Press conferences and open training sessions of the national teams are the harsh working days of all correspondents. Football players, in general, are not really needed, especially for the coaches. FIFA allows you to attend training, while limiting its permission to a rigid framework. Writing for journalists is easier, they are able to compose the text in the available 15 minutes, decorating what they saw with their own imagination. It’s harder for television correspondents. Most often, you can shoot only the very beginning of the lesson, in other words, a warm-up. Sometimes you can pull the camera closer to the players, sometimes you have to work from the end of the field. If you do not include imagination and cunning, then in the end you will get about the same picture - time after time repeated exercises from the same angles, only the form of the teams and the faces of the players will change. So think about how best to handle all this so that twin stories don't come out.
Occasionally, fully open workouts happen, but this is a piece-of-box phenomenon.
There are also press conferences. However, most foreign experts speak cautiously, and even, naturally, not in Russian. And the translation dries even the most lively speech. There are, of course, exceptions: Mexico's head coach Ricardo La Volpe recently delighted Mexican journalists with the idea that they are "just shit and can't tell a 4-4-2 pattern from a 4-3-3 construct." An eternally disheveled specialist has always had bad relations with the press, but he does not seem to care about what they write in Mexico. La Volpe is an Argentinean. The Germans spend hours torturing their players near the microphone. Sometimes Lam floods on television for a long time on air or painfully fights the language of Goethe Schweinsteiger. Klinsmann flashes all the time and through all channels. He is loyal to journalists, but has forbidden to bring the press to the hotel, where German compilations live. Probably not to be distracted. Only one mentor speaks Russian, but it turns out juicy and picturesque. Oleg Blokhin at press conferences is relaxed and lively. The trainer of Ukrainians will tell the news and share his thoughts, and even do it as impressive as possible. True, the reaction to questions and comments that are absurd from Blokhin’s point of view will also be the most impulsive. Before the game with the Spaniards, Oleg Vladimirovich attacked a Russian journalist who inadvertently wrote the day before that the scene was crying for Blokhin. The original article that remained on the bus wasn’t in any way, so not all those present immediately understood what it was about. The Spanish journalists who were left without translation were especially amazed. The coach of the Ukrainian national team meanwhile explained to all those present that he did not consider himself a comedian and clown and did not intend to amuse anyone.
Of course, clowning has nothing to do with it, but Blokhin has artistic talent, just like a peppy speech and good humor. In addition (this is especially valuable), Blokhin, even after unsuccessful matches, retains self-esteem. Instead of calling for the shooting of the Swiss referee Buzacca, the coach, reflecting on the Spain-Ukraine meeting, criticized his players for their bad mood. And then he also admitted that he might not have guessed with the composition. Probably Blokhin’s character is not simple, but why is it possible for some Totti, but not for a mentor of the Ukrainians?
But Totti, by the way, has no Golden Ball.
On the eve of the second match of Ukraine, the press got information that after the defeat, Gusin and Yezersky were in the bar. Especially for some reason everyone was interested in the fact that the players looked funny. It is likely that if both players were sobbing into the voice in the same bar, no one would have paid attention. Finally, a couple of days later the German Bild surpassed himself, to whom one of the Ukrainian football players allegedly explained that the team was prevented from preparing frogs from the lake under the windows of the base. Unique in its delusional story.
The day before the meeting with the national team of Saudi Arabia, the usual open training of Ukrainians happened. Blokhin calmly watched the players sitting on the bench. Igor Miroshnichenko, press officer of the national team, slightly resembling the Argentinean Juan Pablo Sorin, explained that both the players in the bar and the frog story were invented by the press. Perhaps there was something else interesting, but then 15 minutes elapsed, and the journalists went to wait for communication with the head coach.
Blokhin did not disappoint. True, at that moment when he appeared in the hall, television people still continued to adjust the sound. “This is the second time a strange press conference has been received,” Blokhin remarked thoughtfully in an undertone, watching the inhuman torment of the technicians pulling the wires. Then the coach spoke about the injury of Jezerski. He answered a couple of German questions without the help of a translator, recalling that he had once played in Austria. He said that in case of defeat, life will not stop.
Finally, he refused the second time to respond to the same questions (the Germans did not get along with the equipment in any way).
“Is cold weather at your fingertips?” - asked one of the local journalists (the day before in Hamburg it was slightly freshened).
“Yes, if it snows,” Blokhin answered.
The next day, the Ukrainian team beat Saudi Arabia 4-0. Life went on.
Vladimir Stognienko (commentator on the Sport channel)