With a year delay, the battle for the European title has now started. Football zone highlights players who you should pay attention to during EURO 2020 or who have a special story. In the seventh episode, attention is paid to Artem Dzyuba, who has been the great football hero of Russia since 2018. But the towering 32-year-old striker makes just as much of himself off the field as he strings the goals together inside the lines.
By Chris Meijer
“He’s the Russian Balotelli, a bad apple!” grumbled Roberto Mancini during his time at Zenit Saint Petersburg about Artem Dzyuba. If anyone knows what it’s like to work with the real Balotelli, it’s Mancini. The current Italy coach brought Balotelli to England in 2010 as manager of Manchester City. A small selection of the tricks the striker did in England in three years: he set fire to firecrackers in his bathroom, he threw darts at youth players of Manchester City, he wrecked an Audi A8 and fought like crazy topped off with Mancini during a workout. However, Dzyuba did not have to count on the patience Mancini had with Balotelli at Zenit.
The relationship between Mancini and Dzyuba was so bad that the striker left for Arsenal Tula in January 2018 on a rental basis. In the months before the World Cup in his own country, the striker had to play his matches for a sub-topper in the Russian Premjer Liga. But Dzyuba took ultimate revenge on Mancini in the industrial city south of the Moscow. Zenit was involved in the battle for a Champions League ticket at the end of the competition and had to visit Tula four games before the end. According to the agreements in the lease, Dzyuba was initially not allowed to participate, on pain of a fine of 150,000 euros. No problem, Dzyuba paid off that amount himself. He already knew roughly what would happen: two minutes before the end he made the 3-3, a result that would eventually see Zenit miss out on the Champions League. He celebrated in his Balotelli’s: pointing in front of Mancini towards the name on the back of his shirt.
It was not the first time that Dzyuba faced banishment. And not exactly the last time. Dzyuba grew up in poverty, in a suburb of Moscow. Football proved to be a way for him to escape his difficult starting conditions, as he proved talented and entered the youth academy of Spartak Moscow from an early age. Shortly after he slowly made his first minutes in the main force, he was sent off for the first time. To Siberia, Tomsk to be precise. A sum of money of 23,000 rubles (converted about 500 euros) had been found in Dzyuba’s belongings that belonged to a teammate. Despite Dzyuba insisting and still insisting that he was framed at the time, Spartak Moscow decided to lease him to Tom Tomsk for almost a year and a half.
After returning to his hometown, Dzyuba failed to make a full breakthrough at Spartak. What made the striker stand out the most at that time? Right, with an incident outside the lines. Dzyuba mentioned trainer Unai Emery in an interview after the 5-1 lost game against fellow townsman Dynamo Moscow trenerishka, which translates as ‘little trainer’. Emery was fired a day later, Dzyuba would leave Spartak a year later for a rental period at Rostov. In between, he returned to Spartak for half a season, until the band with his childhood sweetheart finally fell apart with a loud bang in the summer of 2015. Dzyuba turned down a good contract offer from Spartak to transfer to Zenit, where he could simply earn more. Much to the ire of Spartak fans.
Dzyuba in the shirt of childhood sweetheart Spartak Moscow.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a personality like Dzyuba has few problems with that anger. In fact, in the first four games with Zenit against Spartak, he always managed to score. His first two seasons in Saint Petersburg were quite good with 37 goals and made then national coach Leonid Slutsky decide to bring him back to the national team, for which he already made his debut in 2011. The marriage between Dzyuba and the Russian national team is also in fits and starts to say the least. For example, national coach Fabio Capello refused to take him to the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 because of his personality. The Italian thought Dzyuba was too cheerful and therefore preferred to take Aleksandr Kokorin and Aleksandr Kerzhakov with him.
Dzyuba got along well with Slutsky, but his role in the national team changed after the departure of the former Vitesse coach after the European Championship in 2016. The new national coach Stanislav Cherchesov did not call him up for a while and also passed him for the Confederations Cup of 2017. According to the official reading, due to a knee injury, but it is an open secret that Dzyuba was missing from the tournament due to a fierce argument with the choice lord of the national team. Dzyuba himself made little effort to disguise this: after Russia was eliminated in the group stage of the Confederations Cup, he posted a photo on social media with his also passed team-mate Kokorin in which they both portrayed a mustache. Few people had trouble understanding the reference to national coach Cherchesov’s mustache.
Dzyuba cheers after a goal at the 2018 World Cup
Cherchesov was initially also not planning to call up Dzyuba for the 2018 World Cup. That was not entirely incomprehensible in itself, because he had just played six months at Arsenal Tula due to his disagreement with Mancini. The only reason that the striker was allowed to participate in the World Cup in his own country was because Kokorin had to drop out injured. Dzyuba started as a bench seat, came into the team due to the disappointing performance of Fedor Smolov and then ensured with three goals that Russia surprisingly reached the quarterfinals. Not only did it bring Dzyuba unprecedented popularity and more than a million followers on Instagram, but since the 2018 World Cup, he has also been wearing the captain’s armband with the Russian national team. That is not to say that he has not been discredited since then.
For example, Dzyuba had to miss the international matches against Moldova, Turkey and Serbia in November 2020, after a video was leaked showing him masturbating. Dzyuba was allegedly hacked, after which the hackers asked millions not to leak the video, which was reportedly dated December 2019. He did not respond to this demand, after which the video was released via social media. “We want to protect him and the team from negative media attention. Everyone has to behave like a player of the national team both on and off the field,” said national coach Cherchesov to leave Dzyuba out of his selection. The leaked video caused extra noise in Russia, because in the background a broadcast of the Russian broadcaster Match TV with presenter Maria Orzul could be heard. Orzul and Dzyuba were spotted together in 2015 by the paparazzi at the attacker’s home. At the time, they were both married to someone else. After they were spotted together, Orzul’s marriage broke up, but Dzyuba and his wife Kristina are still known to be together despite all the commotion.
Artem Dzyuba collected the Russian Premier Liga trophy dressed as Deadpool ?? (??: @premierliga_en) pic.twitter.com/nOHPXc1W8R
— B/R Football (@brfootball) May 3, 2021
Dzyuba went viral again on social media a few weeks ago, albeit in a more positive way. After Zenit crowned himself champions of Russia thanks to a 6-1 win over close pursuer Lokomotiv Moscow – with two goals and two assists from Dzyuba – the captain rushed in. Minutes later, he returned to the field dressed as Deadpool, an antihero from the Marvel comics, to take his medal and the championship cup by the hand with his son. “I take it off as soon as I get into the locker room. It’s hot, I’m almost choking,” said Dzyuba after the award ceremony. “I’ve had this costume for ages. This is our third title in a row, so I now give myself a chance to wear it. I had wanted to do that for some time, but I didn’t dare to do it with the second and there was no time for the first. Deadpool can do anything, but his greatest strength is that he can heal himself. That’s me.”
It was a vicious reference to the masturbation video incident in November. Dzyuba was not distracted by this and has had the best season of his career with 22 goals and 9 assists in 34 official games. It seems like fine wine: as the years go by, Dzyuba will only perform better. In that vein, a lot can be expected of him at this European Championship. In any case, Russia hopes to get further in the tournament than in the last two editions of 2012 and 2016, when the group stage turned out to be the final station. In that regard, Russia got off to a false start, losing 3-0 to Belgium on Saturday-evening. Finland is the next hurdle in Saint Petersburg. At least in a place where Dzyuba is familiar with scoring goals.
Episode 1: The Man’s Dilemma Who Once Got His Gambling Grandfather £125,000
Episode 2: The heir of the ‘clown in the sweatpants’ who mirrors Van der Sar
Episode 3: ‘Koziolek’ can play Dutchman from the books 1.5 years after car crash at the European Championship
Episode 4: The street kid who reached the Premier League and European Championship from the seventh level
Episode 5: Italy has its own Jurriën-Timber scenario due to Mancini .’s striking decision
Episode 6: the Dutch opponent is amazed: ‘Those are three great players alone’
Episode 7: Teen of 70 million new eye-catcher from Sporting and Portugal
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