MOSCOW. (Alexander Gorbunov for RIA Novosti) - The Russian national soccer team has wrapped up its summer round of qualifiers for the European Championship.
In its two matches, it has earned four points out of a possible six. In St. Petersburg, it defeated Andorra's weak side 4-0, and in Zagreb held the strong Croatians to a 0-0 draw. The result, considering that in Croatia the Russians played against the best team in its group, is not bad. But the playing skills shown in the game were depressing.
Guus Hiddink, the Dutch coach of the Russian team, said: "We have made a lot of progress since last August. The team is more athletic and mobile now. Currently we are trying to lay a foundation for successfully competing not only in the European Championship finals, but also in the World Championship qualifiers. The men are progressing, and that progress is there for all to see."
Hiddink's optimism is understandable. Coaches, especially ones hired to work in countries other than their own, tend to indulge in wishful thinking. They are expected to work miracles, while actually they turn out to be no better than home-grown professionals who have some really good records at clubs and on the national team. One example is CSKA coach Valery Gazzayev, who helped his team to win the UEFA Cup. Or Oleg Romantsev, whose Spartak has made it to three European Cup semifinals, as well as the European and world championships. Or Yury Syomin, whose Lokomotiv leaped into the news with its major victories over such clubs as Inter Milan, which are major accomplishments.
His words suggest that under previous coaches the Russian national side was regressing. But there are few if any grounds for such an assessment of the work of Hiddink's predecessors, and not only those who once steered Russia to world and European championships. In all probability, Hiddink took on faith the recent remark by Russian Football Union president Vitaly Mutko about Russia's "setbacks in the latest qualifying rounds." Meanwhile, the Russian national team has taken part in three of the last four European Championships, and in two of the last four World Championships. That is not such a bad record for a national team which no longer recruits players from Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and other former Soviet republics (starting in the mid-1970s the U.S.S.R. team never drew more than 20% of its players from Russian teams).
If we take a look at the last four qualifying rounds, we can easily see that the Russian team only failed to make it to the 2000 European Championship because of goalkeeper Alexander Filimonov's howling mistake during the last minutes of the match against Ukraine. Russia took part in the 2002 World Championship as well as in the 2004 European Championship. True, it did not go to Germany, and the coach reshuffling initiated by the new management of the Russian Football Union is a plausible reason. The way the team has performed in big tournaments is a different story, but it has played at the true level of Russian soccer, and the match against Croatia was another reminder of that.
Second, if we describe as "progress" the team's being constantly on the defensive, its occasionally irregular and chaotic behavior on the field, its vapid attacking style without a single goal-scoring opportunity, and generally poor play, we would, of course, be going too far. It was luck pure and simple that the Russian goalmouth did not get what it deserved. The general standard of play was so low that the team's Zagreb game can be called almost its worst in the current qualifying round. The match only stressed once again that it is one thing to play against rivals like Macedonia, Estonia or Andorra, and quite another to face a team like Croatia. And if the actions of the defense and the goalkeeper can be evaluated as successful, the helplessness of the attack looked disheartening.
In Croatia, the Russian team demonstrated middling skills typical of average teams. Nevertheless, the result was good enough at this stage. It is clear that a Croatian victory would have sent it to the European Championship finals. It is also clear that a Russian loss would have made its chances of leaving its group remote. The draw has left the options open.
These options are, understandably, spread not only over the upcoming games with Macedonia (in Moscow) and Andorra (away), which are certain to be won, but also over three key meetings, with England (on September 12 at Wembley Stadium in London and on October 17 either at the Lokomotiv or Luzhniki stadiums in Moscow) and with Israel (on November 17 in Tel Aviv). Only two national teams from our group will go to the European Championship in the summer of next year. The real contenders are Croatia, Israel, Russia and England - that is the order in which they are listed in the qualifying table after the June matches.
Alexander Gorbunov is a sports commentator.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
