Translated material
Club card
Since the beginning of the 21st century, perhaps only one new great club has appeared in the world - the French Lyon, which, by the way, is far from the richest and does not belong to any oligarch with an exotic origin of capital. True, Lyon does not yet have a single international title, but five victories in a row in the French championship and many great games in the Champions League allow us to talk about this club as a new giant. Theoretically, Chelsea has a chance of becoming a great team if Roman Abramovich’s multimillion-dollar injections are supplemented by painstaking work for a long historical perspective, independent of the specific capital of a particular person.
Alas, in Russia they are not yet really thinking about creating a so-called “dynasty team” (as it is customary to call clubs that win the national championship many times in a row), and even one that is truly capable at the international level. Although we have potential candidates for the title of great club not only on the scale of Russia. There is CSKA, which was the first Russian club to win the UEFA Cup and, in terms of player selection and financial capabilities, has every chance of winning national championships for several years in a row. There is Spartak, which unconditionally reigned in the Russian championship in the 90s, but due to frankly parochial management, it still cannot learn to play at the international level. In terms of financial capabilities, Zenit St. Petersburg has every reason to aim for great results. You can even include in this list the capital’s Dynamo, which is now facing relegation and at its last home match was awarded by its fans an eloquent banner with the image of the “notable Dynamo” Lavrentiy Beria and the inscription “He sees everything.” After all, together with Dynamo Kyiv, Moscow most often won the USSR championships.
But a truly great team in Russia will appear only when the entire club management - from the owner to the last technical employee - begins to work for the club’s reputation and feels like part of a great football idea that has been extended throughout history. Great clubs can have deep crises - take, for example, Barcelona in the 90s or the last three or four seasons of Real Madrid. But every person who finds himself in any position on such a team, every player understands that he is touching the great and, as they say, “must live up to it.” This feeling of everyone in a huge team organism helps the giants survive difficult times, again rising to the top.
At the same time, the example of Lyon shows that the size of the budget is not a prerequisite for creating a great team. Like a great repertory theater or a grandiose commercial company, such a club is created primarily through the efforts of talented, dedicated people: managers, coaches, football players. After all, now, coming to the same Lyon, a new team player feels a fundamentally different degree of responsibility than even three years ago. For comparison: even the most successful Russian clubs for the same foreign players are perceived at best as an intermediate stage of their career.
That is why, having acquired very substantial budgets thanks to a unique combination of circumstances (exorbitant world energy prices plus the political situation in the country), leading Russian clubs and their owners are simply obliged to set the ultimate goal of becoming the giants of world football. Then it will not be the height of dreams for Russian football players to win the national championship, and foreign players will come here to play not only for big money (although for them too), but also for the glorious name of the club. And the national team of the country, which has a great club, would be ashamed to play much worse than such a flagship of domestic football.