In society

The ball to start!

September 6, 2006 Anton Oresh

Today, the Russian national football team will finally really begin its experiment. The most important team in the most important sport, led by a foreigner. The very first official match. From three-month talk about Hiddinka, we finally get down to business.
Although we can note some curious things now. The trainer of the national team is a completely separate type of sports pedagogy. Just as there are different writers: one writes short stories, and the other novels, one writes poems and the other poem. The author of a good story will not necessarily be a good novelist, and the writer of poems may not cope with a separate pair of quatrain. So the team coach differs from the club coach. And Hiddink still behaved like a team coach. For example, answering the question of what he actually knows about the Russian team, the Dutchman listed the matches of Russia, whose records looked at his computer. It turned out that he did not just watch all the matches of the last cycle! Some he revised 10 times. In addition to Hiddinka, it is unlikely that in our country there is at least one person who, for example, the game of Spain - Russia watched 10 times. Here and once, it’s enough for the eyes.

When the discussion on the topic “Is it possible to combine work in the national team and in the club” rises once again, coaches often advocate combining, so that, they say, not to sit idle for months and not lose qualifications. And then it suddenly turns out that we know nothing about the next opponent, to prepare for the meeting with which these very months were released!

And which of the coaches in every round of the championship lives in two or three games, sometimes visiting several stadiums in a day? The predecessors of the Dutchman rarely, when at least one game in the tour they got out. That is, it turns out that Gus Hiddink Russian football is watching the most in Russia!

However, no matter how beautiful our coach is, others will come out on the field. These others are called football players. And looking at them, you understand that in the Russian national team there is only one star, but it is she who can go out on the field and cannot. Hiddinka will have to work by no means with the wizards of the ball. He, of course, is not used to. For that, they took him that in Korea and Australia he “performed miracles” with teams, in which he was also the only star, and who had no achievements before him.

But it is impossible to put miracles on the stream, sooner or later any tradition is broken. And, strictly speaking, the appointment of a husser Hiddinka let it and raised our chances, but did not make them very large. I am sure that the team will play better with him than before. But I’m not at all sure that she is even able to play with him so well that at least to get from the qualifying group of the European Championship to the next tour through the British and Croats. The main doubt that the football audience is overcome today is not so much even in the middle class of Russian football players, but in their desire to increase this class.

A football player in Russia is one of the most notorious types of loafers and parasites! And that it happened, a huge fault of the sports press. Football, even without any special achievements in comparison with other sports (we are like a stably second in the Olympic standings with a small lag behind America), is spinning not just like sports No. 1, which he really is, but as a species monopolist. Three quarters of the newspaper square are given to football. Half of the state of sports newspapers are football departments. As a result, the fans daily receive page reports with a detailed description: who went on the flank, which side of the foot was hit where it hit (okay still hit and hit, otherwise it didn’t hit the devil!). Further, half a half of an interview with a “star”, almost entirely invented by the journalist himself because of the inability of the “star” to a coherent presentation of thoughts, and their small amount as such. We will find out that the player thought when he beat the ball (what could he think?), Hoping for victory (and what did he hoped for - for losing?), How was he sleeping, what was he ate, how much was training and how many times a day - in general, all bullshit.

Football, football, all continuous football around. And all that neither football clips in small print on the remaining two or three stripes, where there are enough places only for statistics and a couple of lines about the world record or the won world championship. The “stars” of football, feeling such attention, begin to behave as stars without quotes. The conceit of Russian football players, their aplombs and arrogance are simply fantastic! They will never say that the opponent won because he played better, but they will put on judges, bad luck, fatigue (and at any time of the year).

The level of promotion also implies the level of fees. As a result, salaries of about 40-50 thousand dollars a month do not surprise anyone. And it does not surprise anyone that such income can have, for example, an attacker who scored only three goals over three seasons. Each of his goal is thus estimated at half a million dollars! And it is no coincidence that our players almost do not go abroad. In order to radically improve their financial situation, they should receive offers from the Barcelona and Milan level clubs, but such players are simply not needed for such teams.

What to wish a person who gets several times more than he really stands, who is given several times more attention than he deserves? What can be motivation in this case? No! They are already great - what else to teach them? How many points were lost in matches, where our players "could not tune." The problem of the mood for the game is almost the main thing in the national team! How can this be? Why should a person also configure the performance of his professional duties?

Russian players talk about most rivals with undisguised neglect, they say, who they are, who knows them. And who knows our guys? At the moment, a wide European public does not know a single Russian football player! So the chances of success with the national team, that with Hiddin, that without - almost no. And when there is no rational justification for future success, it remains only to believe in it. Anton Oresh

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