Who took the Gagarin Cup from CSKA.

Ilya Vorobyov - the son of a famous Russian coach

It is unlikely that anyone had any doubts about their relationship. Although the attacking game of Magnitogorsk is misleading: the son of Peter Vorobyov cannot go so far from his father's signature defensive schemes. But Ilya Petrovich, in terms of tactics, turned out to be a more flexible specialist, which the master who raised him (in the literal sense) admits.

Peter Vorobyov had a serious impact on his son's career. In 1993, the coach moved with his family to Germany, taking with him to Frankfurt and Ilya, then an 18-year-old pupil of Dynamo. In the mid-90s, Vorobyov, the coach, went home, and Vorobyov, the hockey player, spent ten years in German clubs. Upon returning to Russia, Ilya again got into his father's team. By the way, for his transfer it was necessary to negotiate not with an agent, but personally with Pyotr Ilyich. So in 2005, Magnitogorsk received Ilya Vorobyov instead of Igor Velichkin - the news in Sport-Express came out under the heading " Vorobyov and Velichkin exchanged sons".

Many hockey players who played in Petr Vorobyov's teams admitted that the coach demanded extreme dedication. However, none of them was in the shoes of Ilya, from the very beginning of his career, the demand was many times greater. Yes, he himself understood everything and did not want to be a "daddy's son."

“It is hard to be the coach of the team in which the son plays. Children notice everything and react accordingly. Sometimes you can feel sorry for someone. So never a son! ”, Pyotr Vorobyov told Soviet Sport in the mid-2000s. Only those who remember his "Torpedo" and "Lada" understand how menacing this phrase sounds.

Ilya Vorobyov never avoided fights

Now it's hard to believe that this polite and intelligent trainer in a fashionable frame took off his gloves with ease. No, he was never a tough guy in the usual sense, but he knew how to stand up for himself and, frankly, sometimes even went too far with it.

In Germany, he fought with everyone. Not without special pride, Ilya recalls the fight with the Czech heavyweight Eduard Uvira, who, in addition to his size, was famous for the gold medal of the 1985 World Cup and the silver of the 1984 Games. Only dexterity helped Vorobyov to wriggle out and rip off two gold chains from the Czech who had settled on him, giving him also a black eye. After the match, Uvira, holding the ice to his head, met his opponent in the parking lot to extend his hand and congratulate him on the victory in not too pure, but still Russian.

In Russia, he was also not particularly cautious, gaining 120 penalty minutes in the very first season after returning. Vorobyov had especially hot meetings with Sergei Krivokrasov - and there is a suspicion that the scandalous episode with a club change in the 2004 semi-final only added spice to their relationship. Although Ilya assured that there was nothing personal between them.

In Russia, Ilya Vorobyov has always acted as a legionnaire

Vorobyov-middle (Ilya's younger brother also played hockey, and now coaches Dynamo St. Petersburg in the MHL) has always been in a special position in the Super League - he got into the application in the status of a legionnaire, which significantly reduced the demand for him from other clubs . The limit in those years was even more severe, like a happy dream for Tretyak - it was allowed to keep no more than three foreigners in a team.

Vorobyov, born in Riga, initially did not intend to return to Russia - he lived with his wife Anna in Germany and raised two little twins - Nikita and Daniela. The Vorobyov family linked their future with Europe, so it is quite logical that Ilya and Anna received German citizenship - however, according to local laws, the Russian passport had to be abandoned. So he spent four seasons in the Super League - on a par with David Ling, Pavel Rosa and other real foreigners. Otherwise, perhaps Vorobyov would have stayed at Magnitogorsk for more than a season and a half.

“I wanted to return Russian citizenship. Did not work out. There were many steps different levels. What is done is done. I have a German passport, but my heart is still in Russia. No wonder I'm next to the team. It was a dramatic moment - when I handed over my Russian passport. I looked at the seal that was slapped on him: “Cancelled,” and my heart ached,” Vorobyov recalled in an interview with Sport-Express during the World Cup in Germany.

How things are now with the head coach of Magnitogorsk with citizenship is unknown, but if Mike Keenan has already received a residence permit in the Chelyabinsk region, then Vorobyov will solve this issue even easier.

Ilya Vorobyov has a separate chapter in the book by Dave King

In the middle of the bad times, none of the Magnitogorsk players escaped being mentioned in the King of Russia bestseller. In this regard, Ilya was more fortunate than the others - his adventures were not encrypted with code names, and in the understanding of the Canadian who coached Metallurg, he was a positive hero:

“Something has changed after we took Ilya Vorobyov from Lada. This is impossible to understand from the statistics, because Vorobyov is not a sniper, but with his arrival, we acquired something that we lacked. He is what is called the "dirty" player. I had a similar player in Calgary named Ronnie Stern. When you take the puck away from Vorobyov, it doesn't end so easily. While you are driving away from this guy, you will definitely get something from him. In addition to cursing, something like a blow with a bat will follow. He doesn't respect you. Can poke a legging in the face. But we didn’t have this, we just needed more rigidity. In November, when we had the opportunity to get Vorobyov, I said: "We take it." He blocks shots on goal. He does whatever we need. He changed our team and I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that his father is a coach. Ilya is a winner, and we need people like that in the team to have a chance when the playoffs come.”

There are many more compliments in the book about Ilya, whom King released on the ice twice as often in the playoffs for won faceoffs. There is also a wonderful story about an invitation to dinner with Pyotr Ilyich, where again the linguistic skills of Vorobyov the player were needed.

However, after King's resignation, Magnitogorsk said goodbye to its Russian legionnaire. Ilya believes that he himself is to blame for this: he worked too much for the team, forgetting about personal statistics. He finished the season with his father in Khimik and returned to Germany.

Ilya Vorobyov finished the last match of his playing career in the hospital

He had to quit hockey against his own will - at the age of 34, not such a long time for an attacker. But when doctors tell you that you can spend the rest of your life like boxer Muhammad Ali in a chair, you start to listen to their opinion. Especially when you woke up right away in the hospital, and the game jersey was cut with scissors - in order to have time to start a heart in case of an emergency.

But the match with Hannover at the beginning of the season did not bode well, but the opponent throwing the puck hit the Russian striker Frankfurt in the face with a stick so that Ilya, according to his own recollections, passed out for twenty minutes. The situation was complicated by the fact that this was far from the first concussion in Lately. Another body could not withstand.

However, Vorobyov could finish hockey 11 years earlier. In one of the matches of the German championship, his skate fell into a crack between the sides. The leg remained in captivity, and the body went the other way. The doctors did not believe that he would be able to return to hockey - the leg had to be assembled almost again. But Ilya returned to the ice. To leave after another injury.

The most interesting thing is that after the ill-fated match with Hanover, Vorobyov gathered his courage for more than a season to announce his retirement, and it was noticeable how he did not want to admit it to himself first of all. In the end, he did not announce coaching captured.

Ilya Vorobyov was an interpreter for Vyacheslav Bykov at the 2010 World Cup

No one expected such a turn, but Vorobyov, who no longer played, just really wanted to help - and the World Cup in Germany turned out to be very timely in this regard. He himself contacted the representatives of the German Ice Hockey Federation to offer his services to the Russian national team.

As a result, Ilya, as an official representative of our national team, performed a variety of administrative functions: from the role of an interpreter at press conferences to providing uniforms for hockey players. Among other things, he had to organize the urgent delivery of a new helmet for Alexander Ovechkin through an unfamiliar Slovak from Munich - but even here future coach"Magnitogorsk" did it.

Vorobyov calmly justified his slightly strange activity to Yuri Golyshak: “Now I understand very well how much I love hockey and how much I miss it. When you sit at home, you look at one point, because you can’t do anything else, your head just hurts ... This is the answer - why I am here. Closer to hockey.

Ilya Vorobyov helped his father in Yaroslavl after the Lokomotiv tragedy

With such an attitude of Vorobyov to the matter, it was clear that very soon he would appear in Russia as a coach. Moreover, the place of work depended on the geolocation of his father: working with his son was the main condition of Peter Vorobyov in the negotiations. Rumors already in the 2010/11 season sent a family tandem to Metallurg Novokuznetsk, but in fact the dialogue was only with Traktor Chelyabinsk, and even then not for long.

As a result, the Vorobyovs ended up in Yaroslavl, where in December 2010 Pyotr Ilyich accepted the MHL team, and six months later he pulled his son there. Alas, a calm and measured start to a coaching career did not work out - the September plane crash of Lokomotiv became the worst grief in the history of the KHL, and that season the entire club system had to be redrawn.

The youth team has become VHL club, and Peter and Ilya Vorobyovs were already thinking how to beat quite adult men as boys, and not juniors. That season, Lokomotiv reached the quarterfinals of the Bratina Cup, and 17 players from that team now play in the KHL: Yegor Yakovlev, Maxim Osipov, Andrey Konev, Artur Amirov, Pavel Lukin, Yegor Martynov, Rafael Akhmetov, Kirill Voronin, Oleg Yashin, Alexey Kruchinin, Daniil Erdakov, Dmitry Maltsev, Danil Romantsev, Kirill Kapustin, Vladislav Kartaev, Daniil Apalkov and Emil Galimov.

Vorobyov played a prominent role in Magnitogorsk

The move of Ilya Vorobyov to Magnitogorsk actually went unnoticed - everyone was waiting too much for the name of the new head coach, about whom it was only known that he was "with NHL experience." It would seem that why appoint assistants ahead of time, but at Metallurg they already looked at a very distant future and did not hide it - Velichkin generally admitted that Ilya helped him in managerial matters. And besides, the candidacy of the polyglot Vorobyov should have completely satisfied, as it turned out, Paul Maurice. They say that upon meeting the Canadian was delighted with the ideas of his new assistant and his view of hockey. However, Maurice's enthusiasm did not bring results to Magnitogorsk that season, he refused to renew the contract, and Mike Keenan came to replace him, who worked even better with Vorobyov.

As eyewitnesses say, it was he, and not Iron Mike maintain discipline in the team. Of course, Vorobyov took a lot in his coaching method from his father - subtle, purely psychological moments in the settings and meetings, where only 5-10 minutes were enough for the assistant head coach to explain the essence. And, of course, the entire coaching staff worked almost around the clock on tactics and watched their own and others' matches. So the invitation of Vorobyov to the Russian national team in the fall of 2014 should not have surprised anyone.

Ilya Vorobyov understands who the team is playing for

The old Soviet coaching school, coupled with a European approach to business - this is how Ilya Vorobyov can be described as a specialist. He understands for whom Metallurg plays hockey. For example, it was he who prompted Keenan to release a slightly cold Mozyakin to the match in Mytishchi for at least a couple of shifts - after all, Atlanta fans wanted to see their once main player on the ice. Sergey, however, did not limit himself to a couple of shifts at all.

In addition, Ilya Vorobyov communicates quite calmly with journalists: against the backdrop of many KHL coaches clenching their teeth at press conferences as if in a partisan interrogation, this is just a gift from above. Well, besides, Vorobyov is well aware that hockey is not limited to the ice rink. To take part in the global action - please:

To star in a funny video announcing the season is not a question.

Well, today he is ready to sing the champion “A glass of vodka on the table” alone:

Ilya Vorobyov has never been a full-fledged champion

Perhaps the most unpleasant gap in the biography of Ilya Vorobyov, which he finally managed to close. No, of course, he celebrated the championship with Magnitogorsk two years ago, but only as an assistant head coach - then Mike Keenan got all the glory. Right in the course of this season, he had a chance to independently lead Magnitogorsk to the Gagarin Cup, and he took advantage of it. So far, this is Vorobyov's main sports victory in life.

Formally, as a player, he is considered the champion of Russia as part of Metallurg and, in addition, played four matches for Dynamo in the golden season-93, but Ilya himself does not consider these victories to be his own (both times he left the teams long before the playoffs) . In the hockey Bundesliga, he did not hold medals more precious than silver, and even at major junior and youth tournaments, the Russian team was only second with him (by the way, in this final, Ilya's two junior partners on the coaching benches - Viktor Kozlov and Vladimir Chebaturkin). Even the 2010 World Cup, where Vorobyov helped the national team as an administrator, the Russian team finished without gold, losing in the final.

Now there are more optimistic statistics in his career. For example, the fact that 41-year-old Ilya Vorobyov reached his first final before his father (Pyotr Ilyich did this only at 44). And the very fact that in the first incomplete season he led Magnitogorsk to victory in the Gagarin Cup promises a lot for his career.

Photo: RIA Novosti / Grigory Sokolov; Gettyimages.ru/Patrik Stollarz/Bongarts; metallurg.ru; hclokomotiv.ru / Tatyana Belyanova; RIA Novosti / Alexei Filippov, Alexander Kryazhev

Vorobyov: a great coach? Haven't heard this in a long time

Coach Pyotr Vorobyov, visiting the Championship, spoke about his victories, exactingness, pupils, Lokomotiv and the desire to work.

Master of our hockey Petr Vorobyov- tough and demanding, restrained and hardworking. His pupils can be listed for a long time, among them Alexey Yashin and Alexander Semin, Grigory Panin and Vitaly Vishnevsky and many other well-known hockey players who became masters precisely thanks to the titanic work of Vorobyov and the trust that he has in his wards. Back in 1992, he led the Russian youth team to the championship, and since then Vorobyov has become one of the recognized specialists in working with young players. Vorobyov has numerous victories with Dynamo, Lada, Yaroslavl and the youth team behind him. About significant victories, the difficulties of working as a head coach and the current situation in Russian hockey he told on a visit to the editors of the "Championship".

Pyotr Ilyich Vorobyov, Master of Sports, Honored Coach of Russia and Latvia.

Awarded the Order of Friendship.
World Champion - 1993;
World Youth Champion - 1992;
Champion of the USSR - 1991, 1992;
Champion of Russia - 1993, 1997;
Winner of the Continental Cup - 2006;
Silver medalist Olympic Games – 1998;
Vice Champion youth championship world - 1998, 2000;
Vice-champion of the USSR - 1988;
Vice-champion of Russia - 2005;
Finalist of the European Cup - 1991, 1993;
Winner of bronze medals MFM - 1997;
Winner of bronze medals of the Russian championship - 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004.

“It took me 11 years to become a head coach”

- Do you have a desire to return to coaching?
- Do not take, do not invite (smiles). Now the young must be given a way.

- Well, do you have a desire?
- Why not? See what the offer is.

- Not necessarily in the KHL and head coach?
- And who will take me second? You judge for yourself. Some first coach? The second coach or assistant is a stone in the bosom. Why does anyone need it? And the consultant? This is a different issue. But so far no one needs it.

- Do you think that the change of generations in the Russian coaching workshop did not take place too quickly?
- I'm an old-timer. It took me 11 years to become the first coach. Yurzinov was second. Only in 1992 did I tell him that I was ready to work first and would like to try. Vladimir Vladimirovich advised not to hurry, because he himself was invited to Finland and he was going to go there in a year. "You don't fuss, stay instead of me," he said. And so it happened. True, during the break in 1992, he put me in the role of head coach in the youth team for the World Cup. It was the last training camp, I spent it, and we went to the World Cup. Quite successfully, we won the tournament. The next season I headed Dynamo Moscow.

- In total, you worked as an assistant for more than 10 years?
- Yes, 11 years old. I doubted. Such a responsibility! My range was not very wide to become a senior coach. Like goalkeepers, you should also have a reaction: he sees the entire court, then the front of attacks narrows and you have to be able to work from close range. So I doubted at first, but then I realized that I was ready. And now they take it very quickly.

- Finished his career and went as a coach.
- Yes. Everyone is different. Some get it right, some don't. I'm not the judge here. It is their right to choose. If they are offered, why not?

“The KHL coaching staff is getting younger, but in terms of players, the regime is not too fast”

- What do you think, KHL for last years changed a lot?
- Changed, of course. Now everything is changing. Is getting younger? To some extent, but especially the coaching staff (smiles). But with the players the situation is different. In Soviet times, there was an unwritten rule: live up to 30 years and give way. Probably the only exception was Boris Petrovich Mikhailov. And now the guys are playing for a long time. asked what he was going to do? “I still want to play,” he replies. Antipov also wants. Lots of older guys sitting without work. Rejuvenation among KHL players, I think, occurs not in very high-speed mode. In the coaching staff, everything is fast. Putin declared a fight against foreign coaches and in general with the legionnaires. I will say that this is logical and correct. And just like that, the invitation of foreign specialists began to decline so sharply.

- Will it benefit our hockey?
- I think yes. Young guys will stumble, take off their hats and heads. But in the end, they will hit the bumps and figure out how and what to do. They say that the rejuvenation of players does not occur. But we have young people at a good level! I remember my time, a year and a half ago, in Yaroslavl, Korenev already played 15 matches. Then Kraskovsky, a guy from 1996, played 8 matches. Khlopotov played. I'm not talking about Lyubushkin. I put it on and it played right away.

For example, I don't feel like I'm taking a risk. I think that if I prepared the guys, I believe in them, the rest is a matter of time. And many coaches think differently. They are more of a reseller. I once met with Gena Orlov, we sat and watched hockey. And he told me that it is necessary to evaluate a coach not only by the result, but also by how many players he brought up. Now they hide behind only the result. And then what, they didn’t demand a result from us? And I worked in serious teams. I have been at Dynamo for four years, and Tolyatti, in Yarik four times I came, left, or they left me, returned ...

Now it's interesting to look at these newly-minted coaches. I went to watch the match between CSKA and Salavat Yulaev. I wonder how young coaches will work - Emelin, Kudashov, Nazarov in elite clubs.

I looked at the guys. My pupil Andronov and Grisha Panin play in CSKA. In Ufa, Metlyuk and Grigorenko. Yes, each team has a couple of people. Avangard has Petrov and Chernikov. Ak Bars has Zakharchuk. Although this is when I worked? ..

- And with which of the pupils do you keep in touch?
- We are friends with the Yashin families, with his mom and dad. And so many guys. I had a small operation in Yaroslavl, I decided to fix my teeth, I woke up after anesthesia and I see - Vitaly Vishnevsky is sitting. He says: “Pyotr Ilyich, you lost a little blood, so I brought you red wine to recover.” And a year and a half ago they played in Yaroslavl with Kazan, where Panin gathered everyone, then Bodrov was, Zakharchuk. They surrounded me, and Grisha, as a herald, expressed: “Thank you for giving us the way to life.” Older guys are closer, they invite you to a birthday party. They know that I am somewhere nearby, and they call me.

There are those who turn away, do not greet. So, this is where I messed up. Because there are official, working relationships, and there are just human ones. I am very closely connected with Semin. Whenever he comes, we meet. Lots of good guys. Mention those who turn away, I will not. In fact, of course, it is not very pleasant, but everyone gets what he has earned.

- Do you understand why they turn away?
- Yes. Certainly. Because he demanded a lot, sometimes very hard. I have always had official relations with Dmitry Ivanovich Krasotkin. He's not a sugar guy. Captained all the time while I was in the team. We did not have close relations, although it is customary to say that the captain is right or left hand trainer. But recently we met with him in Cherepovets, then in Balashikha. "Let's go, Pyotr Ilyich, let's go somewhere, let's talk," he suggested. The older you get, the better the relationship. He is always happy when I call, we congratulate each other on holidays. Pleasantly.

Time always heals. But this is not about Krasotkin, he always had equal relations with everyone. Therefore, probably, he played until the age of 40. He is like that, not a shaky person, not swaying from the wind, but firmly standing on his feet. I see that he is winning everywhere now, despite the fact that his team is younger than many MHL teams. And his son, Anton, is very well brought up, stands well, a nice guy. The family is so great.

“Fear means respect. One day a young hockey player sent me

- There are legends about your exactingness. Is it a necessity?
- I am far from Lyubimov and Moiseev, our legendary choreographer. So, Lyubimov said: “They are artists and performers, and I am the boss. I said they should do. That's all". And I think I have enough experience. None of the coaches want bad things for themselves. I liked Moiseev's statement that there are no bad exercises, there are bad performers. Same here. No coach will do anything to the detriment. The same Kornoukhov did not put Zubov on the game now. A good player, a good trio, but that's how the coach decided. Sometimes it happens that the coach sharpened his teeth on the player.

Here in the youth team, one boy sent me three letters. I punished him for doing the exercise incorrectly, I say: “Come on, push yourself off the floor, my dear.” And he answered me: “Yes, you go.” And now this is normal. And before this was not the case. When talking with Krasotkin and other coaches, I hear that children are very difficult now. I always tell them that I do not envy their fate to manage the youth. In Yaroslavl, everyone knew who I was. And in the same St. Petersburg - yes, for them there are no authorities at all.

Muslims are good in this matter: the elder is the elder, teacher and authority. Right? And we're all blurry. Mostly parents help. I wondered why they behave the way they do. This is the 90s generation. What time was it? Criminal. What does it mean? The conversations in the house were that if you go in the evening, they will kill you. They didn’t say, as in our time: “Study, otherwise you will become a janitor.” There were talks that someone stole well, someone resold profitably. There was no talk about making money. Only a few families instilled the idea of working and earning through work. Children grew up on the need to somehow deceive, steal, etc. They say that agents are such and such, although the parents are the same there ... Now, as soon as the player has risen, he immediately puts forward demands. I look at Prokhorkin in Ufa. That's why he left CSKA? And not only him. I had Kazionov Sr. at one time. I played in the first link, I dragged him. Then dad showed up. He imposed a second son on me, too, but I said enough was enough. As it happened with Siluyanov. They also ordered a second one. And the first one I fought with was enough for me.

- Faced with the fact that the players were afraid to go to your team?
- Fear means respect.

- Please rate the work of Dmitry Kvartalnov in CSKA.
- Very good. I watch these guys, Kvartalnov proves from year to year that he is a mature coach. As Znarok once proved. Or Skabelka in Siberia, who has been taken away for the second year in a row the best players, and the team shows a stable and mature game.

At first I attributed this to the fact that Kvartalnov worked there. You need to pay attention to helpers. Andrei Tarasenko remained in Novosibirsk. A lot depends on assistants. Now there are coaches who come to the team with their staff. Nazarov came to SKA with his friends, Kudashov to Lokomotiv. I did not allow myself this, I thought that it was necessary to leave someone from the past generation to be brought up to date, introduced to everyone. When I arrived in Yaroslavl, I left Valery Petrovich Shaposhnikov and worked with him. Came to Tolyatti, Emelin left. With their help, I wanted to quickly adapt. And when do you come with your staff? They believe that it is better to come with their own company, I always thought differently.

“Pyotr Ilyich, won’t you forbid me to score?”

- Many say that you instilled defensive hockey in your teams, how do you feel about this?
I love these stamps. And you too (smiles). Well said, when I came to Atlant, Mozyakin: “Pyotr Ilyich, you won’t forbid me to score?” Or Wuytek said: “When we have the puck, we attack; when we don’t have the puck, we defend.” What does defensive hockey mean? What am I, giving away the puck? Right now I'm watching how most teams play: throw in the puck and run after it. None of my teams played like this. Tried and tried to combine. It is necessary, of course, to look at the qualifications of the players. And the result must be shown so that you are not thrown out. You need to think that both the wolves are fed and the sheep run nearby. You need to think about the future.

- .
- Just got in touch with him recently. Cheerful such (smiles).

- You explained to Weissfeld that the main thing is the score on the scoreboard, and not how many goals are scored.
- So that's right. I am not only saying this to Weisfeld. Some dashing commentators, specialists as I call them, say that good score- 7:6. It's great to score 8, 9, and preferably 15 or 16 goals to have fun. And ask any normal coach, he will answer that a tense match is interesting, when the teams go head to head, when you play thin, you try to keep the score. After all, it is a great art to be able to freeze an account and bring this minimal advantage to victory. It was difficult, spectacular and interesting. And the result was.

Right now I'm looking at CSKA Kvartalnov, the team plays aggressively, openly, spectacularly and gives results, and the stadium is half empty. Here I was at their match. Seeing this is very sad. SKA in St. Petersburg does not always play well, there was a decline last season, but they managed to establish work with the audience there, the stadium is always full in the city. CSKA, I repeat, play great, they do not deceive the viewer. There's no reason not to go to hockey. The viewer sees this and understands that this is a very interesting, energy-consuming hockey. They move a lot, do not allow the opponent to do anything. They work hard on who will process whom. Why am I? If the team plays beautifully, in “Spartak” hockey, as Weisfeld said, but constantly loses, the audience will stop going to it. A little like and spitting. And here everyone fights, and the viewer loves it. Of this I am convinced.

You look at football. Not ours, Russian, but European. After all, there full stadiums. When I worked in Germany, I went to matches. There full stands are filled, but how many goals are scored? One, well, two. And people go to the match because it's beautiful. Once Johan Cruyff said that he did not understand such a game as ping-pong. The ball flies there with incredible speed, nothing is clear. The same can be said about hockey. Here the president of the club claims that the players are busy in the corners, they don’t get out at the gate. “Wouldn’t it be better if we ran into the offensive zone, left the puck there and ran back?” I ask.

You can, of course, shoot the puck into the attacking zone, but this is when the level of the players is appropriate. When is it not pulled? It happens that you tell them to run for a nickel, and one person throws the puck in that direction. It turns out "garbage" goals, as they are called. In order to beat a good team, you need to deprive them of the puck. Then you have a chance. And if they have a lot of possession of the puck, there is almost no chance. You don't have to attack, just have the puck. Even in the middle zone. There is such a thing as a false attack, when you went, went, and then, once and back, returned it to the defender, then he returned it to you. And try to take away, is called. Remember how sweets used to be?

- Does a lot depend on the level of the players?
- For all the time I came across only one diamond - Sasha Semin. I do not think that this is especially my merit, although he says that I raised him, I am pleased to hear this. But what is the principle? Stars such as Kovalchuk, Malkin and Ovechkin should not be interfered with. I do not think that coaches can seriously influence their development. Another thing is the education of average hockey players, which Vladimir Vladimirovich Yurzinov taught me. The task of the coach is to make an above-average player out of an average hockey player. Therefore, Korolev played in the national team, Karpovtsev, Sorokin, Yan Kaminsky, Alexander Boikov, now an expert, was also involved in the national team. Sergei Plotnikov, for example. All players are average. Prokhorkin could have become like that, but he played the season and began to think about the contract, while others were training with might and main. Se la vie.

“Zakharchuk was kicked, and now he constantly plays at the base of Ak Bars”

The players said that for every missed puck you sent them to cross-run, then jump over barriers.
- Yes, but during the pre-season. V training process Because there are certain rules. Do you know what is different Russian teams from foreign? Ours do not keep the level of the game. I could brag about it. My teams never gave up, even despite the advantage of the opponent. Why? The backlog of the training process. And if the team fell apart, missing the second and third behind the first puck, then the number of jumps over the barriers increased. And that's it. Why are foreign teams stable? The school is good. So I instilled school in the guys. They should not like this: “get up, woke up, gypsum”, but do their job soundly.

Take Petrov and Chernikov. I didn't recognize them. After all, I had these guys at Lada when there were almost no players in Tolyatti. I took this bunch, added to them one more winger, who was constantly changing, and put a pair of defenders Shemelin - Zakharchuk to them. Feeling the support of such powerful defenders behind me, they could beat any top five of me. And now, after many years, they are invited to Avangard, and they crystallize the team. Lemtyugov was assigned to them - a guy who has been breaking up this season, and they are doing great. It is a great success to have such a third trio. I think Avangard is a good candidate to win this year. Although Chernikov and Petrov themselves are fragile guys, not for hockey. And they didn't play right away. But when they are asked who raised them, they do not name Tsygurov, with whom they also worked, but Vorobyov. Because they went through three “pre-seasons” with me - this is the same school.

When Mikhail Varnakov coached the youth team, I constantly called him after training camps or tournaments, asking how my guys were doing. And he told me: “Pyotr Ilyich, of all the coaches, only you and one more are interested.” And when I sent my guys to the national team, I always told them to remember which club they represent. It is the club, not the coach. And they must behave accordingly, otherwise they will drive with a filthy broom.

I think I lived up to what I could afford. I shouldn't have flattered the players or befriended them by patting them on the back. The same Gorokhov explained his love to me or Vitaly Vishnevsky.

Of the coaches who are now working in the KHL, do you see those who, like you, pay attention to educating young people?
- Take Kvartalnov. He has young people in the fourth and third links. And he doesn’t just appear, but he constantly changes the composition, rotates. At Kudashov's Lokomotiv, now all my guys are playing. Koledov, for example, was returned, with whom I worked for a year, and then our paths parted. Thank God, Malykhin has now returned to his level in Ak Bars.

- Do you have an understanding of what happened to Malykhin last season?
- How long has Zakharchuk not played? How much they poked him, although Khomitsky had more mistakes, who played with Stepan in the same pair. Of course, I had no right to say such things about Khomitsky, and then I apologized to him and to his agent. Nevertheless, now Zakharchuk constantly plays at the base of Ak Bars.

“A young player should feel sorry for defeats, but I am not in favor of everyone walking like a beech”

When you last time coached Lokomotiv, they said that Sergey Plotnikov is the only player who corresponds to the level of the first link. Now in Yaroslavl there is someone comparable in level to Plotnikov?
- When I was still working with that golden team that died on September 7, 2011, I put not Demitra and Vashichek in the first link, but the trio Kalyanin - Churilov - Galimov. The same thing with the new line-up: I relegated the foreigners to the background and kept them there, and put Plotnikov, Averin and Apalkov in the first link. However, now I look and see that Apalkov is not progressing, he is giving up his place as a killer in the first link. As Yakovlev told me: “You treat them too harshly, they are already stars with us, you need to be careful with them.”

Is it for this reason that Yakovlev has been relying on foreigners for so long, hoping that they will not be so hard on hockey players?
- Yes exactly.

- And in what strengths Sergei Plotnikov?
- Seryoga is neutral, he always worked well, that's why he jumped out. Remember how long he had at the end of the regular season and in the playoffs? How he and Komarov fought to the death! He gave a damn about everything, what authority in front of him. The last championship, alas, was not so successful for him.

What's the craziest story you've heard about yourself? For example, they said that you removed one player from the game because he was smiling at the warm-up.
- At the warm-up? .. No, it didn’t come to that. At the beginning of my coaching journey, it was such that we lost, and the young boy was cackling. Well, I stopped the bus and dropped him off, said, "You won't be on the team again." Although now is a different time, a different attitude. Zhenya Kuznetsov, in his first interview after leaving for the NHL, said that there he learned to forget the game immediately after the final siren. Maybe for experienced players, in order not to injure the psyche once again, this is appropriate. But a young player must have compassion for defeat. At the same time, I am not a supporter of everyone walking beech. I am far from it. I myself told the guys jokes, and weaved all sorts of nonsense, hung out funny things. Can you tell me what I am like? .. After all, I trained in Germany for three years, at the very least I turned in high society.

- Was it with you in Lada that there was a story when the salary was paid by cars?
- Cars? Spare parts, maybe, could issue (laughs). We got one car for silver medals, plus a bonus. When they began to produce some new car after the lockout year, Sakharov said to the directorate: “Guys, is it bad to give the guys a car?” All cars were silver. We were honored, congratulated on the second place in 2004-05, and there was a photo - a whole range of silver cars for everyone: managers, players. Each was given a car. This is the only time. After all, Sakharov looked further: “Imagine what a good advertisement this is, that the guys got this model for the first time, a novelty.”

- Did you ride it later?
- No, I took the money.

“In Tolyatti, it would be possible to pay with us with details”

- How could you encourage the players as a coach?
- In any way. I will say that for some reason I remember more the sad story than the encouragement. I faced two times with a situation where they did not pay salaries for six months. Something didn’t reach me then that it was possible to pay with details in Togliatti. There was also such a situation in the "Torpedo" in Yaroslavl. The main sponsor was the diesel plant. When all this fell apart, and the Belarusian Belazs were powered by diesel engines, and the engines were mainly used there, no one needed them. The plant collapsed and there is no money. The guys were playing for nothing. One of my personal fans told me that the players from a team like Lipetsk said: “These are fools, if we hadn’t been paid for one month, we would have sent everyone.” The same is true in Togliatti. In the locker room, I often posted motivating poems to the guys. These things are needed sometimes. By the way, it happens that hockey players send me congratulations in verse, Krasotkin, for example. I save sometimes. Although I do not like the hackneyed expression "it's worth a lot." Worth not worth...

- Now hockey players are spoiled by money?
- Probably. Here, look at the video congratulations that they prepared for my anniversary - Pyotr Ilyich shows a video to Gazmanov's song "Ice and Fire". In one of the photographs, he carries the Olympic torch.

- And where did you carry the Olympic torch?
- I ran in Edinburgh. I was supposed to be in Moscow when the Olympics were, but we were on the road and didn't make it. Then I had to run through Tolyatti. And this was in London in 2012, - shows a photo, - I was invited there. There were several people there: Tatyana Navka, Vanka Skobrev, a snowboarder who won medals for the first time. Not much, six people.

- There are a lot of your victories on the video. And which of them is the most expensive for you?
- All of them are good in their own way. But special is when we won the Continental Cup in 2006. No one has won before us, but there good teams participated: "Dynamo", Omsk, and we won. And it just happened in 2006, when the team was torn apart, when they sold out everything. We went there with the boys: Emelin, Panin, Dimka Vorobyov, the Bodrovs, it seems there were two of us, Kalimulin. Such an interesting company. And so we arrived, they say: “Have you brought some kind of second team?” But I think we were so underestimated and we won.

"Yakovlev thinks he did a lot for me"

Ilya Gorokhov said that when you were in Yaroslavl, you, as he put it, "weakened the reins", there was freedom.
- Did I loosen the reins? How to say something ... I don’t think I loosened something. It's too late for me to change, weaken something. It just seemed that way to him, maybe. It is his right to judge. And the president fired me, he said that I went too far. But Gorokhov thinks so. Everyone measures in their own way.

- Resentment for this situation remained?
- It was, of course, not very pleasant to receive a kick instead of congratulations on the 65th anniversary, because I thought that I did not deserve it. These years were difficult, I signed a contract with the MHL for three years, but the team crashed, I purely ethically could not refuse the KHL. Then I was returned to the MHL. Then in the first team Rowe did not work out, and I was sent there on an emergency basis. I think that I would lead the youth to the championship, I liked to work, we had great conditions there. Good, in general, the result was obtained.

In practice, I have worked with youth team. It so happened that I had to pull out these guys, they played for the youth team, and in the end this twitching is not very pleasant, especially since I am already at a venerable age. But still, from year to year the number of candidates for the youth team increased. I felt the fruits of the work, I saw that the guys are being brought up. Everything is normal, there is something to be glad about and something to be sad about. And then, as Starshinov said, “it’s better not to get used to caviar, it’s bad to wean it.”

- Some players of the first team think that if you had stayed that season, maybe you would have won the cup.
- well they consider (chuckles). God be their judge, those who fused me. It was sad at first, and then he grieved a little, grieved, and God bless him, with what happened.

- Yakovlev didn’t like that you scheduled a workout instead of a day off?
Yes, those things. He said that they are stars, and I do this with them ... I believe that I lived to the point that I could afford it. I shouldn't have flattered the players or befriended them by patting them on the back. The same Gorokhov explained his love to me or Vitaly Vishnevsky. There were players with whom I could make friends. But I thought that it was not necessary to bring anyone closer, to make pets. I tried to keep my distance from the players so that there were no conversations.

- On what parted with Yakovlev?
- Nothing. He just called on the phone: "You went too far." And finished with it.

- You deserve more, you have done so much for Yaroslavl.
- You think so, the fans too. But Yakovlev believes that he did a lot for me.

- What does Lokomotiv mean to you?
- I spent my best coaching years there. For five or six years, I also managed a youth team in parallel. And why did I need it? Now the coach of the youth team has been released. And earlier on weekends, instead of spitting on the ceiling or going to a restaurant, I worked with the “youth team”. And the team played consistently. We have always taken medals.

The only failure I had was because of Yaroslavl, which suspended me on the eve of the World Cup in Moscow. Our team fell apart, the Kovalchuks, the Svitovs simply stopped playing, the team lost to the Swedes for the first time in their lives. We always beat them! But at the decisive moment they won. Instead of playing, we began to fight and sort things out who is stronger.

- What can you wish Alexey Kudashov?
- Good luck and patience. Although I am quite patient, I have never quarreled with Yakovlev. Whatever he said, I did my job and paid no attention. Can this be called patience? And Vaska listens and eats.

- You worked with Anatoly Emelin. Prepared him for the role of head coach?
- He prepared himself.

- They say that he professes your hockey.
- No, he has his moments. If he just copied, he would not have become a coach. I took a lot from Vladimir Yurzinov. I changed the basic exercises a bit and adjusted them to my own vision of hockey. But he took the main directions from him. These words about Emelin are a stamp. Just because he worked with me. I saw a photograph of Khavanov, as if I was holding a jaw in my hands. Drawn in photoshop. Khavanov writes that this is Vorobyov's trap. I disagreed with some things in the article, but much of it is true.

- Why did Salavat lose to CSKA? You were at the game.
- You should run, not ride. If you evaluate from the audience's place, then CSKA looked like a fast and fun team, and Salavat looked gloomy.

- Do they turn to you for advice?
- No, and thank God.

- And the son?
- I advise my son, but he has already matured, I tell him little. Rather, I impose my opinion. So I went, watched the CSKA match, made notes, offered Ilya his advice on how to beat the “soldiers”. But first he asked if he needed advice.

- Are you worried about him, do you watch all the matches?
- I see, yes. But more mom is worried. I look from a professional point of view.

- Is he already an established coach?
- I do not know. So you can say when he becomes head coach. Now what to guess on the coffee grounds? Another thing is that he is prone to analysis and knows a lot, as I see it. This is good.

Did working with Morris and Keenan help him?
- Certainly. This is one of the leading coaches. We have achieved something. Keenan is called great ... He good coach. You can take something from every specialist. If he worked for several seasons as the head of the KHL, then he is already a personality! You have to admit how difficult it is. Especially now. How was it before?

- How?
- He stamped his foot, and that's it. The coaches were the masters of the field. I'll give you an example. I led Yaroslavl, which was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. So, I see, the former Yaroslavl player, who moved to Nizhnekamsk, met us, saw us off ... I felt that something was not right, that a conspiracy was taking shape.

- What conspiracy?
- You give us at least one match in the playoffs. We will receive a prize for the victory and share it with you. They couldn't have hoped for more. I got through this. I spoke with Yakovlev and General Director Alekseev. He said: "Let's if we win two meetings, then they get so much, and if they drag out the series, then less." Is it logical? And that's it, no conspiracy. Nobody wanted to lose money. I writhed very seriously, and in the training process too.

- What other examples?
- Yurzinov often left, I had to delay pre-season training. Krikunov tells this story in such a way that I expelled him, I wanted to send him to Khabarovsk. It is nonsense!

- Yes, this story appeared in the press. What happened anyway?
- In one newspaper they wrote, so I told them that I could sue them for slander. I was not the head coach of Dynamo Riga, but only Yurzinov's assistant. He made the decision to expel the players.

In general, it was a working conflict. It turned out that Yurzinov arrived on September 14, and we had the start of the season in four days. Krikunov, together with his assistants, wrote four statements against me. Yurzinov immediately said: “What are we going to do? If you want, I can settle the conflict." But I answered honestly: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, this will not work. You will leave on the next break, I will stay with them again, and everything will start all over again. Let's decide: either me or them." I was then supported by Balderis, Vasilyonok, and other guys. It turns out that on the eve of the championship the players challenged their statements. And in the end, these players were thrown out, and the hockey players were good. Krikunov, Emelianenko, Bystrov ...

- Have you not reconciled with Krikunov?
- Yes, I did not quarrel. But here's another one interesting point. He gave an interview in which he said that he was beating Vorobyov with any team. This is what I didn't understand. Somehow, after the game with Dynamo, they got together with the coaches, and then Vanya Krivonosov worked with Krikunov. We talk, and I remember: “I don’t remember who we played with, we lost in the series 0-2, but in the end we won 3-2.

It was, of course, not very pleasant to receive a kick from Lokomotiv instead of congratulations on my 65th birthday, because I thought that I did not deserve it. God be their judge, those who fused me. It was sad at first, and then he grieved a little, grieved, and God bless him, with what happened.

Sasha Boikov scored in overtime. Of course, I knew who we were playing with. There was a case in Kazan. And then Vanya Krivonosov jumped up: "That's how we were." I got tired. This is called "he beat me with any teams."

Krikunov won the national championship only once, and that was in the lockout year, when Datsyuk, Ovechkin, Afinogenov, Frolov, Kulyash played in Dynamo. They still recruited people before the playoffs. Even Tsulygin and Volkov didn’t really play with them, they didn’t get into the squad. And of these players, I had only Vitka Kozlov, Zubrus, goalkeeper Markkanen, Afanasenkov and Sasha Semin. That's what I said then: "Shantsev didn't give us any chances." On the next year our team was sold out, there was no funding, I was left with young boys who later won the Intercontinental Cup. So we beat Krikunov in the first round of the playoffs, and he had an experienced team led by Sushinsky.

- How do you react when you are called a great coach?
- I haven't heard that in a long time. I don't consider myself great. I did not train the first team, I only helped Mikhailov in 1993, when we won, and also helped Yurzinov at the Nagano Olympics. I never was the first coach of the national team. Although staying is not enough. Krikunov stayed, Plyushchev also, I don’t know whether they consider themselves great or not. The youth team played at my level. Once I refused a trip to Canada, Tsygurov took over the team. He later said that Vorobyov's great merit was in the victory of the national team. After all, then I was not only preparing the team for the tournament, half of the players were from Yaroslavl.

head coach

Childhood and youth

free time

At the same time, Pyotr Ilyich did not insist on the sports future of his sons and gave them the opportunity to choose their own profession. Alexei eventually became a lawyer, but Ilya followed in his father's footsteps.

Sports career

Three years later he changed the club to Adler Mannheim, but significant success on German ice did not achieve it. In total, the athlete spent ten years in Germany and returned to Russia, to the Togliatti Lada, which by that time was coached by his father.

Two years later, he moved to the Ural Metallurg, in which he played only one season. Having failed to prove himself properly, Ilya changed Magnitogorsk to Khimik near Moscow. Having finished the season, he again went to Germany to end his sports career at the Frankfurt Lions.

Such a leapfrog with frequent team changes was associated with the status of a legionnaire, in which the hockey player was after changing Russian citizenship to German. And since, according to the laws of that time, it was supposed to have no more than three foreign players in the team, this significantly reduced interest in the player. The athlete even thought about returning Russian citizenship, but it turned out to be not such a simple matter, since, according to German laws, he was forced to give up his Russian passport.

During a match with the German "Hannover" 34-year-old Ilya received a severe concussion, which not only put an end to his further career attacker, but also threatened in the future with disability and dementia.

coaching activities

At the 2010 World Cup in Germany, he served the Russian team, performing various administrative functions from a translator to a supplier. In the same year, the athlete returned to his homeland and went to his father in Yaroslavl to help him in coaching with the local Lokomotiv.

But fate unexpectedly presented him with a new test. The entire main team of Lokomotiv, flying to the game in Minsk, died in a plane crash. Father and son Vorobyov had to form from inexperienced juniors new team able to adequately fight in major league. They coped with the most difficult task with honor and in the new season the renewed Lokomotiv reached the quarterfinals.

In the spring of 2012, Ilya returned to Metallurg again, this time as a head coach. Three years later, he was appointed head coach and in his first season in this position led Metallurg to victory in the Gagarin Cup (in the final, the club defeated CSKA with a score of 4: 3), but a year later the team lost to SKA under the leadership of

"One more concussion like that and you'll spend the rest of your life like Muhammad Ali." Best Coach KHL right now

Who took the Gagarin Cup from CSKA.

Ilya Vorobyov - the son of a famous Russian coach

Ilya Vorobyov never avoided fights

In Russia, Ilya Vorobyov has always acted as a legionnaire

“I wanted to return Russian citizenship. Did not work out. There were many steps at different levels. What is done is done. I have a German passport, but my heart is still in Russia. No wonder I'm next to the team. It was a dramatic moment - when I handed over my Russian passport. I looked at the seal that was slapped on him: “Cancelled,” and my heart ached,” Vorobyov recalled in an interview with Sport-Express during the World Cup in Germany.

Ilya Vorobyov has a separate chapter in the book by Dave King

In the middle of the 2000s, none of the Magnitogorsk players escaped being mentioned in the King of Russia bestseller. In this regard, Ilya was more fortunate than the others - his adventures were not encrypted with code names, and in the understanding of the Canadian who coached Metallurg, he was a positive hero:

Ilya Vorobyov finished the last match of his playing career in the hospital

But the match with Hannover at the beginning of the season did not bode well, but the opponent throwing the puck hit the face of the Russian striker Frankfurt so hard that Ilya, according to his own recollections, passed out for about twenty minutes. The situation was complicated by the fact that this was far from the first concussion in recent times. Another body could not withstand.

Ilya Vorobyov was an interpreter for Vyacheslav Bykov at the 2010 World Cup

Ilya Vorobyov helped his father in Yaroslavl after the Lokomotiv tragedy

The youth team abruptly became a VHL club, and Peter and Ilya Vorobyovs were already thinking how to beat quite adult men, not juniors, as boys. That season, Lokomotiv reached the quarterfinals of the Bratina Cup, and 17 players from that team now play in the KHL: Yegor Yakovlev, Maxim Osipov, Andrey Konev, Artur Amirov, Pavel Lukin, Yegor Martynov, Rafael Akhmetov, Kirill Voronin, Oleg Yashin, Alexey Kruchinin, Daniil Erdakov, Dmitry Maltsev, Danil Romantsev, Kirill Kapustin, Vladislav Kartaev, Daniil Apalkov and Emil Galimov.

Vorobyov played a prominent role in Magnitogorsk

According to eyewitnesses, it was he, and not Iron Mike, who maintained discipline in the team. Of course, Vorobyov took a lot in his coaching method from his father - subtle, purely psychological moments in the settings and meetings, where only 5-10 minutes were enough for the assistant head coach to explain the essence. And, of course, the entire coaching staff worked almost around the clock on tactics and watched their own and others' matches. So the invitation of Vorobyov to the Russian national team in the fall of 2014 should not have surprised anyone.

Ilya Vorobyov understands who the team is playing for

To star in a funny video announcing the season is not a question.

Well, today he is ready to sing the champion “A glass of vodka on the table” alone: