A few words about football

In connection with the European Championship held for the Russian national team, an old joke from Soviet times comes to mind. Recruits of the sports company lined up in front of the commander, who conducts the first roll call. He approaches each athlete and asks what sport he was involved in. After roll call he commands: Athletes to the right, football players to the left. What, the latter ask: are football players no longer athletes? Of course,” the commander replies, “not athletes.” Hockey players, yes! They go to ice training at four in the morning. Skiers and runners run 50 times in one training session with acceleration up a 45-degree hill one and a half kilometers long, and then again on one leg. Boxers, weightlifters work hard at every training session - don’t worry, mother... etc. continues the commander. And those who like to mess around - they go to play football, and everyone loves football with beer - so everyone forgives them...

A lot is remembered in connection with the performance of our football players. The last one was the World Hockey Championship, when REAL world hockey stars and REAL KHL stars fought in every match for themselves, their team, their country. I remember the game of clubs in the USSR championship, especially in the 80s, when there was a fight for the championship (and not the appointment of a champion): Moscow Spartak, Dynamo Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk Dnepr, Tbilisi Dynamo, Yerevan Ararat and several other teams could become national champions. And for each place in the national team there were 5-6 candidates. By the way, we also had enough coaches - they even sent them to other countries.