The unprecedented openness of the Russian national team before the matches with Israel and Estonia led to a loss of interest of journalists in press conferences and trainings. No more than ten reporters came on Friday, and there were only three television cameras (this is the surest indicator of interest in a particular event) ...
Guus Hiddnik arrived first in a beautiful jeep.
“Hey,” he greeted the press officer of Ilya Kazakova and the translator. And in Russian he spoke only one word, which he probably taught for a long time: “Good.”
This should be encouraging. Those who work with Russian footballers usually remember other expressions. Suddenly, Hiddink slammed his pockets and rushed to the car.
“I forgot my wallet,” suggested Kazakov.
“Or maybe pay the driver,” one of the people put forward a version.
It turned out that Hiddink just decided to change shoes. Apparently, the coolest coaches have one pair for driving in a car, the other for press conferences. And one more for something. Live and learn.
The press conference turned out to be fleeting. Hiddink once again outlined priorities:
- On Saturday we have a very important meeting. Look what a strong group we have! The fight for two trips to the European Championship will be difficult. England is on the 4th place in the FIFA ranking, Croatia is on the 24th, Israel is on the 36th, and we are on the 39th line, the Dutchman said. - It turns out that only the fourth in the rating in our group. But I hope that we will rise in this list and the first step will be taken on Saturday.
Any television channel can dream of such a manager. Contact the national team.
Gus also revealed the secret, due to which he was going to defeat his closest opponent.
- Now we have moved to Moscow, and this will help to get three points in the next meeting, And the same points in the game against Estonia, - said the coach. - And all this as a result will favorably affect the situation in our qualifying group.
This argument could be taken into account if before that the team played exclusively in Kaliningrad.
In the meantime, Hiddink did not decide not only on the starting lineup, but even on the application for the game against the Israelis:
- We trained a lot, tried different options for the composition, different types of replacements. I do not have a list of 18 players yet. Much will depend on the health of the athletes. We did not train two: Pavlyuchenko and Anyukov.
However, both went to the training of the team, which took place at the Dynamo stadium. All the players appeared from the locker room with some kind of gloomy, hiding their eyes on the floor and not greeting anyone. Only Semshov and Kolodin, having seen someone they knew, went to him and exchanged a couple of phrases. The only one who smiled was Alexey Smertin.
- Good mood, Alex? - asked him.
“Of course,” he joyfully supported the interest in his own person. “Look how gorgeous my smile is.”
After removing the brackets, Aleksey really smiles a lot. How little a person needs to be happy. And even a salary debt at the main place of work cannot spoil his holiday.
Another member of the national team who is familiar with elementary politeness is coach Igor Korneev. Immediately the wine that a man played in Europe.
The players entered the field, but reporters were allowed to watch only the warm-up. It was possible to see that Titov and Sychev very accurately hit from 25 meters on an empty goal, but Diniyar Bilyaletdinov misses from 10 meters. Israeli journalists who studied Dynamo did not see this episode. Good news.
Alexey Shevchenko