Translated material
How far has the progress come?
Russia and Finland will challenge the title of the most developing team in Europe
The Russian national team will end the most successful year in its history with today's qualifying match against the Finnish national team. The year, which began with a defeat in a friendly match from Romania, continued with an initial major defeat at Euro 2008 from Spain, was crowned with bronze at the same European Championship and ends with an offensive defeat on Saturday from Germany.Now the Russian national team in Europe is called the most progressive team on the continent. But if not for the work of Guus Hiddink and the results shown at the Euro, then Finland could well have laid claim to the title of “most developing team”. Its progress is not rapid, but constant. Just ten years ago, the Finns were considered hopeless football dwarfs, even if they had at least one world-class star in their squad - Jari Litmanen.
Litmanen will turn 38 in February, but he still takes to the field in the uniform of a national team that has grown significantly over the past decade and has reached the size of a Central European team. They may already be dissatisfied with the modesty of the victory over Azerbaijan - 1:0 and upset by the draw with Germany - 3:3. It is for such teams that UEFA President Michel Platini recently expanded the final part of the European Championship to 24 teams. Finland, in any case, firmly expects to be at Euro 2016. Previously, in the entire 101-year history of the national team of this country, it was not necessary to participate in such tournaments.
A few months ago, the Finnish football authorities even signaled to the Russian Football Union that they were ready, together with Russia, to submit an application for the 2016 European Championship. The RFU did not take the Finnish hints, and the idea of cooperation died. The Finns, however, still have hope of making their debut at major football competitions before 2016. Since 2002, they have been slowly but surely approaching the second final line of the qualifying round tournament tables, but so far they have not managed to catch on even to the play-off matches. The September draw with the German national team in a match in which the Finns constantly took the lead, and the Germans feverishly and not without some luck won back, inspired Stuart Baxter's team. And even a modest victory over Azerbaijan, won thanks to an unobvious penalty, did not dampen her ardor.
Now Baxter, the English coach of the Finnish national team, whose coaching fate has already taken him to Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Japan and even South Africa, intends to take points in Russia. “In Moscow we are not going to just sit on the defensive,” said Stuart Baxter before leaving Finland. - We will try to strain the defense of the Russian team. Otherwise, Hiddink’s team will crush us.”
Baxter's fears are not in vain: Hiddink's team is indeed very serious. And it is possible that there will again be a place in its composition for the young Alan Dzagoev and Renat Yanbaev. Moreover, the Lokomotiv defender has even more chances to enter the field - the coaching staff of the Russian national team may not be afraid of massive attacks, and therefore experiments to find a more attacking position for Yuri Zhirkov can be continued, and his place on the left flank of defense, except for Yanbaev, there is no one to occupy. It is quite possible that there will be other surprises associated with the attack. In any case, Hiddink made it clear that he was dissatisfied with the way forward Pavel Pogrebnyak acted in the match against Germany.
In turn, the leaders of our fourth group, the Germans, are hosting the Welsh team in Munchengladbach. A year ago, in the Euro 2008 qualifying match, Germany had to share points with the Welsh - 0:0, however, by that meeting Joachim Löw's team had already solved their tournament problem. However, the memory of that result inspires optimism in Wales head coach John Toshack. “We’ll watch the footage of that match again so we can remember how to play against Germany,” promised the coach of the Welsh team, which, in the event of a draw, has a chance to go into the winter holidays, retaining second place in the group.