We are losing under Capello too

Photo: RIA Novosti

Sooner or later this had to happen. There is no path only forward and only in a straight line. And it’s better when the defeats that happen still teach you something. Sometimes in our conditions they do not teach, but only strengthen the traditionally mastered genre of blaming the judge for all sins.

Sometimes in the editorial office we laugh at my deputy at Radio Sport, Nobel Arustamyan, who, after some 0:5 in the next corporate tournament, talks for a long time about how the referee is to blame for the defeat. After all, it was he who did not give a 100% penalty when the score was 0:4. If we had scored a goal at that moment, the game would have gone according to a completely different scenario.

But professional football players come up with exactly the same excuses. Our youth team lost to the Dutch 1:5 - and there was the same talk that the game was broken by the referee, who at some point did not give a penalty. For mercy's sake, what kind of team are you that floats away from a referee's error or an unjustified red card? 1:5 no judge in the world will do it himself.

And “adults” differ in the same way. How many nods were made to the mistake of the referee who did not give a penalty in the first half!

But that’s not what we’ll talk about now.

When a team loses - it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a club or a national team - stories will always surface about certain, let’s say, different approaches, different points of view that are present in the team. The worse the tournament situation, the more information comes out about conflicts in the team. Of course, this dependence is not so clear-cut, but in general it exists. It is logical to assume that after the first defeat under Capello - from the Portuguese national team in Lisbon - talk about how not everything was going well in the team would have quietly begun. Of course, it is a human trait to look for simple answers to not always simple questions. But it’s no secret that not only fans and other representatives of the expert community are guilty of this, but also functionaries.

I will not now retell the stories, well known to all representatives of the journalistic fraternity who flew to the match on June 7 in Lisbon, about how Tolstykh, darker than a cloud, entered the national team’s locker room, without shaking hands with Capello. It was after the national team’s defeat that rumors intensified that the Italian was being called a “pasta man” behind his back in the leadership circles of the RFU, that they were dissatisfied with almost every step he took, the routes he chose for training camps, hotels, etc.

And here we must pay tribute to Fabio Capello, who simply treats many things philosophically. Yes, he gets annoyed when he has to take out his own credit card and pay for something that, in principle, he himself should not pay for. Yes, he just boils when the RFU gives him tickets for the European Cup final, and they end up not in the VIP sector, where people of this rank are supposed to sit, but almost on the border with the fan zone - in the area of ​​the corner flag. But in each of these situations the lord boiled over, but never with a word! - didn’t say anything about one thing or another. And the reasons were very humiliating.

Each national federation has, as is known, its own small quota of tickets for international matches. These tickets cannot be purchased. And they go to one or another representative of the federation or coaching staff. It is clear that Capello goes to football not only to look at and select candidates for the national team (neither Chelsea, nor Benfica, nor Bayern, nor Borussia play!). An elite coach must see football performed by elite clubs - simply in order not to lower his own bar, so that his eyes are not blurred from watching only the matches of Tom, Volga and Zenit, torn by internal contradictions. And someone from the RFU sits in these seats, and the coach is given some second category tickets.

But let's return to the Portugal-Russia match. The result is known to all football fans. 1:0. This is the first time we missed out in this qualifying round. We lost for the first time. For the first time - I would like to believe that it was not for long - we let the Portuguese take first place in the standings. “In the calculation” - with such a headline the newspaper “Sport Express” came out the next morning. It meant that we beat the Portuguese at home with a score of 1:0. Now they beat us with the same score in Lisbon. We scored a quick goal early in the match. They scored almost the same quick goal. And both times the score did not change until the final whistle. But this comparison is disingenuous. Because that's probably where all the similarities end. In the first match, having scored a generally random goal, we retreated to the defensive and defended almost the entire game. They did it very efficiently, they did it in a collected manner, they did it selflessly, which greatly surprised even their own fans. And this one goal was defended. And suddenly they became the leaders of the group.

Now the situation was completely different. No, relaxation did not reign at all in our every movement. No, the players were seriously going for victory. And these were not bravura statements. The representatives of CSKA as part of the national team sincerely wanted, after two victories in a row - in the championship and the Cup - to go on vacation on a very positive note. But there is one problem: when there is nowhere to retreat, we are capable of feats. When we approach a match as favorites (not favorites in a particular match with Portugal, but favorites in the fight for first place in the group) and when there is an underlying understanding that defeat will not be a disaster, then we should not expect heroic deeds. Yes, there were moments to win back. And half moments, and completely 100% moments. But they didn’t fight to the end, they didn’t die. There wasn't even a final push on the opponent's goal.

And there were thoughts in my head - not obviously, but subconsciously - the thoughts that there were two matches left, that even if we let the Portuguese go ahead, we would still catch up with them a little more. But we still need to win these two matches. And we are very good at giving unnecessary points to not the strongest opponents.

When you have a vacation ahead, when the season is over, you are faced with a simple choice. Even if you don’t formulate this dilemma for yourself, it still exists. Either you die on the field, you fight, but you risk getting injured and instead of taking a vacation, you then need to be treated, recover, come to your senses, or you want to find yourself on this vacation as quickly as possible. And many on the field, latently, not explicitly, but still chose the latter option. As a result, the TV viewer will remember not only Glushakov’s miss in front of an empty goal after Kombarov’s pass or a couple of other episodes, but also the coach’s suit with a colored shirt, a yard long – half screen wide! - advertising credits about Masha Sharapova's tennis final, countless advertisements for vodka on the sides along the field. All this will be remembered. But the game itself is much less so.