Under the protection of an Advocate

With the Dutchman, Korea intends to beat the French and Swiss

This group brings together teams from three French-speaking countries - France itself, Togo and Switzerland - as well as South Korea, which has joined them. Despite the fact that the Koreans performed most successfully at the last championship, taking fourth place, the French team will be considered the traditional favorite.

Raymond Domenech , better known for his work with youth teams than with clubs, took charge of les blues immediately after the European Championship. One of the reproaches leveled at mentor Jacques Santini is that the generational change is being delayed. French stars, who have the status of untouchables, have lost their former motivation. And young, promising and unexplored people appeared on the team. But it quickly became clear that the two tasks - building a new team and reaching the final stage of the World Cup - are far from identical, and in some ways antagonistic. We had to postpone reforms until better times and return venerable veterans. Domenech reached an agreement with Zidane, Makelele, Thuram, even made peace with Anelka, and the French won the tournament in their qualifying group. The less time remained before the world championship, the more Domenech’s reformist fervor dried up. In the end, he returned the unstable but charismatic Barthez to the goal, sending Gregory Coupe, who played the entire qualifying tournament flawlessly, to the reserve.

Switzerland has been persecuting its French neighbors lately. In Portugal, the teams ended up in the same group, then continued to sort things out. You won't be able to take a break from each other in Germany either. All this time, Jacob, or, as he is more often called, Kobi Kuhn, has been at the head of the Swiss team . For more than ten years, the Alpine country did not pay attention to its specialists; they always invited foreign trainers. The result is below average. And then they found a prophet in their homeland - the former captain of the national team, Kobe Koon. And everything worked out.

Kuhn's job is not easy. You can’t find bright stars in Switzerland during the day, and therefore you have to squeeze the maximum out of the available players. In addition, the national team includes players from several ethnic groups: German-, Italian- and French-speaking, descendants of immigrants from other countries. And it is very important to prevent the team from splitting into factions. Therefore, Kuhn sometimes had to take educational measures, often unpopular. For example, the expulsion of the obstinate brothers Murat and Khakan Yakin.

The coach of the Swiss national team managed to do what his colleague Domenech failed to do - carry out a painless change of generations. The team included young, capable Senderos, Djourou, Barnetta, and the twin brothers Dejan and Fonlanten. Unfortunately, the latter was recently injured, and Kun had to urgently call the disgraced Hakan Yakin to the national team camp.

Guus Hiddink performed a miracle with the South Korean team - he led the Asians to the semi-finals. Let's see what another Dutch specialist , Dick Advocaat, can do. Recently, the Little General, as the owner of his legal surname is also called, has suffered more failures than victories - with the Dutch national team, Rangers, Borussia Munchengladbach, and the UAE national team. Nevertheless, it was Advocaat who won the competition for the position of head coach of the Korean national team , managing to beat six competitors. After the end of the World Cup, the Little General will have a new interesting and difficult job - the position of head coach of Zenit.

68-year-old German Otto Pfister has been working with the Togolese national team for only a few months. Another specialist, Nigerian Stephen Keshi, brought the Sparrow Hawks to the finalists of the World Cup. But even such an unprecedented sensation did not save Big Boss from resignation. At the African Cup held in Egypt, a scandal broke out within the Togolese team. Keshi scolded the main and only star Emmanuel Adebayor for not caring about the national team. The Arsenal forward flared up and delivered an ultimatum: either him or Keshi. The Togolese Football Federation decided that Adebayor was of great value. As for Otto Pfister, this little-known coach in Europe can safely be called a specialist in African football - he worked in Ghana, Egypt, both Congos, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso. He hasn’t achieved much success, and at the current championship, taking place in Herr Pfister’s homeland, no sensations are expected from him.

Oleg TIMOFEEV