PEACE TO OUR TALENTS

Foreign coaches lead four Russian teams in team sports

In the history of Russian and even more so Soviet sports, there has never been such a picture: we entrusted foreign specialists to raise football, basketball and volleyball (male and female) loved by the people - the main teams of the country today ...

In the history of Russian and even more so Soviet sports, there has never been such a picture: we entrusted foreign specialists to raise the football, basketball and volleyball (male and female) beloved by the people - the main teams of the country today are headed by the Dutchman Guus Hiddink, an American with an Israeli passport David Blatt, a Serbian Zoran Gajic and Italian Giovanni Caprara.

How we got to this life - no need to explain. Having failed several major tournaments and having tried almost all the coaches (some led the teams more than once), our fathers-leaders, hiding their sense of shame away, decided to turn their eyes to the West.

... In principle, functionaries from football, basketball and volleyball turned their eyes to the West a long time ago. But at first it was timid attempts of the club presidents to strengthen their teams with legionnaires. Do you remember what a sensation the arrival of two Brazilians - Da Silva and Junior - to Nizhny Novgorod and the Syrian Makhluf to the Sochi Zhemchuzhina, which fans went to look at as exotic, made a splash?

Starting from the mid-90s, foreigners began to take root in our sport even more actively. The newspapers praised the legionnaires who arrived, the fans rejoiced that our country was finally catching up with Europe. And few people paid attention to the fact that the number of "mercenaries" began to increase exponentially, but the quality of their game left much to be desired. The presidents wanted results and victories immediately, and a kind of "legionnaires' race" began in Russia - who will invite more and offer a larger amount.

As a result of this illness, we gradually began to forget about the successes of our teams in the international arena. How else? For many years, the same players played in T-shirts with the inscription Russia, as the young ones did not manage to break even into the backup squads of their clubs, therefore, they did not even progress at all. There was no one to strengthen, and the old guard was gradually losing physical condition and motivation ...

But the owners of the clubs did not and do not care about the problems of the national teams. They have their own policy: since the teams consist of practically only "Varangians", then maybe they should invite coaches from over the hill - they reasoned "sensibly". And - away we go!

To list all the foreign specialists who have worked for the benefit of our clubs over the past three years is a useless exercise. Let me just mention a few names. Portuguese Artur Jorge, Czechs Vlastimil Petrzhela and Yaroslav Gzhebik (football), their countrymen Ivan Glinka, Vladimir Vuytek, Marek Sikora (hockey), Israeli Zvi Sherf and Italian Fabio Fosatti (basketball), Spaniard Rodrigo (futsal). Serb Dusan Ivkovic, Italian Ettore Messina, Greek Fotis Katsikaris, Slovak Vladimir Weiss, Canadian Dave King continue to work with Russian teams...

It must be admitted that many of those named have achieved great success with their clubs, brought something new to the training process (for example, they left the wild practice of weekly camps). But each specialist often brings with him compatriots, and even foreign players who are well known to him from work in other clubs and, therefore, refuses the services of local athletes. Of course, sport has long become international, but you can’t make up a national team from legionnaires ...

Of course, the invitation of the "four musketeers", especially David Blatt and Zoran Gajic, who had worked and lived in Russia before, was by no means a spontaneous step. But is this correct?

Of course, foreign coaches are more professional than our specialists: from planning the training process to communicating with the press and fans. And they are used to fulfilling the contract in full. The conflicts between the clubs and the national team, as well as the “wars” of individual functionaries, are not of interest to them. They do not waste time discussing refereeing and do not weave behind-the-scenes intrigues. Plus, they are maximalists: for them there is only the first place. But in life, as you know, miracles are rare. All invited experts are not Hottabychi.

And we must not forget that our new mentors are temporary workers (all of them were hired primarily with an eye on Beijing 2008 and Euro 2008), you can’t ask them for the full program in case of failure. “We tried - it didn’t work out; made some mistakes, but the team has a good future…” – that’s what we are likely to hear from them without getting on the podium. In any case, they will leave, having decently replenished their bank account, and we will remain with our problems.

It’s good that Alexander Borodyuk helps Guus Hiddink, Evgeny Pashutin helps David Blatt, Giovanni Caprara is helped by his wife Irina Kirillova, Zoran Gayich is helped by Yaroslav Antonov. All of them in the future, having gained experience from well-known coaches, can lead the main teams of the country. The main thing is that they do not sit out their time behind their backs, otherwise you will have to bow to foreign coaches all the time ...

After all, the dominance of coaches-legionnaires is the same trouble as the invasion of legionnaires-players. Where, tell me, do the new mentors of the national team level come from? Romantsev, Semin, Gazzaev, Belov, Eremin, Shipulin did not immediately become what they became. Today, their time is running out, and no one has yet come to replace them. Or rather, foreigners came, because our functionaries simply stopped trusting their young specialists. Afraid. Igor Kolyvanov is the only pleasant exception.

“The natives don’t want to work in the Russian national team…” sports officials justify themselves. “For a foreign coach, we can easily find two million dollars, but for ours we are not able to find even twenty thousand,” retorts Viktor Tikhonov. Maybe this is also one of the problems?

I won't be surprised if in the end it turns out that the presidents of the federations invited foreigners, for whom the "X-hour" will come this fall, in order to simply retain their posts. Indeed, in the event of embarrassment of at least one of the four "tourists", it is easy to hide behind the wording: "If you wanted a Varangian, you will get it, but we have nothing to do with it" - as easy as shelling pears...