Translated material
Football mirror
The Russian team played well against the Greeks. Strong average players whose place is not in the hall of fame. There was not enough fighting spirit, there was only hysteria. But the fighting spirit is nowhere to be found, given the situation in our football.
4 years ago, the Russian team jumped over their heads, reached the semi-finals of the European Championship, and since then we have lived by what is, by and large, an accidental success. It then coincided with the peak of Russia's economic prosperity.
Russian football, like the Russian economy, is unstable. It resembles a soap bubble, bright but meaningless.
The well-fed 2000s did not benefit Russian football.
There is no normal infrastructure. In Russia there are problems with roads, in Russian football - with stadiums. For 20 years, not a single really serious stadium has been built, not counting the small Lokomotiv stadium and the Khimki arena, where there is no one to play. In neighboring Ukraine, the oligarchs built several super-modern stadiums long before the Euro, for example, in Donetsk and Kharkov. In Russia, oligarchs are in no hurry to invest money in home arenas; as they were accustomed to working and living by proxy in the 90s, they continue to do so. Why spend money on stadiums if tomorrow your club can be taken away or ruined by unscrupulous competitors.
As in life, in our football there is a gigantic gap between Moscow and the rest of Russia. Thanks to Gazprom, only Zenit St. Petersburg has become stronger, which only irritates the public, because the club has turned into a state corporation, squeezing out the rest of Russian football. Now they are trying to conduct a football experiment in Dagestan and Chechnya, but this only emphasizes the depravity of the system.
Like the entire economy, Russian football has turned into a state corporation, where no one is responsible for anything, and everyone steals and pretends to work hard. This is fertile ground for petty crooks. The sad history of “Saturn”, “Krylya”, “Nalchik”, “Kuban” are excellent illustrations of such a business.
Russia is in a fever from the economic voluntarism of the authorities, football has shuddered from the transition to the autumn-spring system, and now part of the season is played in snow and mud.
In the structure of club income, the sale of tickets, merchandise and television broadcast rights takes up a small percentage. The rest is sponsorship pumping. But everyone lives beyond their means.
Russian football players have lost their sense of reality. They demand salaries that are inadequate for their game; clubs are forced to pay them these salaries, because the system limits competition among players.
In 2008, the team jumped above its head and reached the semi-finals of Euro 2012. A group of players went to play in Europe and were unable to prove their world class. Almost everyone returned home, home is more nourishing and calmer, you can walk across the field and advertise chips. When faced with criticism and reproaches from fans, snap back angrily.
Until recently, it was not customary to criticize Russian football, as a party and a government, otherwise they would immediately be labeled as Russia’s enemies.
It's patriotic to pretend to be an idiot. They pretend to play, and we pretend to love them. Only the stadiums are emptying, because it’s impossible to watch Russian football without tears, and the national team first swells with its own importance, and then bursts like a soap bubble. The miracle didn't happen because miracles don't happen on schedule.