One of the best sellers this summer, the book Football Dynamo was reviewed on here a couple of weeks back. Author Marc Bennetts must have liked the review because he kindly accepted to do an interview with us in which he talks about Russian football and how he had always expected Martin Skrtel to do well.

What was the inspiration for Football Dynamo?
I’d been living here for almost a decade and I was aware that not many people outside of Russia knew much about the country’s football, or indeed, everyday life here. The book was an attempt to combine the two topics.

When you started out, did you have a clear idea of how it would turn out? Did you model it on any other book?
The first draft of the book was called ‘Fanat’ (Russian for fan) and was based on 12 games that I had been to in Russia. I then expanded it to include interviews, and the focus of the chapters changed from the matches to the wider themes of clubs, the national team, society as a whole, etc. The new version of the book was originally called “Making Soap out of the ref – Russia decoded through football” Virgin changed it though. Maybe they were right. The ‘making soap’ stuff came from a chant I used to hear a lot in Russia when I first began going to games here. It translates as, “make soap out of the ref!” The Soviets used to make cheap soap out of dead dogs. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I only actually became aware of books like “Brilliant Orange’ ‘Morbo’ etc after I’d begun ‘Fanat’.

It was quite a coup to get Simon Kuper to write the introduction…
I sent him the original draft (Fanat) and he liked it and made some suggestions regarding publishers etc. When I finally got the deal with Virgin he kindly agreed to do the foreword. I only actually met him for the first time in person before the recent Champions League final in Moscow.

You must have been quite glad to see Russia do so well at the European championship?
Yeah, of course. It was great. It was odd as well – I’d been talking to people about Arshavin, Zhirkov etc for years and suddenly everyone was trying to pronounce their names. Lots of Russians had always thought it was bizarre that I liked their football so much, so it was good to have my passion justified as well. Russia has always had good players; it’s just that the coaches have usually been afraid of their bosses at the Football Federation, who were in turn afraid of their bosses. They used to prefer cautious football and 1-0 defeats to taking risks. After they got hammered 7-1 by Portugal in 2004 though even Putin got angry and changes were made. Hiddink has freed the players’ potential.

How come that Andrei Arshavin is only now emerging as a star?
Because in the West people pay very little attention to Russia – it’s far away, the names are difficult to pronounce etc. It’s like Abkhazia and South Ossetia. That situation has been simmering for years, but it took full-scale war for Europe to even find out where they were, let alone the reasons behind the conflict. Russia at Euro 2008 was the equivalent of a football bomb. After the 3-1 defeat of Holland, people were forced to pay attention. I guess the fact that Russia had never before made an impact on the world stage was a factor as well!

Both Russia ’ success and that of Zenit is to a large degree attributable to foreign coaches. However, it is the foreign players who have really made an impact in Russia , for better or for worse. Do these foreign players really make an attempt to learn the culture and the language or is it to alien for them?
Firstly, I would say that Hiddink and Advocaat have had more impact than any foreign players. They’ve changed the mentality I was talking about in answer to question 4. The only foreign players who try to learn the culture language etc are the Slavs, like the Serbs and Czechs etc (it’s not so difficult for them) and, to a lesser extent, the African players. Most Nigerian and Cameroonian footballers here, Chidi Odiah etc, speak great Russian.

Is part of the problem in the level of scouting? How many of the transfers are down to agents pimping up their players without the clubs really knowing what they are in for?
That may have been the case in the past. In the past it was simply seen as prestigious to have foreign players in the team. Now they are a lot more careful with their selections. As the cases of Jo, Vidic etc prove.

This leads us to he general perception about Russian football in that many see it as being corrupt. How much of that reputation is justified?
I think there is some corruption in every league. On the other hand, where there is money in Russia there is corruption. That’s a fact. Football just reflects the problem of corruption in society as a whole.

I admired the way with which you doggedly kept on asking about corruption. In fact, the interviews are central to your book: who was the person you enjoyed interviewing the most? And who the most surprising?
Most enjoyed Giner I guess. That was tense. Ruslan Dubov at Novaya Gazeta was very intense as well. All the hooligans were…interesting. Of the footballers, Smertin and Beschastnikh were the most enjoyable to talk to. Smertin because he is clever and educated, Beschastnikh because he was so open and down-to-earth.

You seemed quite disappointed about not getting to talk to Oleg Romantsev. Why was that?
When I first came to Russia, Romantsev was the main figure. Bigger than any player, he dominated Russian football. I just felt he was an integral part of the story. The fact that I didn’t get to meet him was also kind of symbolic in a way though – a Westerner can never find out everything about Russia! He is the dark side of the ball, spinning away out of view…

Of course, the Russian league is now making a name as something of an exporter given the success of Nemanja Vidic, Martin Skrtel and Jo. Were you expecting the first two to do so well in the Premier Leage?
Yes. They were solid defenders for Spartak and Zenit. Especially Skrtel.

And what about Jo? Is he really worth that amount of money?
We’ll see! He was good at CSKA until his injury in 2007 – he never quite captured the same form afterwards. He’s still young though, so it’s a good buy.

How do the Russian players themselves view playing abroad, particularly England ?
Well, in the past, all Russian players would jump at the chance to go abroad. A good example of this is when Spartak won all of their group games in the Champions League in 1995/96 and then sold Sergei Yuran to Millwall. And he was happy to leave! They will only leave oil-rich Russian now for purely footballing reasons, though. Most players would probably earn less abroad. As Arshavin said, “I doubt if many clubs can match pay as much as Zenit.”

I must admit that Football Dynamo has got me quite interested in the Russian league and at the moment Ruben Kazan are doing quite well. What’s their story?
They bought a few good players in the summer – Russian national side captain Sergei Semak being the best of their purchases – but even their fans have been surprised by their success. They only got into the Premier League for the first time a few years ago. They beat Zenit 4-1 at home today, so they are looking good. The Russian Premier is turning into one of the most open in Europe. Around 10 points separate the top 10 teams at the moment.

Any plans for the future as far as writing goes?
My next book will be a move away from football. I’d like to write about it again the future, but I don’t want to just write about sport. The next book is going to be about how the Russians see Britain, about relations between the two countries. It’ll follow a similar pattern to Football Dynamo – lots of interviews. These days it’s too easy to just look stuff up on the Internet and knock up a book. I prefer to get my hands dirty…

The original review can be found here.