Nice Gus!

An open secret has been revealed! The Russian national football team will indeed be led by Dutch coach Guus Hiddink. What everyone knew and had known for a long time was confirmed by himself. Let the RFU now pretend that it is the first time it sees and the first time it hears. This is pure superstition. The issue has been resolved, and the signature on the contract, apparently, is really nothing more than a formality.

This event may turn out to be interesting not only from the point of view of a football fan, although that is where I will begin. The paradox of the situation is that compared to other sports, our football is simply pathetic - no victories, no achievements, no world stars. CSKA winning the UEFA Cup was a historical event for Russia, but in Europe this tournament is considered second-rate, and it is unlikely that anyone else remembers who won it a year ago. But no matter how many medals skiers, figure skaters, wrestlers and runners win, Oleg Romantsev was right when he said: the Spartak reserve player is more popular than the Olympic champion in wrestling. Football is more important than all other sports combined!

Now let’s take into account our traditional suspicion and jealousy towards foreigners, and it will become clear that inviting a foreign specialist to the post of head coach of the national football team is an epoch-making event. And such an appointment would never have taken place, but there was nowhere to go. In Russia there is not a single half-decent coach who would not lead the national team. Some managed to steer twice - but where is the result? That's it.

The idea of ​​inviting a foreign mentor took such hold of the masses, especially journalists, that they began to demand any kind of coach - the main thing is not ours. They finished it, as they say. But, in truth, if your coaches are bad, then this is not a reason to invite bad ones from abroad. The national team needed a good coach, a very good one, and it didn’t matter where he came from. But since all our good ones are over, then, of course, we must look for someone else’s good ones. We found Hiddink.

Is he a good coach? Not just good - excellent! The thing is that, in principle, many foreigners were ready to come to work with us, but these were people, as they say, out of work. And, as a rule, it is not the most sought-after specialists who are sitting without work. Among them there are quite worthy ones, but whose best creative years are already in the past. And calling a qualified specialist with a valid contract with a strong club or national team seemed impossible. If only because working with the Russian team, frankly speaking, is not prestigious. But as the movie heroine said: “You have to give him a hand, you have to give a lot - then he will take it.” For money, a person can agree to a not very prestigious job - if the amount turns out to be sufficient compensation for the inconvenience.

Hiddink will receive, apparently, a lot! The exact amount has not been announced, but Vitaly Mutko and his RFU, pardon the pun, definitely don’t have that much. Abramovich gave the money for the contract, once again proving that this man is not the only one alive at Chelsea. At least the name of the Chukotka governor is mentioned by a large number of well-informed people. The fact that the temptation was great for the Dutchman is also evidenced by the fact that Guus Hiddink was persistently invited to coach in England. Imagine how much higher Russia’s proposal must be for him to come to us and not to the British!

Now, naturally, the question arises: will a miracle happen thanks to Hiddink? Well, it probably won’t get any worse, because it simply can’t get any worse. But how much stronger our team will be able to play under Hiddink is a really interesting question. To be honest, there is not a single world-class player in Russia now. There are good football players, but there are no stars at all. An eloquent fact: for the first time since Soviet times, all national team players without exception are playing for domestic clubs! There are no legionnaires left. On the one hand, because in Russia they started paying very good money. But on the other hand, it’s still no more than in the best leagues in the world. That is, we can already provide middle-level players with such conditions that there is no point in them going to the West. And the stars, who have to be paid many millions, are absent as a class, so the great clubs do not invite any Russians and do not fork out money for them.

It is from these cheap, but sometimes angry players that the coach from Holland will have to create a team of a new type. Anything can turn out, but we, in theory, should at least be protected from the eccentricities that were so characteristic of all of Hiddink’s predecessors.

Good specialists and nice people, having joined the national team, invariably experienced a strange metamorphosis. Mentors quickly stopped smiling, became nervous, irritable, suspicious, the press turned from a best friend into a vile enemy, and conflicts began. Worthy players no longer made it into the national team, but those who, apart from a close acquaintance with the coach, had no other serious trump cards, came. And the first successes were replaced by deepest disappointment.

This should not happen to Hiddink. And in choosing players, he must be as objective as possible, if only because he does not know any of them, he will not be dominated by either the magic of names, or friendly connections, or the desire to take a player to the national team in order to highlight him, and then sell him for a profit - similar There have been examples in the history of the national team. Hiddink is far from our football and political crime, undercurrents, behind-the-scenes, undercover and other intrigues. What he sees, he will reflect on the team.

Something else is also important. Our coaches, like many other leaders, and not only in sports, for the most part are no longer young people and were brought up in Soviet traditions. And their players are people who have a different scale of values, open and free, who evaluate life differently. This collision of different eras in one team also results in our defeats. We really have a lot of talented athletes, but there are only a few good coaches - and not only in football.

By the way, inviting foreigners in other sports justified itself much more often than not. You can say as much as you like that a foreigner cannot understand a Russian athlete, because the language, culture, and notorious mentality are different. But a person is either a professional or not. Either he knows how and wants to work, or he doesn’t want to. Either you have talent or you don't. Our coaches with their Russian language, mentality, traditions and other attributes - all this did not help much.

In general, I advocate inviting foreign specialists wherever possible. Probably, under Peter the Great we were no closer to Europe than we are now. It was as if we were living on another planet back then. But this did not stop Peter from calling on foreigners, and the country made a mighty leap forward in all directions. Thanks in no small part to them. We need not only sports coaches, we need managers and specialists in all areas. Which would help and teach us what we ourselves cannot yet learn. And not because we are stupid and wretched. It’s just that we are still Soviet, we don’t know many basic things, and there is nothing wrong with learning from people who know.

Let them work for good money, let them get a Russian passport, stay here and put down roots. But until the authorities come up with this, we will especially closely monitor experiments on athletes, where foreigners are appearing in command positions more and more often. And we will especially keep an eye on Guus Hiddink.

After all, in addition to various club achievements, the Dutchman has success in national teams, and far from elite ones. From no Korean team, he made a semi-finalist of the world championship, and he himself became an honorary citizen of Korea in general and many of its cities in particular. They gave him everything as a token of gratitude. He can fly for free, go to restaurants, and fill up his car with gasoline. For him, on Korean soil, every day is a holiday, everything is free, everything is a gift, and every whim is fulfilled instantly.

Then Hiddink led Australia to the world championship, which had not made it to the world championships for 32 years. At the same time, the Dutchman himself lived in Europe and did not appear in a formal workplace, since at the same time he coached the Dutch club PSV and led it to gold medals.

But we will be realistic and will not demand immediate gold, a hail of goals scored and reaching the semi-finals of the European Championship, and then the championship of the entire planet. First, we need to follow the Australian path and at least just make it to the European and world championships.