An Austrian newspaper, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (OÖN), has published an article about the talented young Chechen football player, Adlan Asukhanov.

Here is the English translation of the story:

Almost every day you can see 21-year old Chechen football player Adlan Asukhanov on the soccer field in Urfahr, a suburb of Linz, Austria. In his bright yellow shoes, he trains there for three or four hours each day. Last year, he qualified for an international talent competition by the observers from England’s Birmingham team, which plays in the second division of England, was the England Cup winner, and a European cup participant in 2011.

“I had been trained there from September to November. I should have gone back there in February of 2012, but I had nose surgery and could not make it. Now I am waiting for a renewed mail from England. But it is certain that I’ll go back again,” said Asukhanov. When you ask the Chechen midfielder about the meaning of football, you get a clear answer without hesitation: “Everything!”

Adlan Asukhanov was born in 1991 in Shali, Chechnya. As a youth player, he played at FC Terek Grozny on the U6 and U11 teams. But, because of the war, in 2005, he ran away from the brutal Russian aggression in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria with his family and arrived in Linz, Austria. Asukhanov remembers the war very well. “It was a bad time,” he said. But football helped him. He and his friends chased a leather ball through the middle of the ruins. “A bad pass, and you could go home without a leg,” said the young man, describing the land mines.

In the past, his love was with football; and in Austria he continues with the same passion. He attends a commercial night school, but claims that he has only football on his mind. “I will definitely play as a professional on a good team. I imagine my perfect day: getting up, playing football and going to bed,” said Asukhanov.

“In the summer, I play football at least four hours a day; but during the winter I play a little less. However, I also run and regularly visit the gym, which keeps me fit,” said the young midfielder. He says that his favorite teams are “LASK Linz, Chelsea and Real Madrid”, and his favorite player is Christiano Ronaldo.

*(Photo: In 1999 – Adlan Asukhanov is on the left, on the war torn streets of Shali)

**Text was translated by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco