Among the champions of the CIS countries, Moscow "Spartak" turned out to be the best among the worst. The first month of the new millennium brought many interesting football tournaments to the fans. Brazil hosted the first Club World Cup, which ended...

Among the champions of the CIS countries, Moscow "Spartak" was the best among the worst

P

The first month of the new millennium brought many interesting football tournaments to the fans. Brazil hosted the first Club World Cup, which ended with a convincing victory for the Brazilian teams playing the final. The Brazilians showed their best qualities - virtuoso technique and metropolitan physical form. The goal scored by the "football hooligan" Edmundo against Manchester United will certainly go down in the history of world football and will be shown hundreds of times in football videos, like the young Pele's goal against the Swedes in the 1958 World Cup final. Many experts believe that the European giants "Real" and "Manchester" did not take this tournament very seriously and therefore could not seriously compete with the Latin Americans. I think that this is not entirely true. Just once again confirmed the rule that the Europeans can not win the championships held on the American continent. I was struck by the game of the Mexican Necaxa team, which is completely different from what we are used to seeing in the best European championships. Instead of crazy speed and pressure all over the field, we saw slowly moving Mexican players passing the ball across the field to each other. At some point, the ball hit a man who didn’t look like a football player named Aguinaga (though it later turned out that he is a real idol of Latin American fans), who gave a pass forward 50 meters, creating one after another dangerous moments at the opponent’s goal. And as it is not surprising, the defense of the best European clubs could not oppose anything to such a game of the Mexicans. In my opinion, the debut of the world championship among clubs was a success, if only because we were able to see such an unusual and interesting football teams from different continents.

Unfortunately, the next tournament of champions of the CIS countries, which took place in Moscow on the artificial surface of the Olimpiyskiy, cannot be called successful. He once again showed that the level of football in our former republics continues to fall. Teams from Central Asian and Transcaucasian countries often look like whipping boys in matches with Spartak, who easily beat them, playing at half strength. The exception is, perhaps, only the Riga "Skonto". Dynamo Kiev sent a second squad to the tournament, not wanting to risk the health of its main players in the game on artificial turf before the Champions League matches.

Despite the fact that there are still two months left before the start of the next Russian championship and most of our clubs hold training camps in Cyprus and Israel, we can make the first forecasts for the upcoming season. It becomes clear that there will be no sensational transfers of football stars to the leading Russian clubs.

Oleg Romantsev said that he would bet on the simulated squad. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian forwards, who were invited to watch, did not come to the court. Surely, even in the previous composition, Spartak remains the main contender for the Russian gold. The key to this will be a well-established team game, a brilliant midfield, in which players like Titov and Tikhonov feel each other with their eyes closed, a talented goalkeeper Filimonov. However, will Spartak be able to successfully play in the Champions League with such mediocre strikers as Robson and Shirko? Hardly.

In an interview, Romantsev said that Spartak could afford to buy an extra-class striker, but no one wants to go to Russia, a country with an unstable political situation. May be so. But I really want to dream, looking at the game of Andriy Shevchenko, who scored three goals in 7 minutes in the Italian championship match and was the leading scorer in the year of his debut in the world's strongest league - what if such a striker was in Spartak? After all, going from Kyiv to Moscow is not so scary.

What teams can compete with our almost permanent champion? Most likely only Moscow clubs. First of all, these are CSKA and Lokomotiv, which have well-equipped squads. Their success will depend mainly on the mental attitude and the level of pre-season preparation.

Dynamo Moscow fans, tired of coaching leapfrog, pin their hopes on the return of Valery Gazzaev to his native club. Let's hope that he will be able to ignite the Dynamo team with his temperament, as he once managed to do in Alania Vladikavkaz.

Zenit St. Petersburg has successfully started its pre-season training, beating its rivals in friendly matches. Russian fans are waiting for one of our most talented strikers, Panov, to play consistently the way he played last year in Paris. Then Zenit will have a chance to compete for a prize.

And, finally, we wish good luck to Georgy Yartsev, who has taken over Rotor Volgograd, one of the best Russian teams in the recent past.