A click on the nose. But not that

In the absence of star veterans, the Russian team looks, to put it mildly, strange

The case was in Freiburg, where the Russian national team, as part of the European hockey call, held the first control match in preparation for the World Cup, which remained three weeks left. Eurozov was invented by the International Hockey Federation, to which the dense calendar of national championships and the established framework of Eurotour leave little space for maneuver. Here, with the presentation of the President of the IIHF Rene Fasel, four top-collections in April and meet with the teams of the second European echelon-so that representatives of the great hockey powers do not lift their nose too much, and the Germans and the Swiss did not feel deprived.

Eurozov took a start when hockey Europe (including Russia) has not yet dealt with club affairs. The Germans put half the experimental composition, and the head coach of the Russian national team brought to Germany the third team from which there are a chance to go to the World Cup only three or four people.

To recall that in May last year at the World Cup in Bratislava in the presence of almost all Russian stars, our Germans lost to the Germans with a dry score, could the defender of Neftekhimik Nikolai Belov could. So the thirst for the revenge of new candidates did not overwhelm, and the status of the match did not oblige them to give all the best: most hockey players understood in advance that it was too early for them to think about a trip to Stockholm. And the fact that representatives of Severstal, CSKA, Torpedo, Atlanta and Motorist under the flag of the national team did not add to this strange team did not add. In Freiburg, the “Ice rink of Franz Siegel” witnessed the victory of the hosts with an advantage of one puck, the next day in Raven Basburg, the guests left the defeat in the third period and prevailed in the series of shootouts by Denis Abdullin’s efforts from the “motorist”.

In Bilyaletdinov, not a single muscle on the face trembled - the matches are “very necessary and useful for the future”, and as for the World Cup, “we must speak with dignity” and through Stockholm “prepare for Sochi”. After two in a row, the new head coach of the national team is already scolded by the Eurotour, but Bill is oppressed by his line, not paying attention to criticism.

The line lies in the fact that on the heritage of the duet Vyacheslav Bykov - Igor Zakharkin, he is not going to go in principle. Here in the Russian football team Dick, a lawyer rides on a hiddin cart drawn up by a huset - and nothing, for the time being, rolls up for the time being. But the lawyer does not have Sochi ahead, he has close and mundane tasks, and Zinetula Khaidarovich set the task - to take gold at the “home” Olympiad. Which will serve as an excuse in the event of a very probable failure of the hosts in the overall standings.

Here, Bilyaletdinov, finding himself between the hammer of the World Cup and the icy Olympics, and maneuver-partly not from a good life, partly because of his stubbornness. However, the latter is characteristic of all large coaches: if they listened to numerous advisers, they would not have achieved anything in their lives.

Not only did Zinetula Khaidarovich abandon the services of a number of star veterans playing in Russia of the previous draft. Even now, when most real candidates for a trip to Stockholm were released, he left the houses already called up under the banners of the national team Danis Zaripov, Alexei Tereshchenko, Ilya Nikulin, Konstantin Korneev, Nikolai Zherdev, Alexander Svitov and Konstantin Barulin. The fact that the national team in Germany would look different with them, there is no doubt. But the national headquarters of the national team decided that it would be more useful to relax to them (as well as the Gagarin Cup for the Gagarin Cup for the Hockey, and other candidates, including those unknown to a wide range of fans, should be checked.

As a result, the Germans ran running around the Russians on the site, pushed the pikelet, and only one and a half links led by the army man Ilya Zubov and Cherepovecin Vadim Shchipachev were able to offer more or less meaningful actions in the attack. It is not the fact that, along with goalkeepers, world champions, Vasily Koshechkin and Mikhail Biryukov (the first defended the gates of the national team after a large break), will go to Stockholm.

Because in fact, if you do not rest on the slogan “The Road of the Young”, Bilyaletdinov’s choice is quite large. And here, and, importantly, behind the ocean. The national team “near Sochi” plays 70 percent in the NHL, and in a year this percentage will only increase. And, perhaps, now the head coach will try to attract promising young children playing the ocean to the national team. Defender Nikita Nikitin has already received an invitation, striker Alexander Burmistrov and goalkeeper Semyon Barlamov, most likely, will most likely not ignore. Moreover, they have already been freed: the NHL regular championship has been completed, and there are already a dozen candidates among loser clubs.

And by the end of the first round, that is, ten days before the start of the World Cup, the main persons can also be released. For the first time he pricked 50 goals and became the best scorer of the NHL championship Evgeny Malkin, Ilya Bryzgalov went out with his Pittsburgh at Philadelphia; Alexander Radulov hated everywhere and helped his “Nashville” with the finish spurt to go to Detroit Pavel Datsyuk; All the chances of flying out in confrontation with Boston have the Russian NHL Russian Club (Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Dmitry Orlov) Washington; Ilya Kovalchuk in New Jersey will have to tinker with Florida. The situation develops in such a way that five or seven people who obviously will not interfere, will be able to join it if they wish to join it at the final stage of training.

I won’t be surprised if by early May out of two dozen, two or three people will remain in the national team of recruits in the national team. Already on Friday and Saturday in Yaroslavl, where the Russian team, as part of the continuation of Eurozov, will accept the Slovakian team, we will see the composition closer to the "Stockholm" composition. A week later, in Riga, the last matches of Eurovlia with the national team of Latvia will be completed completely, and at the Czech stage of Eurotour the composition will be 80 percent formed.

Maybe we will forget about the unsuccessful warrior in Germany by that time. Although I would not advise hockey players about clicking on the nose.

They also play with the Germans and in Stockholm.