Adam Dennehey WAFU manager
Manchester United fans who were dreaming of the club bringing Axel Witsel to Old Trafford can kiss their dreams goodbye what with the news late last week that the talented Belgian international has signed for Russian champions Zenit St Petersburg.
The move has come as a major shock.
Of course it’s not that Witsel isn’t talented, it’s just that many football fans imagined that when the midfielder would leave Benfica that he would sign for a bigger (and that’s no disrespect to the Portuguese side) club in Europe on the scale of Real Madrid or United for example.
Why? Because it was always believed that Witsel who rose to prominence at Standard Liege at the same time that Marouanne Felliani and Steven Defour became noticed, would after a couple of years playing in Portugal have progressed to a level that would make it impossible for top clubs not to be interested in him.
After an excellent Champions League campaign where he shone particularly against United in the group stages, all summer there has been talk of the Belgian moving on. So why has he gone to Russia. Why has he followed mega-bucks striker Hulk to Zenit from the Liga Sagres, what has suddenly made the Russian League an attraction to play in.
Money of course is the answer being thrown around by fans on various forums. Of course that’s easy to see why, after all with the 2018 World Cup looming there is a lot of investment in Russian football which will undergo vast changes before the summer of festival rules over the it’s vast landscape.
The standard of the Russian League has been steadily improving and teams like CSKA and Spartak Moscow as well as Zenit are not pushovers anymore in Europe. Sides like Rubin Kazan have improved and Anzhi Makhachkala with the signing of Samuel Eto’o last summer have shown a real sign of intent that they want to become a successful club not just in Russia but across Europe.
Whilst both players could and perhaps should have signed for bigger clubs, from a footballing side of view the competition is improving in Russia. Both players have signed five-year deals and whilst Hulk at 26 can probably ill-afford to have 2-3yrs of his career (which is at it’s peak) in Russia, Witsel at 23 is still young and even if he stays at Zenit for 2 years will still have a whole host of clubs wanting to sign him.
At the same time top coaches like Luciano Spalletti (Zenit), Unai Emery (Spartak) and Slaven Bilic (Lokomotiv Moscow) have left good jobs to go and manage in Russia. We shouldn’t forget that Fabio Capello now manages the Russian national team either. They see success in Russia as a challenge and certainly both Hulk and Witsel after stellar performances can’t really achieve anything more at their respective clubs.
So who can really blame them for taking up lucrative deals to go and play in Russia. After all they could have done worse, they could have gone to play in Ukraine like Miguel Veloso whose move to Dynamo Kyiv is far more stranger to say the least.
By Adam Dennehey @ADennehey87
Russia has oil and gas which means money. Players play for money. End of.
In EPL players play for food and glory.