Life is good

Why do I watch over and over again the scene in which two young dudes greet each other imposingly, extending their arms and clapping their palms against their palms?

At the 44th minute of the Russia-Slovakia match, young midfielders Golovin and Shatov met near our penalty area. The Slovaks at that moment were preparing to take a corner, set the ball in the sector. Having met, Golovin and Shatov greeted each other, stretching out their arms and clapping palm on palm. The score at that moment was already 1:0 in favor of Slovakia.

There is something in this micro-scene, which took only a few seconds, that makes you watch it over and over again. The fact is that there is a football cabin, and the Russian team is on the brink of the abyss. A disaster is brewing. We are being beaten. But we see the careless movement of the hands towards each other and the imposing clap of the palms. What do they want to say to each other with this gesture? What did the episode do well? What's in the openwork? That there is nothing to worry about, that the weather is fine, that they are pleased with each other, that life is good? From this scene for a hundred kilometers it reeks of relaxed complacency, casual arrogance and foppery.

Then they see that the Slovaks have already played a corner, and they run there, into the corner of the field. But it's too late, time is lost, and Gamshik removes the two young people who come running to him, like children. They scatter from him to the sides, lightweight, awkward, ridiculous dudes, and a Slovak with a crest on his skull and the face of an Indian warrior with a terrible blow in terms of strength and accuracy puts the ball into the far corner of the goal.

End. A curtain. Gamshik, who gave an outstanding pass that led to the first goal, is the second to kill the Russian team to death, this ridiculous, lethargic, pathetic team, whose players are in an inadequate state, like children spoiled with cakes and sweets, caught in a street fight. And they do not understand where they are, what is happening to them and how to behave when ferocious people with crests on their skulls are rushing around, balls fired from the rise are whistling with cannonballs, and despairing energy is compressed in the faces of people around.

I am writing the history of one minute of the thousands of beautiful minutes at Euro 2016, one minute that flashed by and has long been forgotten, but not by me. This minute remained in my memory along with others, the most important, containing the accomplishments of the football genius. Lewandowski's ramming breakthroughs, Bonucci's brilliant pass across the entire field, Shaqiri's relentless power movement, Bale's insane speed, running like a man cannot run - and in the scattering of these beautiful minutes one, in which two imposing favorites of fate, two young millionaires, two people , whose lives have gone well, slap each other on the palms, while twenty meters away the executioner is already raising an ax to kill their team.

I do not understand this. You are losing. Losing a match that could decide everything. You should be like a compressed spring, and your consciousness should be clear and precise, even if sweat fills your eyes. At the time of the corner, you have to be in the right position before they roll the ball there, playing it, you have to be there to immediately stick to Hamshik so tightly that you can feel his sweaty jersey, you have to prevent him from turning around, you have to be there before they play and roll their attack into our flank. You should be there, and all business, and no talking! But instead, there is a huge empty area in the corner of the field, and the two, slowly closing it, clap their hands, as if congratulating each other on a birthday, on a good purchase of a new Ferrari, or on a trip to a luxury hotel on the Dubai island.

Shameful, run there, run to where Gamshik is already approaching with a formidable, stern figure, run there to fall at his feet in a tackle, as the Italian defense professionals do, to close the gates with their bodies, as the heroic Icelanders do to cling to him with a bulldog grip, as Polish defenders do with the figures of athletes and the unsmiling eyes of men for whom this ball game is about something very important.

And they run. They run, those fatally and forever late midfielders. They run to fall apart with cardboard figures - Gamshiku needs one feint for two, one movement in order to destroy two young talents at once on one meter of the field.

Not only Shatov and Golovin are visible there, there is also Ignashevich, standing in the center of the penalty area, pulling up his slipped leggings, an experienced Ignashevich who has gone through a lot, who, of course, understands that in the corner, right in front of him, Gamshik will now enter the operational space. So why is the center of defense Ignashevich calmly pulling up his spats, waiting for an attack, and not growling in a brutal voice at two boys hanging out at the penalty line? Where is the terrible cry of Akinfeev - why did the goats stand up in the corner at a run! - because the goalkeeper has to shout it, has to goad dudes who have found the wrong time for imposing greetings. But no, everyone is silent, everyone is busy with something of their own, and Gamshik freely takes the ball to kill them all with his incredible blow.

There, by the way, not only Ignashevich tightens his leggings. They are pulled up by someone else on the front post, I can’t distinguish the number. Oh, what good fellows, that's right, the athlete must be neat, the form must be in order. And I want to get my face into the display, stick myself up to the shoulders in France, in the European summer, on that already past day in Toulouse, and yell at them all: forget about those damn leggings, but gather your brains, and throw off the cotton wool with souls, wake up, cheer up, Gamshik is there, and he is going to kill you. And then you will have only defeat and shame. But you will not break through the days and hours at that moment, you will not reach other people's souls with a cry.

Now on the Internet, people are collecting signatures for a petition demanding the dissolution of the Russian national football team. That's right, why is she needed? Why do we need this pompous, glamorous T-shirt of millionaires, created by the authorities and the oligarchs, who expressed their attitude towards the country in this creation. There is no medicine, but there is the Hulk. Pensions are lower than in crisis Greece, and the salaries of football players are higher than in the Bundesliga. And all this is pulled, covered up, entangled in kickbacks, corruption, criminal tricks coming from the very top.

All this football is one continuous show-off. The whole domineering, oligarchic Russia is nothing but sheer show-offs: to rob a neighbor who is in trouble with a thug whistle, to rush over American ships like air punks, to be rude to everyone, to lie to everyone, to take money out of the country with cellos and to ask children who almost drowned in the lake: “Well, how did you swim?" And when the time comes to answer, everyone fades away, there will be no one, and it will be like on a football field, when the same boy Golovin wandered from player to player with a captain's armband in his hands, not knowing who to give it to. How can you not know who is the captain and vice-captain on your team? But the boy did not know, he walked among the players and asked: “Uncle, listen, who is our captain here? Are you our captain? Is he our captain?

Unforgettable moments are given to us by the Russian comic team. Roman Shirokov, who once called the Slovaks a “collective farm” (is this Gamshik, or what, a collective farm? Is this Weiss, or what, a collective farm?), Entering the field as a substitute in a game against the Slovakian national team, with a score of 0: 2, he laughed at edge. Imposing Roman smiled broadly with his beautiful teeth, as if he had to go not to the football field at a tragic moment, but to the beach to have some fun. I don't know what he was laughing at. Maybe the man with the scoreboard in his hands was joking, maybe the weather was so good, and the prospects for the summer are so great that the game of the dying Russian team somehow became not very important to him ... Yes, indeed, to be killed because of this football , whether?

Pavel Mamaev, another talent, separated from the national team after leaving the Euro, went to Nice and from there flew to Russia in a private jet. Mamaev didn’t have the sense to remain modestly silent, as if he didn’t understand how an athlete who suffered a defeat should behave, he joyfully and even mockingly informed his fans in Russia about Nice and a private plane on Instagram. Well, that's right, you worry there, suckers with two kopecks of annual income, and I flew on a private jet, everything is fine with me. Fly, fly, Pavel!

Yes, the matches of the one-eighth final are already underway, the train has already gone far ahead, the Russian team has already gone home, having acquired the title of one of the worst teams in the championship, and it's time to write about outstanding people and wonderful teams of Euro 2016, and I keep looking at this amazing and a microscene, terrible in its frank absurdity, I still experience this moment, because I feel that our whole life is compressed and concentrated in it.