Valery Georgiyevich Karpin (; born 2 February 1969) is a football manager and former player who manages FC Rostov and the Russian national team. He is a former midfielder, primarily a right midfielder. Karpin is a citizen of Russia, Estonia and Spain. Club career At club level, Karpin played for Fakel Voronezh (1989), Spartak Moscow (1990–94), Real Sociedad (1994–96 and 2002–05), Valencia CF (1996–97), and Celta Vigo (1997–2002). He retired at the end of the 2004–05 season with Real Sociedad. International career For the Russia national team, Karpin was capped 72 times, scoring 17 goals (he was also capped once for the CIS). He scored Russia's first goal after the breakup of the Soviet Union, in a 2–0 win against Mexico on 17 August 1992. Karpin played for Russia at the 1994 World Cup, Euro 1996, and the 2002 World Cup. In 2003, he won Cyprus International Football Tournaments when Russia beat Romania. Managerial career In August 2008, Karpin was named as Director General of Spartak Moscow, replacing Sergei Shavlo. In April 2009, following a poor run of results, he replaced Michael Laudrup as caretaker manager of the club. On 18 April 2011, Karpin declared resignation from his position following one of the worse starts in club history. Eventually, he continued working as a manager up to the end of 2011–12 season. After the sacking of the newly appointed manager Unai Emery on 25 November 2012, Karpin took the responsibility of caretaker manager up until the end of the year. He later officially became the team's coach again and was not the caretaker anymore. On 18 March 2014, Karpin was relieved from his duties, after exiting the Russian Cup to third division FC Tosno and drawing with top flight's bottom side FC Anzhi Makhachkala. On 12 August 2014, he was appointed at the helm of RCD Mallorca. He joined FC Torpedo Armavir for the 2015–16 season after it was newly promoted to FNL. Under his management, the team (by then renamed to FC Armavir) was relegated back to the third-tier PFL, and on 23 June 2016, he left the club "by mutual consent". On 19 December 2017, Karpin was announced as the new manager of FC Rostov on a two-and-a-half-year contract. Russia National Team On 23 July 2021, Russian Football Union hired him as manager of the Russia national football team until 31 December 2021 (for the duration of the