Money bag on head

The difficult stories of searching for a head coach for the England and Australia national teams, as well as conflicting information surrounding the extension of the contract with the coach of the Russian national team, Guus Hiddink, are links in the same chain. The outrageous salaries of national team coaches, whose federations want to achieve breakthrough results, drive football bosses into a trap: they either have to hire world-famous coaches (who, however, can be bought up at any time by another national federation or a club with money - like Zenit stole Dick Advocaat from Australia), but it is very expensive, or you can be content with relatively cheap, but less well-known domestic or foreign specialists.

When the English National Football Association hired Swede Sven-Göran Eriksson as head coach of the national team (for the founders of football, the very fact of inviting a foreigner to this post - for the first time in history - was a culture shock), the most harsh comments were drawn to his salary. When, after another failure of the British at the 2006 World Cup (defeat in the quarterfinals to the Portuguese on penalties), the Swede was fired, they decided to make his assistant Steve McClaren the head coach. In terms of salary, this coach cost the English federation much less, but under him, the national team did not qualify for the European Championship for the first time since 1984. And now English football bosses are again looking for a foreigner with a name. And the most preferred candidate for this post, judging by polls of British fans, Portuguese Jose Mourinho, quite logically demands a salary “like Eriksson’s.”

By the way, the Russian team found itself in a similar position. Yes, now Roman Abramovich actually pays a very respectable salary to the really cool coach Guus Hiddink. But after Hiddink’s departure, we will be faced with the same problem: trusting the national team to a relatively cheap domestic specialist or looking for a world top coach with a salary no less than Hiddink’s. By the way, the head of the Russian Football Union, Vitaly Mutko, is aware of this problem: it is no coincidence that he already once made it clear that after the 2010 World Cup (when Hiddink’s extended contract is due to end), the national team will be led by one of the team of young domestic specialists (Rakhimov - Slutsky - -Yuran). However, if, for example, we unsuccessfully conduct the qualifying round for the World Cup, and the country’s leadership wants outstanding results, an attempt may again be made to buy a seasoned foreign coach for huge amounts of money.

That is why it is very important, taking advantage of Hiddink’s salary, name and energy, to satisfy his requests regarding the construction (literally and figuratively) of a base for Russian national teams. In this case, Hus is really not trying for himself: it is very difficult to repeat the feat of the German Otto Rehhagel, who became practically a living Olympian god in Greece, after he led the team of this small football power to victory at the 2004 European Championship. Of course, if under Hiddink we accomplish some feat at Euro 2008 or at the 2010 World Championship (where else we need to get through), Hus has a chance, following the coach of our men's basketball team, American David Blatt, to become an honored coach of the Russian Federation. But the main thing is that after Hiddink’s departure, his successor does not start virtually from scratch, as happened throughout the history of the Russian national team after the collapse of the USSR.

Thanks to oil and gas prices, Russia may still have the opportunity for some time to buy world-class coaches for leading clubs (for us this is still important, since there are practically no foreign players in the national team) and for the national team itself. But in the battle of money bags, Russia, far from being the most football country, may not win: coaching the same England team for top-class coaches is still more prestigious than our team.

Therefore, you can really try the path that Italy and Germany took, entrusting their national teams to “young specialists”. But unlike us, they have a well-functioning system of interaction between teams of all levels, great football victories, and a stronger national championship. But our bar is much lower: if the Russian team simply qualified from the group at Euro 2008 or reached the quarterfinals of the World Championship, like our Ukrainian brothers in 2006, it would look like an outstanding success. And for the Italians and the Germans it would be, if not a failure, then certainly a failure.

So Russian coaches, who are now in their late 40s or early 40s, clearly have a chance to coach the Russian national team in the foreseeable future...

Semyon Novoprudsky