Yakovlev tortured Albania

The Russian youth team beat the Albanian team

The Russian youth team only wins in the qualification for the Euro

RIA Novosti The Russian youth team beat the Albanian team on the road in the Euro 2013 qualifying match. The only goal in this meeting was scored by Fedor Smolov, who in the second half converted a penalty awarded for the demolition of Pavel Yakovlev.

The Russian youth team won its fourth victory in a row in qualifying for the 2013 European Championship, breaking the resistance of the Albanian team on the road. With 12 points, Nikolai Pisarev 's team confidently leads qualifying group 6, in addition to the Albanians, ahead of the Portuguese, Poles and Moldovans.

The Albanian national team has left its mark on Russian football. Even a dark spot. In March 2003, the Albanians inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Russian team at home. More than eight years have passed, but the Shkodra shame of Valery Gazzaev’s squad has not yet been forgotten, and besides, the domestic ball wizards never fought with the Albanian team again.

Our youth team, led by Andrei Chernyshov , then defeated their Albanian peers, but did not qualify for the Euro (unlike, by the way, from the first team), losing to the Swiss in the decisive match. Our youth team did not go to the next continental championship, missed the 2007 European Championship, and failed in the selection for Euro 2009 and Euro 2011. Failure followed failure, the youth team, and especially its coaches Igor Kolyvanov and Boris Stukalov, were criticized mercilessly.

But finally, a breakthrough came. Both in terms of results and in terms of the game.

The Russian young football players played their first match under the leadership of Nikolai Pisarev excellently, beating the French 1:0 on the road. Then the Russians defeated the Ukrainians (3:0), literally crushed the teams of Guinea (7:3) and Azerbaijan (8:0), played a draw with the formidable Spaniards (1:1) and lost to the Italians in a bitter struggle (0:2) . As for the selection for the 2013 Old World Championship, in the qualifying tournament things are going well for Pisarev’s team. In the first meetings, the Russians beat the visiting teams of Poland (2:0) and Moldova (6:0), and on October 11 in Moscow they won a brilliant victory over the Portuguese team with a score of 2:1. And on Tuesday the Albanians came under attack.

The leadership of Albanian football preferred ancient Durres, founded in the times of Ancient Greece, to Skopje and the lucky Shkoder.

The stadium where the meeting took place looked more like an ancient arena than a modern sports facility.

Moreover, the arena is not in the best condition. In any case, one of the central stands of the Niko Dovan, which was not equipped with plastic seats, apparently did not function due to the fact that it was in disrepair. However, it is possible that tickets for it simply were not sold due to the low excitement.

The match began with a minute of silence in memory of the legendary striker of the USSR national team and Moscow Torpedo Valentin Ivanov , who died on November 8 at the age of 77.

The receiving party certainly deserves credit. For example, when in 1999, the Moscow “Spartak”, a few days after the explosions of residential buildings in Moscow, played in the Dutch Tilburg with the local “Willem II”, the request of the red and white to organize a minute of silence in memory of hundreds of dead Muscovites was rejected.

From the very first minutes, the Albanians made it clear that they were not going to put up with the role of outsiders. True, while the hosts acted generally well in defense in the first 45 minutes, in attack they looked, to put it mildly, unimpressive. It was already clear that Russian football players were more technical and skilled, but the game in Durres only confirmed this fact. The Albanians fought desperately, but our opponents' passing game was absolutely not going well, and there were problems in winning.

The Russians played sluggishly at first, not sharp at all, as if they had forgotten how they defeated the Portuguese a month ago.

However, in the middle of the half, Nikolai Pisarev's team finally perked up, sharply increasing its speed. As a result, chances at Stevie Frasheri's goal began to appear regularly. The Albanian defenders could not keep up with Yakovlev and Smolov, and the main threat to the hosts' goal came from the flanks. They also had difficulty coping with the midline players, and Maxim Kanunnikov, who acted in the center of the attack, kept slipping out of sight of the Albanian defencists. However, our players failed to finish the Albanian goalkeeper before the break. The execution let us down - Kanunnikov had at least two 100 percent chances - first, the Tom striker missed the target from two meters, and then, while falling, sent the ball just wide of the goal with his head.

It seemed that in the second half of the meeting the Russian youth team would put the squeeze on their opponents without any problems. However, the play of our football players has not changed at all, but, on the contrary, has faded.

The Albanians, on the contrary, stepped it up and even created several very acute situations at the gates of Nikolai Zabolotny .

However, the goalkeeper of Moscow “Spartak” did not make a mistake, in particular, he saved our team by parrying a dangerous shot into the bottom corner.

Nevertheless, Nikolai Pisarev’s team still achieved their goal. In the middle of the second half, Pavel Yakovlev received the ball on the left flank, moved into the penalty area, where he was brought down by Albania defender Dorian Kerciku . The referee immediately pointed to the 11-meter mark. Fedor Smolov approached the point and confidently sent the ball into the bottom corner.

At the end of the match, the Albanians withstood the desperate assault on our gates, but the Russians held out and achieved a much-needed victory. You could say they took revenge for the shame of 2003. The Russian team has a very high chance of winning first place in the qualifying group.

The Russian youth team will play its next qualifying match on June 1 next year against Portugal.

Gazeta.Ru conducted an online broadcast of the match between the youth teams of Albania and Russia.

Other news and notes can be found on the international football page .

Yakovlev tortured Albania - Gazeta.Ru