Maxim Belyaev: “I don’t even dream about Euro 2012, my goal is the World Cup in Brazil”

In the interview with “Our Loko” magazine the young defender reveals a secret of how to keep an eye on Fernando Llorente and Seydou Doumbia, recalls the days spent in the camp of FC Torpedo from Vladimir together with Spider Paul, and tells about English lessons with Victor Obinna.

«VKontakte», Llorente, Doumbia

- What has changed in your life in the last two months that you’ve been Couceiro’s regular pick for the main team?

- Not much, really. The main thing that’s new to me is media attention. Before this February I had given just a handful of interviews, all of them to the press-services of the teams I played for. Just once somebody called me from a sports web-site - that was when I made a hat-trick playing for FC Torpedo Vladimir.

Besides, I now have more subscribers to my VKontakte web-page. What’s interesting, I recently found a fake VKontakte web-page where a person gathered 3,000+ followers. I think it’s useless to try to fight it.

- From those who find your real page, do you add everybody to your friend-list or only those you know?

There’s no point in adding everyone to the friend-list – mine is an open web-page and every subscriber can read it or watch it. But if a person, known or unknown, writes to me, I always try to reply.

- Jose Couceiro told in one of his interviews: “It’s very easy to speculate about Belyaev now. It was a much harder decision to let him play against Llorente”

- I’m deeply thankful to Couceiro he wasn’t afraid to let me play from the very beginning in that game and gave me the chance to demonstrate my abilities. I don’t think any coach would take the risk of letting an inexperienced 20-year old defender play in such a high-profile match. A few days before the game against Athletic Bilbao, when I realized I’d be playing from the start, I went to the FIFA web-page to find Llorente’s profile. I clicked on a link and saw a golden sign near his name and a note “Ideal Attacker” (laughs). But on the pitch, it was not that bad. Although, of course, Llorente is very good. It’s hard to approach him, it’s hard to push him away – he perfectly knows how to use his body to cover the ball. That’s why I tried not to let him turn around and force him kick the ball back.

- After Llorente you played against other top-class forwards: Traore, Doumbia, Kuranyi. Which of them was the hardest task for you?

- Each of them has his own features. Traore is more that two metres high, but he’s slenderer than Llorente. Works well with his hands and elbows, hit me well a couple of times.

Doumbia is very hard to play against. When he receives the ball he tanks right over you even if there’re four more players to help you. His dribble is very uncommon, I’d say a little mongrel. There’s no incredible plastics in it, his moves look clunky, but it’s all so efficient! One other peculiarity of Doumbia is that he loves the ball played behind him so that he could turn around and pick it up and shield it from the defenders. You know, it’s like you’re chasing him and you think you’re going to squeeze him out, but you make just one more step closer to him – and here he turns around and runs away with the ball! We studied his manner of play thoroughly and I can say the only chance to beat him is to keep distance.

Kuranyi is very good in the air and he covers the ball well. But if you want my opinion, Doumbia is the hardest of the three to play against.

National Teams, First Division, Spider Paul

- You’ve never been taken to the youth national team. Are you waiting for this invitation?

- No, I never think about it. While the season is on, I try to live from a game to a game. Although of course I’d love to play for the youth national team and then – for the first Team Russia. But the main objective for now is to play well for Lokomotiv. If I play well for the club, they will call me to the national team. Euro-2012? I don’t even dream about it. I don’t think Advocaat will take a player he’s not familiar with to his team even if I’ll be a top player in the remaining games of the championship. I have to set a goal to go to the World Cup-2014 in Brazil, and I hope Burlak will be taken to the Euro. Advocaat knows him, he’s played for the main Team Russia already, and I think Taras’s chances to go Poland are strong.

- In one of the interviews you mentioned that your experience of playing in the First Division for Dynamo Bryansk and Torpedo Vladimir helped you a lot to make your way to Loko’s main squad. The First Division is not just about playing against grown ups, it also means long flights across the country and staying in the hotels that are for from comfortable in many cities. Glushakov recently told me that when he was in FC Zvezda Irkutsk they went to play an away match in Makhachkala. He said that when he opened the door of his room, mice ran out of it. Do you have such funny stories to tell?

- During my first days in Vladimir, I lived right on the stadium’s territory because the club’s base was there. The rooms reminded me of those in the Soviet children camps: four beds, minimum space, a small Russian TV that showed nothing. Moreover, there was no hot water in the room – if you needed a shower, you had to run to the locker room. I also had a strange neighbour – a spider. He settled in the toilet, weaved a web in a corner and lived in the wall between two broken tiles. I never bothered him and I think we even became friends. I named him Paul, after the famous Paul the Octopus.

Of all the flights I remember the visit to Naberezhnye Chelny the best. We were given a tiny aircraft and we hardly squeezed into it with all our bags. We were packed like sardines! And the plane was constantly swinging from left to right and back! Thanks God I don’t have aerophobia and am okay with flights.

Ozery, Cherkizovo, metro

- You come from a small town of Ozery in the Moscow region. What’s good about it, besides the name?

– The name sells itself, really. There’re plenty of lakes and the nature is beautiful. Considering the atmosphere and infrastructure it’s much-much worse – a typical depressive province. We left the place when I was almost 7, but I remember my child years there. By the way, Ozery do have something to be proud of in professional sport: the famous Soviet football player Alexey Grinin and the Russian ice-hockey international Sergey Shirokov were born there.

– Do you have relatives living in Ozery?

– Yeah, my grandmother, my uncle and a cousin live there. I’ve got somebody to visit, in a word. I don’t have time to go there often, but I do go there a couple of times a year.

- Now you live just 10 minutes walk from the stadium and go training on foot. Has this district become a home for you or do you want to move to a different place?

- It has become my home, but I think I’ll have to move anyway. When the team trains in Cherkizovo, it’s very comfortable for me. I can sleep longer, and go to have lunch at home. But still most of the time we spend on our base in Bakovka near Moscow and I can’t call it a pleasure to go there from Cherkizovo through the whole city. So I think I’ll try to find something closer to the base this year. Within the city circle, of course, - close to the base and not far from the city centre.

- You still prefer metro to a car. When will you eventually join the club?

- I think it’s a matter of the near future. I’ve got the driving licence, I got it two years ago so I won’t have to put a yellow sticker on a windshield (according to the Russian law, a driver with less than 2 years of experience must put a yellow sticker with a black exclamation mark on it on his/her windshield – translator) Although I think that even when I buy a car I’ll still use the metro. In the daytime it’s the fastest means of transport in Moscow. Some people care too much about their status and waste three hours in a traffic jam sitting in their car rather than just use the metro and reach their destination in twenty minutes. I really don’t understand them. In our team, by the way, many guys use the underground, even the foreign players who live far from the stadium.

Higher Education, English Lessons, “Sovremennik” Theatre

- Where are you studying?

- Just like many other football players I’m studying in the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism, specializing in football. To tell you the truth, the whole thing is just a formality. I simply don’t have time to attend the lessons, because I have trainings when the lessons are held. I think that when I get a diploma I’ll enter some other university. Of course, I’m talking about extramural courses. But this time I’ll take them seriously, I’ll read books in the evening. I haven’t yet decided which university to choose, I’m discussing it with my parents and we’re considering taking a course in law.

Besides, I’m trying to learn English properly. In my school, the English course was very weak, and now I’m trying to catch up. Victor Obinna helps me a lot, we talk much, sit together in a plane and I always ask him the meaning of unknown words.

- I noticed recently that you already now pay much attention to self-education, you take serious books with you when the team plays away games or goes to training camps. What’s the book that made the biggest impact on you?

- I think I still haven’t read it. I remember the words a well-known Russian journalist Dmitry Dibrov said: “A man has to read 8-10 books in his life. Which exactly? To know this, he has to read fifteen thousand”. I don’t think I’ll manage to read that many books, but I’ll try at least to get close to this figure.

- Are you a movie-goer?

- Yes, a movie theatre is one of my favourite places of leisure. I can watch movies of any genre, it depends on the company. When I go to the movies with my girlfriend we usually watch light romantic films. If I’m alone, I can also watch a phychological thriller or an art film.

- In one of your interviews you said you love theatre even more than the movies. What’s your favourite theatre?

- “Sovremennik” (literally, “The Contemporary” - translator) They’ve got a great repertoire, good company, and it feels good inside. It’s very important, because when I went to Gorky’s Moscow Art Theatre I liked the play, but if you look at all the rest it feels like you’re in the middle of the last century: the chairs are shabby, and everything’s very old. You go to the theatre for a different atmosphere, I think.

- What’s in you mp3 player?

- Oh, different music. Although before every game I listen to Domino. His songs set a right motivation, they energize. Not like Timati who sings rubbish, you cannot tune in for the game listening to him.