Sochi footballer Batyrev told how he left Canada for Russia because of coronavirus

Midfielder of Sochi football club Amir Batyrev explained in an interview with why he left Canada for Russia in 2021.

Batyrev was born in Canada, where his family moved from Kalmykia. He played for Toronto and Vancouver. In 2021 he moved to Russia, played a season for Tver and last year became a player for Sochi. This season, the 21-year-old footballer has made 13 appearances in all competitions.

— How did you unexpectedly move from Canada to Tver in 2021?

— Then there was the coronavirus, there was no football in Canada. Everything in the country was closed because of the pandemic. There were some practices with the team, of course, but all remotely – for example, they divided the field by 20 meters in different places. They could not cross this area. And we just walked with the ball, kicked it, passed it, and that’s it. Lower training, essentially. In the United States, the same situation appears to have existed. There were no championships. In Europe there were no options.

So I went to Russia to play football, and I didn’t mind moving to the Second League. My contact ended up in Tver after my father sent clips of my match to the club. This is how the club’s sports director, Alexei Ivanovich Panfilov, contacted me. He invited me to watch it and I went.

There I already met Vadim Vyacheslavovich [Гараниным]. I really liked everything there: the football itself, the team, the technical staff. I decided to stay, develop myself and help the team.

— Was it difficult at first without your parents, when you moved to Tver?

—It was also difficult, of course. But I grew up a little and I was still in contact with my family, I called them on the phone often. In addition, Vadim Vyacheslavovich and Alexey Ivanovich helped me a lot and worried about me – how I would adapt. But the team was good. So the adaptation process was easier than I could have imagined.

Besides, I only wanted to play football when I arrived. I didn’t care about my surroundings: where I was, what the conditions were like. I just wanted to play and train, prove that I can become a professional footballer,” Batyrev told .

Watch live broadcast of the match of the 12th round of the RPL WORLD “Ural” – “Sochi” on October 22 from 11:55 (Moscow time) on the MATCH PREMIER channel, matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru sites.