He won the European Cup Golden Boot at the age of 22, but was benched by Capello at the age of 24. The genius is still trapped by the coach.

At the request of friends, let’s talk about Zagoev, a Russian genius who had great success and high hopes.

On June 17, 1990, Alan Zagoev was born in Bislan, Russia. The "Alan" in his name actually has some meaning, taken from the North Ossetia-Alan Autonomous Republic of the Russian Federation. From this, it is not difficult to imagine how high his family's expectations are for him.

High expectations lead to high investment. As a boy, Zagoev left his hometown early and was sent by his family to the famous Konoplev Youth Training Camp to receive professional football training. Because his talent was so outstanding, he was spotted by a professional club when he was under 16 years old and appeared on the stage of the Russian Second League. By 2008, he was recruited by CSKA Moscow, a veteran Russian team.

After Zagoev joined CSKA Moscow, he was quickly put to good use by his new club and played a lot of roles on the offensive end. Throughout the season, he paid a stat sheet of 8 goals and 8 assists in 20 games, and was undoubtedly named the best rookie in the league.

Exactly in this year, the Russian team achieved good results in the European Cup. The most dazzling player in the team is none other than the talented attacker Arshavin. Against this background, many Russian media compared Zagoyev with Arshavin, believing that he is the undoubted successor to Arshavin.

The attitude of the media will more or less affect the view of the national team. When Zagoev only played 14 games in the Russian Super League, he put on the jersey of the Russian team. When he was 18 years and 116 days old, he made his debut with the national team, against his old enemy Germany.

However, the Russian team's grouping in the South Africa World Cup qualifiers was too poor. This directly led to the failure of this team with many talents to enter the main stage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Zagoyev's blockbuster time was abruptly delayed by two years.

In the 2012 European Cup, the then 22-year-old Zagoev finally stepped onto the stage of an international competition. This year's Russian team also has veteran players such as Arshavin and Pavlyuchenko. Therefore, before the competition started, the world generally thought that Arshavin and Pavlyuchenko would lead the team to conquer the world.

However, after the first round of the group match between Russia and the Czech Republic, everyone changed their views invariably. It is hard to imagine that Zagoyev, who seemed so young at the time, would be so experienced on the court. His sharp breakthroughs, solid skills, and imaginative passing were so incompatible with his age. In addition, he also showed good scoring ability and scored twice. In the schedule after

, Zagoev continued his outstanding performance. In Russia's match against old enemy Poland, the talented attacker scored again, raising his total number of goals in this competition to 3. Although the Russian team failed to break through the group stage, these three goals were enough for him to share the glory of the European Cup Golden Boot with stars such as Torres, Cristiano Ronaldo, Balotelli, Mandzukic and Gomez.

Everyone understands that the 22-year-old European Cup Golden Boot has a bright future. What's more, Zagoev is not a pure shooter. He also has the ability to break through and pass, which is even more valuable. So after the European Cup, Zagoev became a hot commodity in the transfer market, and I don't know how many strong European teams extended an olive branch to him.

From Zagoev's perspective, he naturally wants to play in the five major leagues. His favorite club was Chelsea, then helmed by Roman Abramovich. And Abramovich dreams of bringing his compatriot to Stamford Bridge.

It stands to reason that since Zagoev wants to go to Chelsea, and Chelsea also wants to introduce Zagoev, with Abramovich's wealth, this deal should be a sure thing. However, the final result was that Zagoev failed to land at Stamford Bridge and could only continue to play in the Russian league.

This is unfortunate enough. Unexpectedly, more unfortunate things were yet to come. After the 2012 European Cup, the Russian team made the decision to change coaches, waved goodbye to Advocaat, and invited the famous Italian coach Capello.

In terms of coaching ability, Capello is naturally better than Advocaat. There is no doubt about this. However, this does not mean that Capello is more suitable to coach the Russian team than Advocaat. At the very least, for Zagoev, Capello is obviously not suitable for him.

Zhagoev is a typical genius player who retains many problems that belong to genius players, such as being less active in defense, liking to argue with referees, and often receiving unnecessary red and yellow cards, etc.

If those coaches with less prominent qualifications encountered Zagoev, they might just tolerate it and get over it. After all, Zagoev was too popular in Russian football at the time. But who is Capello? Not only is he a well-known iron-fisted coach, his record is also impressive enough, and he is definitely qualified to take action on Zagoev.

During Capello's coaching of the Russian team, Zagoev has been trapped as a coach. Not to mention continuing to serve as the core of the offense, he can't even keep his starting position. For example, in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Zagoev, who was 24 years old at the time and theoretically at his peak, was wearing Russia's No. 10 jersey, but was put on the bench by Capello. It was a strange sight.

Throughout the entire World Cup, Dzagoev only played a total of 61 minutes. Even though he saved the Russian team in the match against South Korea. But with Capello's stubbornness, Zagoev had no chance to come forward.. This directly led to the fact that the Russian team, whose offense was like mercury falling in the 2008 European Cup and the 2012 European Cup, can no longer be seen...

Capello didn't get out of class until 2015, and Zagoev could only endure it. By the time of the 2016 European Cup, Russia was coached by Schlutsky, the coach of CSKA Moscow and considered Zagoev's mentor. Against this background, everyone feels that Zagoev's spring has come.

However, as the 2016 European Cup was about to come to an end, Zagoev encountered an unexpected situation with a broken toe bone. And in the 2018 World Cup, fate once again played a joke on Zagoev. He collapsed in the 23rd minute of the opening game...

In the days that followed, injuries caught up with Zagoev, and he could never go back to the past. In 2023, news came out that Zagoev announced his retirement.