Is our whole life football?

I don’t know why or how this happened, but we don’t have more political sporting competitions than football. Can anyone spot the political subtext in Sharapova's fight with an American, a German, an Englishwoman or a Serbian? Hardly...

Even in hockey, when the USSR “fought” the “class enemy” Canadians, I believe there was less political confrontation than when the “brotherly” teams of Ukraine and Russia meet in recent history.

So, in the “performance” of our football team at the European Championship, I also saw a political subtext. Alas, he is sinful and not without stereotypes.

Three matches were played. The first is a resounding victory. The second is not a convincing draw. The third is a convincing defeat. Does this sequence remind anyone of anything?

2000-2008 - a convincing triumph of the “vertical of power”: the oligarchs are either sitting (in prison, in governor’s and other chairs) or simply regularly paying taxes, the population has money to vacation in Turkey and Egypt in a 3-star hotel in the summer, and not in a 6-acre garden in the suburbs.

2008-2012 – unconvincing stability of succession of power. The team is still the same, but the game is not going well. As soon as they scored (only one tank throw to Tbilisi), they were immediately raked (oil around $30).

2012 – present: the team captain is back on the field, but there is no game at all. There are a lot of shots against someone else's goal, but they all miss. I really want to score, but vanity and self-confidence get in the way. They can hit hard, but they hit... And the stands see everything... and are disappointed. The disappointment is all the more intense because just the day before they received slaps to the face, kidneys and other vital organs from the “adversaries” for believing in the victory of their team.

But some of the victims came on trains donated by the “tsar”: to get sick, to relax. We didn’t rest, but we got sick... in the sense of being in the hospital, and some even ended up in a prison bed.

There is no desire to wish victory to such a “team”. They didn’t play for their country, for the sake of their fans, and it’s generally not clear why they “deflated” so quickly, for whom or what are they playing so mediocrely?