On Wednesday, the Russian football team will hold the first qualifying match for the 2008 European Championship against the Croats. Most likely, Ivica Olic, Dario Srna and Bosko Balaban, who were expelled for violation of discipline, will not go on the field of the opponent. However, all three will fly to Moscow. The mentor of the Russians, Guus Hiddink, has problems with the composition much larger. To many injured, central defender Sergei Ignashevich, who injured his leg, may be added.
On Saturday, having spent the morning training in Bor near Moscow, the Russian team unexpectedly moved to the capital. Hotel Holliday Inn, in Sokolniki, was successfully located between two Moscow stadiums - Dynamo and Lokomotiv. The first team is now training, the second will play tomorrow.
With the “Locomotive”, however, there are still problems. The field, until recently considered the best in the country, is in a state close to critical. On Monday, two matches of the women's world championship were played there at once, which exacerbated the situation. That is why the team is now conducting training at Dynamo.
“At Lokomotiv, natural grass interspersed with synthetic fibers,” explained Oleg Tochelovich, director of the Dynamo stadium, to an Izvestia correspondent. us, because everything is natural, you can patch holes. There is a special device, with its help a piece of turf is screwed directly into the ground. "
- You didn’t think about playing with the Croats here? - Izvestia correspondent nods to Guus Hiddink on an even green lawn. The head coach of the Russian national team has not yet gone down to the field (despite the fact that the team is already cutting circles with might and main) and is available for journalists.
- No, no, we, of course, will play on the “Locomotive”. There are problems with the lawn, but if it doesn’t rain (Hiddink cast his eyes to the sky as an actor), we will deal with this problem.
And if, I wanted to ask, will it rain? But Hiddink had already turned around and went to training. The lesson will end, and he will again be at the disposal of the press (read the interview with Hiddink on the same page), and while journalists are surprised to see how Sergei Ignashevich deals with the ball on an individual program. If he does not come out against the Croats, this can be equated with a disaster. Vasily Berezutsky, Smertin, Zhirkov, Bystrov, Kerzhakov ... The only central defender was not enough to join this company ... However, Hiddink himself insists that Ignashevich’s injury is not serious. “He said about Smertin that there was nothing serious,” the journalists began to recall. “True, the man, however, left the national team, and nothing, nothing.
Croats have their own problems. On Monday evening, Ivica Olic, Dario Srna and Bosko Balaban were expelled from the opponent’s training camp. The reason is not to say that it’s mundane, but you can’t call it rare either. The players left the training camp in Slovenian Brežice (a 15-minute drive from the Croatian Zagreb) and burned all night in the club. They returned to the base at eight in the morning, apparently, just in time to catch a training session.
“Olic is not a night person,” Russian journalists were amazed, familiar with the habits of the striker of CSKA. The Croatian colleague only shrugged. However, she managed to find out that all three of the expelled football players would nevertheless arrive in Moscow. Apparently, the head coach Bilich leaves himself room for maneuver, that is, he can forgive the guys before the game. The dancers are good ...
On Saturday and Sunday, Russian players were left to their own devices - Hiddink gave the players a weekend, so they could wrap up the club without a twinge of conscience.
“Players need changes,” Yop Alberda, manager of the Russian national team, told Izvestia. - Two-time trainings are replaced by weekends, the base in Bor - at a hotel in Moscow. Change calms a person and at the same time allows him to concentrate.
Defender Alexei Berezutsky of these changes, apparently, was not enough.
- Today is Thursday? He asked as he walked past the reporters.
“What Thursday, Lesha, you have a game on Wednesday,” someone answered.
Berezutsky thought about it. There were two days left before the match with Croatia.
Head coach of the Russian national team Guus Hiddink:
"Hope to get out of first place in the group"
At the end of yesterday’s training, Guus Hiddink answered questions from Russian journalists, including Izmen correspondent Chermen Dzgoev.
Question: You must know the Croatian team very well, even if it has changed after the World Cup ...
answer: She has changed a lot. This, of course, is no longer the team against which I played, leading Australia. But I still have enough information about the opponent.
Q: What do you think about the expulsion of three players?
A: I think that Croatia will fly here in full force. No matter what happens, it seems to me that Croatia will have enough players.
Q: So you think that information about deductions is a bluff?
A: No, no. I don’t know the details, I don’t know the circumstances.
Q: How would you act in Bilich’s place?
A: I don’t know. The head coach of the Croatian national team is a very experienced person. As a player, I mean. And as a coach, he began his career very well, defeating world champions. He probably knows what he's doing. We will be ready for any decision. And in any case, it seems to me that the game will be very difficult for both us and the Croats.
Q: You recently said that Russian football should be among the top five in Europe in terms of its potential ...
A: Yes, I think so. Of course, we still need to prove this, to get into the final part of the European Championship. And I hope that we get there, and from the first place in the group.
Q: What about Ignashevich?
A: He is one of those who are not quite healthy. Therefore, today we decided not to involve him in the main group. But I hope that by Wednesday he will feel good. While he has a lightweight training regimen.
Q: So what happened to him anyway?
A: He has a hematoma on his leg. A slight bruise. I would not dramatize, this is not such a serious problem.
Q: Who else has injuries?
A: Pogrebnyak has not trained for the past few days. But today I resumed classes. I will watch him in the evening training session (the conversation with Hiddink took place on Monday morning) and tomorrow, the day before the game. Let's see how effective his treatment was.
Q: How would you rate the team’s physical condition?
A: It is normal. Teams are gaining strength in clubs, so when they come to the team, it makes no sense to focus on physical training. Club coaches in this sense are very good at preparing football players.
Q: Nevertheless, you entered the team two-time training, despite the fact that this has not been practiced here before. Aren't you afraid that the team will get tired out of habit?
A: In modern sport you need to train a lot, this is my opinion. If we want to play at a higher level, we must invest our efforts in training. Do you understand what I'm talking about? If you look at how they practice in big clubs, whether it be Europe or the rest of the world, you will see that they are engaged there at least. Regardless of whether we are talking about a very young player, or already a mature man, you need to train a lot. Need loads. Therefore, in Bor we practiced twice a day. It will pay off in the game.
CHERMEN DZGOYEV