Arina Volobueva: “At the World Cup I shook hands with Kane, Henderson and Pickford”

In the 2024 season, the captain of the blue and white youth team will be Arina Volobueva, who completely missed last season due to injury. In the summer of 2022, Arina moved to Dynamo, which at that time played in the Youth League, but made her debut for the reserve team only a year and a half later, when she underwent rehabilitation and fully recovered after undergoing surgery.

In a long interview, Dynamo number 87 talks about his football journey, recalls his main achievements, and also shares his plans for the future.

— The match with Strogino was your first for the Dynamo youth team. How did you feel on the field?

— To be honest, I was very worried. I was worried about both the result and my game. I felt increased responsibility, I didn’t want to let down the coaching staff, as well as the club, which at one time believed in me and gave me the opportunity to recover and show myself on the field.

— The initial excitement probably gradually went away. How did the game go?

— The excitement decreased, but throughout the game it was still with me. I think if you rewatch the match, you can see that some confusion was evident in my actions, but overall I tried to hold on. The match turned out to be a battle, there were many martial arts and controversial moments. However, the result was good, although not everything worked out in the game for both me and the team. There is something to strive for further.

— What else does the team need to improve on in order to show a more complete game?

— I think, first of all, we need to improve our ball control, movement, and individual actions. We have already worked out the main points, but everything is fine with dedication. We work every day in training and pay a lot of attention to various game components, including implementation, which previously had problems. Now it has begun to improve, although there is certainly room for improvement.

— You came out to the match with Strogino with the captain’s armband. How did you find out that you would be captain in the 2024 season?

— There was no appointment as such. At the training camp in Turkey before the game with Spartak, the team manager came up to me and told me to come to him and take the captain's armband. I was pleasantly surprised. I immediately realized that I needed to pull myself together and think about the team, that is, I felt a great responsibility, because I had to prove myself not only as a good player, but also as a leader in general. It's nice to see the trust from the coaching staff. I can suggest something to the team, encourage them - for me this is an incentive for further development.

— What does it mean to you to be a captain?

— This means feeling responsible for the entire team, for the morale, the attitude within the team. First of all, this is an internal question about what kind of relationships there will be among the players, because without a good psychological state in the team there will be no positive result.

— You missed the entire last season due to injury. Where did you get it and how long did it take to recover?

— This is a long story, and it stretches back to the fall of 2021, when I was a player in the Chertanovo-2006 team. By the way, due to injury, I never managed to play in the Youth League, so the match with Strogino became for me not only my debut for Dynamo, but also in the Youth League as a whole.

In October 2021, during one game, I tripped and fell unsuccessfully, as a result of which I was diagnosed with a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of the left knee joint. A difficult stage began in my life. Together with my family, we began to think about what to do next, because the doctors said: “If you want to play football, you definitely need surgery.” There was no definite decision right away; I did not have the option of not having surgery and living like an ordinary person. And we decided to undergo surgery.

The doctor of the Russian U-17 team, Andrei Evgenievich Pyatkin, helped a lot with the operation; I had just returned from the national team. For a long time I followed all the recommendations, but after some time I began to understand that the rehabilitation was going wrong and was not giving the desired results. Then a difficult period began, I just didn’t understand what needed to be done.

The leg was not one hundred percent functional, I could not bend and straighten it completely, which is why I had to undergo a second operation, which did not provide any guarantee that I would return to sports. The surgeon who examined me said the following phrase: “There are two options: either a simpler operation, which may or may not help, or to change the “cross” again, but recovery takes a year, and there are no guarantees.”

I decided on a simpler option, since the operation would have had to be done anyway. The rehabilitation specialist said that the functionality of the joint may not be fully restored, and it is not a fact that I will be able to bend and straighten my leg. But I probably believed in myself, felt the support of my family, and the question was fundamental: for my own sake, I had to return to the previous level.

— You did the second operation when you were already a Dynamo player?

— Yes, it was December 2022. More than a year passed, I even managed to return to the general group, but the pain did not go away, discomfort was still present. From many I heard phrases like “You made it all up,” “This is psychosomatics,” and the like. Allegedly this is why the pain did not go away. However, I decided to end this problem, so I had to undergo a second operation.

I officially moved from Chertanovo to Dynamo in June 2022, although my recovery began in February. I would like to say a big thank you to the club’s management in the person of Alexander Udaltsov, who invited me with an injury and gave me the opportunity to undergo rehabilitation. Moreover, I was given a choice - to stay at my previous club or move to Dynamo. At that time, Dynamo played in the Youth League, the team was coached by Sergei Nikolaevich Lavrentyev. However, all communication regarding the transition and restoration measures was led by Alexander Udaltsov.

My initial acquaintance at the club was with the medical staff, and due to a non-standard injury, not only doctors from the youth team were involved, but also from the club Academy and the men’s base. Recovery after the second operation took about six months, I returned to the general group for about a month, after which problems with the knee started again, I had to visit the trauma surgeon who operated on me again to get a consultation. After some time, everything passed, and after 13 months I returned to the field.

— You even played in a friendly match with the main team.

— Yes, it was July 2023. I was added to the Youth League, but because the pain syndrome began to return, I did not play a single game.

— How does your knee feel now, especially when you are under heavy loads?

— Previously, when I was just getting used to the stress, I felt a lack of physical activity for a long time. There was concern, and I immediately ran to the medical office and asked the doctors what it could be. I was nervous and worried, but they explained to me that the knee reacts this way due to lack of stress, and I began to feel more calm about it. In any case, when something hurts, I go to our doctor Diana Vitalievna (Kamkalina - note from the press service of the Dynamo Sports Complex) and ask her opinion. Now everything is fine, nothing bothers me, I feel completely ready for all stress.

— How were you accepted into Dynamo?

— When moving to Dynamo, there was no long and difficult period of adaptation, since I had known many of the girls for a long time, and played on the same team with some of them. Even during my first rehabilitation, the girls were interested in how I was doing, asked when to wait in the general group, supported me, which encouraged me and gave me additional motivation. Everything was quite friendly, I was received well, I became friends with everyone, that is, there were no problems in relationships.

— How do you feel in the youth team now?

— I am very pleased with our coaching staff. I like the mutual understanding that reigns in the team. We have quite a trusting relationship, the coaches are always interested in our moral state, constantly telling us what to do in this or that case. Mikhail Yuryevich (Kobyakov, head coach - note from the press service of the Dynamo Sports Club), Lyubov Sergeevna (Komarova, assistant head coach - note from the press service of the Dynamo Sports Club), Anton Sergeevich (Antonov, goalkeeper coach - Note from the press service of the Dynamo Sports Club) they get along well with each other and make all decisions together. In fact, it's very captivating.

— You watched the last season, one might say, from the sidelines. Why, in your opinion, did the youth team perform below its capabilities?

— It’s hard for me to evaluate, because I was more of a spectator. Indeed, not everything worked out. Perhaps there was not enough teamwork, because, in fact, we had a new team - the season before last there was a different coaching staff, 80 percent of the team moved to the Super League. In such a short period of time it is very difficult to assemble a team and set a specific goal for the season. If we take the training process, I saw that all the girls and the coaching staff tried, everyone worked. Probably, there was not enough precious time for the preparation itself.

— What are your expectations from this season? How do you see him?

— In fact, I expect a lot, after all, this is my first full season in Dynamo and the Youth League. I want to show myself well and take the highest place, although the format of the championship has been changed. Everything is new to me, I don’t fully understand some of the tournament layouts, and the number of teams has increased.

Football is developing, everyone will fight for the highest places in the standings. I think it will be an interesting and eventful season. There are many interesting matches ahead, and the team and I will try to show everything that we have been taught.

— Let's talk about your career. You started playing football very early, didn’t you?

— The story is funny to some extent. I was an active child, I often ran around the dacha and frolicked. Our family has a friend who is also a football coach; he previously worked in the Chertanovo structure. When he saw me, he told my parents that I had movable legs and suggested that I try to play football at Chertanovo.

Despite the fact that women's football at that time was not as developed as it is now, parents had no doubts about it - it was still better than hanging on the curtains. They decided to give it a try and sent me to football, where I fell in love with it. I was five years old.

— And you became a player at the Chertanovo Academy at the age of five?

— At first, these were general development clubs. We ran, kicked the ball, there were no tasks. At first I got into a team of mixed ages - born from 2003 to 2006, coached by Lyubov Sergeevna Komarova. I studied with her for the first year, and when I was already six or seven years old, they started recruiting girls. Due to the redistribution of ages, I ended up in the team born in 2006 with Natalya Vitalievna Titkova.

At the age of seven I went to the Chertanovo school, where I studied until the 9th grade. There were no people there who didn't play football. At the school there were three fields and an arena. Before the Chertanovo Arena appeared, all training took place on these fields. At the school where I studied, there were two mini-football halls plus an arena, everything was in one place.

— Was it hard to leave Chertanovo?

— To be honest, yes, after all, I spent more than ten years in the club structure. I felt a certain attachment to this place, especially considering how much effort was put into it - a lot was gained with sweat and blood. We were actively stressed both in training and at school; at some points there were two training sessions a day: instead of two physical education lessons, there was a full-fledged training session.

Starting from the fifth grade, training began at 8:30 in the morning and lasted an hour and a half. After school, we rested for an hour, did our homework (if we had time) and ran to the second training session, which took place in a small hall - we circled the racks, made passes, juggled, that is, we mastered the technical complex.

— Tell us about the international tournaments in which you participated, because there were a lot of them.

— When I played in Chertanovo, we had a lot of matches, some memorable tournaments. There were no places for our team except the first, there was always only one goal - victory. In the case of third place, everyone cried together, it was unusual.

If we talk about tournaments, we played international cups, as well as championships among boys. And all third places are mainly associated with participation in tournaments with boys. As long as the regulations allowed, we played against boys our age, or a year younger.

Of course, the most memorable ones were the international tournaments. In 2019, I went to Sweden with a team a year older; there were just a huge number of European teams there. To perform at this level is a wonderful experience. We not only fought for our club, but also for the country, since we were not particularly loved anywhere.

— But the most memorable tournament is probably not this one?

— For me, the most important tournaments were in Mallorca. I have been to Spain twice, in 2018 and 2019. This is a girls' competition that took place in Palma de Mallorca. I received bronze at the Mallorca Cup together with the 2005 team, but this tournament is not very memorable in my memory, but in 2019 we took second place, beating PSG in the semi-finals with a score of 4:0, but lost in the final to Real Madrid. The match turned out to be very interesting. When I say that I played in the final against Real Madrid, some people don’t believe me.

— How were the tournaments organized? What impressed you most?

— In such tournaments, older girls were always entered. It was felt that the Europeans played stronger football, it was very interesting to watch this from the sidelines. We entered each match, essentially, blindly, because we did not know how the opponent played. It was all the more interesting to compete with such teams, especially to beat them, it was doubly pleasant.

What else do you remember? Their strength training. All girls are hardy and physically developed. I took a lot from these matches and gained solid gaming experience. It's always nice to play against a strong opponent.

— In 2018, another significant event happened in your life.

— Yes, I took part in the FIFA Young Referee competition for the right to carry the ball onto the field along with the referees before the start of the World Cup match, which took place in Russia. A competition was held for children under 12-13 years old, about 700 people applied for one place. My parents discussed it and decided it would be a good idea for me to take part. The selection was very tough; children involved in football competed. Thanks to playing football and the creativity of my parents, I was included in the final list of 20 people who carried out balls at various World Cup matches.

I was lucky enough to take out the ball at the England – Colombia game, which took place on July 3, 2018 at the Otkritie Arena. Moreover, we managed to shake hands with all the players from both one team and the other. Imagine - an 11-year-old girl shaking hands with Harry Kane, Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling, Jordan Pickford, Falcao... I remember it and still get goosebumps. I remember everything as it is now. I was very worried, the judges spoke to me, the stadium was completely packed, everyone was clapping. The experience was, of course, incredible.

— You were still constantly called up to the Moscow national team due to your age?

— While there was no such Moscow team. It consisted of Chertanovo players, we simply played with our squad. My last performance is August 2021, the championship was held in Essentuki, where we took first place, and I received the best player in Moscow.

— What do you do in your free time? How do you spend your leisure time?

— I don’t have much free time. I'm still in school, finishing 11th grade. After classes I go straight to training and then home. So everything is ordinary. It’s not easy to combine, it’s hard to spread yourself across all areas, because you want to succeed everywhere and achieve everything.

Of course, school suffers more, because at the moment football is my priority. It took me a long time to come back and play. After I got injured, I focused on my health and football - I really wanted to get on the field and just kick the ball. At such moments, envy arose: someone can play, but I can’t. However, I try to devote time to everything in order to achieve what I want everywhere.

— But you probably have non-football hobbies?

— I really like learning foreign languages. If I had more free time, I would be fluent in some English or Spanish. I think that learning foreign languages in general is a very useful skill, it gives you more opportunities in the future. I would like to have such a skill.

— What do you plan to do after graduation?

— In terms of studies, I would like to enter some university with a focus on linguistics. I haven’t fully decided yet, but this is definitely not a sports direction - I already have enough sports. It would be interesting to immerse myself in something other than football.

— In this regard, what goals do you set for yourself?

— If we take the sports aspect, then I want to develop, to see my career growth, so that it would be pleasant to watch my game. I would also like to get into the Dynamo main team, prove myself there and play with great resistance.

However, at this stage I plan to develop in the Youth League, because I am not yet ready enough for the Super League - first I need to gain experience at the current level in order to subsequently apply it at a more serious stage.