between the “hawks” and “Lokomotiv” was positioned as a battle of attack and defense. So far, it’s not even close: the Yaroslavl team devoured the super-productive duo Tkachev – Boucher (0 points in 2 matches) and simply beat the Siberians. In everything: speed, pressure, middle breakthroughs.
0:7 the day before is a song all its own. Avangard finally collapsed after Nikulin’s performance (a double in 3 minutes) and made a change of goalkeeper. “Well, how many are there?” [Павла Хомченко] Is it possible to rape? He tried, he helped us a lot, so we decided to release Ilya Proskuryakov thinking about a future game, ”Kravets himself explained during the castling.
It didn’t get better: Proskuryakov was immediately beaten, they scored another goal in the locker room and implemented the “5 vs 3” format. And Ilya watched the seventh goal into an empty net from the bench.
The head coach of Omsk took the humiliation as a signal for action: “If you are a strong person, if you are a hockey player and you play in the Avangard team, I think that you yourself should raise your head and understand that today you have been lowered below. the sewer – and you have to go out and prove “
There will still be attempts to prove it. But without Kravets: on the morning of March 19, the club and the specialist terminated the contract by agreement of the parties. Mikhail Grigorievich’s assistant Sergei Zvyagin was appointed interim head coach.
“I was upset that they didn’t give me even a small chance to correct the situation”
The mention “by agreement of the parties” is made for information purposes only. Obviously, the coach was simply fired. This was confirmed by Kravets himself in an interview with Match TV: “I was hoping to be able to bring the team back with matches in Omsk. I prepared myself, I sat down in the morning and watched the match, noted the moments, prepared for the match. But when I arrived at work, general director Anton Kuryanov and sports director Evgeniy Zabuga came to see me. And they announced that management had decided to terminate the contract with me.
The specialist has already said goodbye to the team and is grateful to the fans and Omsk. But the sediment still remained: “I think I didn’t let anyone down, but I pulled the team out in the first year, took it to the medals. This year, Avangard faced some difficulties, but we still took second place in the conference, won 43 victories and passed the first round. A coach’s career develops in different ways. The only thing that bothers me is that I was not given the slightest chance to correct the situation in the series with Lokomotiv, to prove our good work.
In 2022, Kravets pulled the club out of the hole. But they still didn’t want to leave him
Mikhail Grigorievich took over Avangard in October 2022 as a temporary worker. The microclimate of Omsk at that time was worse than ever: the team that moved to the G-Drive Arena managed to completely fail the start of the season (16 matches – 10 defeats) and fell to Vostok, and the former “leader” Dmitry Ryabykin was found guilty of all the troubles and was expelled in disgrace.
Kravets managed to cure the “hawks”, immediately winning nine victories in a row. Then there was access to the playoffs from third place in the conference, convincing first and second rounds (4:1 over Sibir, 4:0 over Magnitogorsk) and the Vostok final. Yes, the fairy tale ended in Ak Bars – 1:4 in the series. But for the coach himself, this season is a solid A. Let’s not forget what kind of adventure he embarked on in the fall.
However, the club’s leaders were not satisfied with this application for a long time. They didn’t re-sign him until the summer of 2023, when the other options were gone. And as a “bonus” Kravets received a total restructuring of the composition and the departure of almost all previous leaders – Tolchinsky, Gritsyuk, Broadhurst, etc. Only the unsinkable Bush and Tkachev were saved.
As a result, they became the main decision-makers in the new assembly. And Mikhail Kravets survived all the rumors about his dismissal, overcame the autumn crisis, stopped three points from the conference victory and calmly eliminated Lada in the first round of 2024 (4: 1 in the series) .
It seemed that all these achievements allowed Kravets to finish the job. Even after 0:7. But the club management decided otherwise and returned to an already forgotten tradition.
Avangard loves changing coaches in the playoffs. Well, what’s the point?
Season 2009/10. Omsk appoints Raimo Summanen just before the playoffs. And they get the shuttlecock from Neftekhimik – 0:4 in the first round.
Season 2010/11. Summanen himself writes “all alone”. Before the seventh game of the quarter-final series with Magnitogorsk! The trick, of course, did not work: 0:2 in the decisive match, relegation of the CG.
And here we are in 2024. “Avangard” steps on the old rake again. Yes, 0:7 at home and 0:2 in the series with Lokomotiv is a difficult situation. Yes, often a change of coach is inspiring. Only Kravets led this team for a year and a half. He came out of the pits with it, and was able to start it after the defeats. Will his departure really reinvigorate the team?
On the other hand, Sergei Zvyagin has been working at the club since 2018. This means that he knows the players well. At the same time, the main specialization of the new comedian “Vanguard” – goalkeepers, defense and minority. But nothing is known about his work in the attack. And it’s surprising, because it is with the attack that the “hawks” have a complete nightmare: 1 goal in 250 minutes, the Boucher-Tkachev pair is completely cut off (0 points in the series), a minimum of opportunities, only 9 shots on target in 40 minutes of shame yesterday.
With all due respect to Zvyagin, it’s hard to believe in his team’s miraculous comeback. Lokomotiv is too strong to hope for an unexpected return from the refreshed Siberians. Or are we still missing something?
Source: KP
Emma is a professional author and journalist, working at 247 News Update. With years of experience, she brings a unique perspective and in-depth analysis to her work.
