France after Brazil

The Russian team reached the final part of the European Football Championship, which will be held next summer in France. In the last match of the 2016 European Championship in 2016, the Russians won the Montenegro team 2: 0. The Russian team scored 20 points and won a ticket to the final part of Euro 2016. But now Russian football will have to deal with much more serious issues than even four mandatory victories in the final of the qualifying tournament. And the first of these issues is the name of the head coach of the national team.

I’m afraid that Russian fans have forgotten that CSKA mentor Leonid Slutsky replaced the Fabio Capello national team before the end of the Euro 2016 qualifying tournament. Now, perhaps, the idea of extending the contract with him before the end of the European Championship, or even before the end of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, is natural. But, perhaps, it is worth considering that Slutsky, in essence, is a crisis manager who worked in an emergency mode. The coach took upon himself the third serious tournament, along with the Russian Championship and the Champions League. At the same time, Slutsky had never worked in the national team before, respectively, he was never a compounder. So, continue to continue this, frankly, vicious practice?

I am sure that Slutsky in such work will sooner or later "break". Yes, his national team perfectly held four in a row of the match of the qualifying tournament, where it was necessary to win in each of them. But only one of these matches was really difficult- with the Swedes in which Russia won with a modest score of 1: 0 . Other meetings - with Liechtenstein, Moldova and deprived of incentives for Montenegro - Russia was obliged to win without questions. You can brand a chapelo as much as you like, but one cannot but admit that the players of the Russian national team received a train from him, which at the right time worked. Moreover, Sweden once again was not ready for a meeting with Russia: what is worth at least a trauma to Zlatan Ibragimovich. 8 points scored by the Capello team (3 of them - for the technical defeat of Montenegro , obtained after the disqualification of this team), are comparable with 12 points typed by the Slutsky team, although 4 wins in a row, of course, are impressive.

The separation from Austria of 8 points at the finish of the qualifying tournament - such a result in the old years would look like a natural shame!

It must be remembered that for the first time in European and world practice, 24 teams were made in the final part of the continent championship. That is, half of all European applicants! In fact, not to reach such a sparing selection to the final for the command of the level of Russia would be unthinkable. Especially with such a weak group. And the fact that the Russian team made its way to France only from second place speaks of serious problems in her game. Slutsky’s success is an undoubted success! - It should not obscure these problems, regardless of whether Slutsky will remain at the head of the team.

In the Russian team, there is a process of changing generations. There are relatively young players: Shatov, Smolov, Cheryshev, Smolnikov, Mamaev, Dziuba. But there is a group of veterans, which is not yet visible. It is unlikely that Ignashevich will play to the home World Cup. A debutant appeared next to him in defense ... But Kuzmin is also over 30. That is, there was no young player for the national team?

It is now a sin to scold the middle line - in this line, so far everything seems to be in order, especially when the game is playing with Shirokov or Denisov. Well, ahead - problems again. Kokorin did not score for a very long time, and distinguished himself in a match against Montenegro, scoring a goal from a penalty. Dziuba, having received a place in the main composition with Slutsk, stole 8 goals, but of them 4 scored Liechtenstein into the goal of the “dwarf”, which, of course, the achievement is small. Dziuba by nature is a scorer, a player who lacked the Russian team in recent years. But still we must admit that finding a “key” for the game of Dziuba is not so difficult. In the end, he is not the first player of such a plan in Europe, they have long learned to fight high and powerful forwards. In addition, Dziuba has not yet had to deal with strong European rivals at the level of national teams.

This, by the way, applies to the entire national team of Russia. After a major failure at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, it never happened that the team “jumped above the head” showed a fundamentally different level of football, capable of bringing it to the number of world leaders. The separation from Austria of 8 points at the finish of the qualifying tournament - such a result in the old years would look like a natural shame! Football Russia now really needs fundamentally new ideas, and they have nowhere to come to them from now on ...

Alexey Kuznetsov - Sports Observer Radio Liberty