Kuchuk Leonid: all the most interesting about the playing and coaching career of the Belarusian athlete

Kuchuk Leonid in the past was a famous Belarusian and Soviet football player. Now they know him as a coach. And he is the father of Alexei Kuchuk. 30-year-old football player completed his career two years ago and now he trains the Belarusian team "Krumkachy-d". However, I would like to pay attention to Kuchuk the elder.

early years

Leonid was born in Minsk, August 27, 1959. His first club was the local "Torpedo", where he studied the basics of football. At the age of twenty, he moved to the Minsk Dynamo. He was even included in the players for the USSR Championship, but Leonid Kuchuk never played a single match.

To stay in the "Dynamo" young defender did not, and moved to "Gomselmash." This club from Gomel performed in the Second League, but in his composition the player could gain experience, since he was given enough playing time. As a member of the team he spent eight years, after which he moved to Vitebsk for two seasons, for which he played 101 matches and even issued one goal. In 1990, he served as a coach. Then he still played two seasons for FC Molodechno, as much for Attack, and in 1998, having played three matches for Dynamo-93, he decided to hang the boots on the nail.

Beginning of coaching activities

After the completion of the playing career, Leonid Kuchuk immediately took over the leadership of the Dynamo-93. True, only two games. And then, their club lost with a total score of 0: 8. So for a long time he did not stay there, and immediately moved to Molodechno. With the club from the city of the same name, too, it was not possible to achieve success, since he took the 14th place in the rating of the Championship on its results.

As a result, Kuchuk Leonid decided to stop coaching. But five years later the football world heard about him again. It turned out that the coach will join the staff of "Locomotive". He worked there for a year, after which he moved to Sheriff from Tiraspol (Moldavian Republic) for a long time (6 years, to be more precise). Together with this club Kuchuk Leonid Stanislavovich achieved significant success and many titles. He even managed to bring the "Sheriff" to the League of Europe and even the Champions League. Moreover, in 2007 the team from Tiraspol was included in the list of clubs that did not suffer a single defeat for the season. For this Spanish edition of "Don Balon" handed "Sheriff" a corresponding award.

Further years

In 2010, Leonid became the head coach of "Salute" from Belgorod. In the first match the club won the Sochi "Pearl". But still the season was not very successful, so Kuchuk resigned at the end of the season.

In 2011, he began to train Kiev's Arsenal. He managed to lead the team to participate in European cups. At first everything went well, but at the end of 2012 the club lost two large sponsors, therefore, for the sake of economy, it was decided to terminate the contracts with five players and a coach.

"Kuban" and "Locomotive"

In 2013, Kuchuk returned to Russia. First he trained Krasnodar "Kuban". Then he became known as the coach of Lokomotiv. In 2014, he returned to the Kuban. The fact is that on September 15th he was removed from work in the "Locomotive". And, according to the idea, they had to pay compensation. But this did not happen - the club refused. And this despite the fact that under the guidance of Kuchuk "Lokomotiv" for the first time since 2006 won the "bronze" in the Premier League. Leonid filed a lawsuit, providing video evidence - on the record you can see how the guards do not let him into training. Olga Smorodskaya, president of the club, denied the authenticity of this fact. As a result, Leonid solved the problem by filing a complaint with the RFU and demanding compensation. "Locomotive" tried to challenge this decision, but the Sports Arbitration Court of Lausanne rejected the appeal of the club. As a result, Leonidas is entitled to compensation in the amount of 1 800 000 euros.

But, nevertheless, Kuchuk said in an interview that during his work in these two clubs, including in the "Locomotive", he managed to train very strong players. Particularly impressive were his foreign players - the Croatian Vedran Čorluka and the Frenchman Lassana Diarra. Kuchuk said that such players are a real decoration of the Championship.