In modern football, there are very few personalities who have devoted almost their entire career to one club, raising it from the unknown to unshakable heights. From world names, the Scottish “long-lived coach” sir Alex Ferguson immediately comes to mind, but in our country there is an example - Yuri Pavlovich Semin, who devoted two decades to the Moscow “Lokomotiv”, making him from a mediocre team to an advanced Russian club.
Biography
On May 11, 1947, their only child, Yuri, was born in the family of Pavel and Vera Syomins living in Orenburg. Soon the family had to move to the city of Oryol, where his father quickly found a job as a driver of the secretary of the district committee. Due to this circumstance, Semin got hold of the only ball in the district and completely immersed himself in football, doing it at any time, even instead of studying at school.
These trainings were not in vain, and he quickly made his way to the Spartak Oryol, and after various youth competitions, professional teams from the country became interested in him, including Metallurg, Kiev and Dynamo Kiev. In 1965, Yuri was transferred to Spartak Moscow, where he stayed for three years without winning any awards.
Football career
The next stage in the career of Semin was the transition to Dynamo Moscow, for which he had been a fan since childhood. In 1970, the USSR Cup and silver medals of the USSR Championship were won as part of the team. However, due to the conflict, Konstantin Beskov, already in 1972, Yuri moved to “Kairat” in the city of Alma-Ata, where he spent only two seasons, and due to disagreements with head coach Artem Fallan, the player was transferred to the Chkalovets team of the second league.
Already in the status of a veteran in late 1975, Yuri began speaking for the famous Moscow “Locomotive”, which became the penultimate team in his playing career. From 1978 to 1980, as part of the “Kuban”, Semin helped Krasnodar get into the big leagues as a leader and captain, but at the age of 33 due to a serious injury, they decided to end playing and try his hand at the coaching field.
Coaching career
Before his appointment to the “Locomotive” head coach in 1986, Yuri Pavlovich led the “Kuban” and “Pamir”, where he did not achieve any success. Under the leadership of Semin, the railroad men twice entered the USSR major league, but could not gain a foothold there.
In 1991, an exotic offer was received from New Zealand, and Yuri Pavlovich accepted it after spending one qualifying round on the islands, after which he returned to Lokomotiv. After that, the period of the formation of the team as one of the flagships of Russian football began, but this path was difficult. Often, Semin was faced with financial, domestic and other everyday problems, which he had to solve on his own.
The first success came in 1996, when the Russian Cup was won. A year later, this trophy was again won by Lokomotiv, in addition, the club began to regularly take prizes in the championship, and also achieved success in the European arena, reaching the semifinals of the Cup Winners Cup in 1998 and 1999. At the beginning of the new millennium in 2002 and 2004, the title of the country's champions was subdued by railway workers.
After such success in 2005, Semin was invited to the post of coach of the Russian national team, but failed to complete the task - to get to the final part of the World Cup in Germany - and, without renewing the contract, left the national team. Also, Yuri Pavlovich broke the agreement with Lokomotiv because of differences in views on the future of the team.
At the beginning of next year, Semin tried to succeed with Dynamo Moscow, but in August he left his post and at the end of the year returned to his native Lokomotiv as president of the club. 2007 turned out to be a failure, which led to the dismissal of all team leaders.
The next stage in the coach’s career was Dynamo Kyiv, where in 2 years they managed to win the gold of the Ukrainian Championship and reach the semifinals of the UEFA Cup. After that, in 2009, Yuri returned to Lokomotiv, but already in 2010 he was removed from the leadership of the Board of Directors of railway workers.
After that, short-term wanderings began in various clubs of the post-Soviet space, including Gabala, Mordovia, Anzhi, where significant success was not achieved. It seemed that the coaching career was heading towards dusk, but in 2016, for the fourth time, he was appointed head coach of Lokomotiv, and the Russian Cup was won the next year, and a year later the National Championship.
