Gotharg takes the courage

Russia won the euro ahead of schedule - making a bet on young and motivated

The Russian national team won the Swedish games, as well as the November “Kharv Cup” with an absolute result, and again the forces of youth. As a result, the gap from the rivals turned out to be such that for the first time in four years a victory was won in Eurotour, and ahead of schedule.

As the head coach Oleg Znarok, who does not love to communicate with reporters, said after the final victory over the Czechs in Gotyrga, this suggests that he does not say anything. That is, our business is to pretend the options, and it is to know the layouts, and the knowledgeable public will not open anything significant to the public for the time being. His right and his business. But, perhaps, Oleg Valerievich himself does not know what concept he will get on and who will be lucky for the 2017 World Cup in Cologne, not to mention Pyeongchang-2018.

The fact that young people walked through rivals in Helsinki with a victorious march was considered a successful experiment. The fact that this was repeated at the Swedish games already speaks of a focused rate on the energy of young and motivated. Between these two stages, there was a partially scandalous Channel Cup, which brilliantly lost a much more serious version of the team’s composition.

A positive result speaks for itself, but it’s too early to talk about the revolution. Not a single coach in the world is lucky for the main tournament of the year exclusively young hockey players, let them have already managed to declare themselves at the level of the first team. EURTORTURTIONS, with all its minuses, and remains an excellent landfill to run -in the recent juniors and debutants of the national team, of which there were almost two dozen in three stages, but by no means a decisive measure to change the course.

Maybe the knowledge of this would like - the youth easily perceives his game ideas and successfully embodies a style based on speed, power struggle, militancy, coordinated work in defense and rapid counterattacks. Here he, perhaps, recalls his two victorious seasons with Dynamo-and in SKA, which Znarok accepted this summer, and which is still considered the base club of the national team, at least by names, hockey is still a slightly different, thinner.

What the head coach wanted to achieve, when he now included only two representatives of his club, is not very clear, especially taking into account the fact that the match was held in St. Petersburg. Perhaps Oleg Valerievich holds the main task of the season in his mind - to take the Gagarin Cup, for which he protects the wards - and with the team it turns out, this is the number two.

Today, hockey players who play in clubs, among the applicants for the Gagarin Cup are not included, more than that, more than that, about this and not thinking. The same Anatoly Golyshev, perhaps the brightest striker of the Swedish games, in the "Automobileist" only the pale shadow of himself. A link that broke the Chekhov from the Novosibirsk "Siberia" is conducting a desperate struggle for a place in the eight. The best striker of the stage Kirill Kaprizov, who made the youngest hat-trick of the Russian national team in a match with the owners, may also not get with his “Salavat Yulaev” into the treasured eight. The fact that the Novokuznetsk citizen was talented was clear for a long time, but the fact that he would make his debut so brightly surprised everyone, including rivals.

All three goalkeepers, who represented the top clubs-Igor Shesterkin from SKA, Ilya Sorokin from CSKA, and debuted in the first team, the youngest of this trio, Ilya Samsonov from Magnitogorsk made a contribution to the victory. So that all three goalkeepers have about twenty-to be honest, I don’t remember that everyone played in the match, and Six for one game with the Finns in St. Petersburg, perhaps the most difficult, also received the prize to the best goalkeeper of the entire stage. Miracles, and nothing more.

It was not boring, just victories were not given, but how fun the guys did their job, and captured, and aroused respect.

It was clear that such an energy-consuming combat style at the World Cup may not ride, especially in decisive matches, that the masters of positional attack and just large masters of the national team are needed, but some kind of impulse from the boys all the monsters, including Pavel Datsyuk, Sergey Mozyakin and Ilya Kovalchuk, were supposed to receive. Motivation is a great thing, and in the actions of this team it was more than enough. Although you can’t organize one motivation and dedication of a hat-trick, and you won’t get a prize for the best defender, and he went to the St. Petersburg army man Yegor Rykov.

It is possible to seriously blame the coaching staff of the Russian national team, perhaps, only in the fact that he threw Andrei Svetlakov, who barely managed to recover in the battle of the capital's army of the capital after the next concussion, and he received another blow to the head and could not continue the match. If the team’s coaches have such wide possibilities for the variability of the composition - then why risk a talented guy “to gain experience”?

By the way, the main part of the Swedish games was held in Scandinavium, a happy palace for the Russian national team, where she literally shut the silver medals of the World Cup after eight in a row of wicked years. Maybe there is some kind of sign in this now.

... And in the National Hockey League, they had not yet decided whether to let their hockey players go to the Olympics in Pyeongchang, or not to let go. Moreover, behind the ocean they will be pulled to the last, and so far they are more inclined to “not let go”, which can lead to a very serious rotation at the World Cup with a minimum of legionnaire assistance. The coaching staff of the Russian national team has to be kept in the mind and such an unfavorable option for world hockey, which was partly caused by the current experiment with a test of more than 40 players.

And they, albeit not without a share of luck, have already won this eurour - by the way, the team of Oleg Znarka completed the two previous tournaments in the last place. And the world championships after that lost, although she took medals. The current "youth breakthrough" pleases, but does not promise anything in the near future.

Although what pleases is already good.