The head coach of the Russian national team, Guus Hiddink, forbade his assistant Alexander Borodyuk to fly to Portugal for the youth team match. This is despite the fact that Borodyuk leads the “youth team” and that Portugal will probably host the most important match for this team of the season. An unusual, ridiculous story.
The Russian youth team should play two matches with the Portuguese: October 6 in Moscow and October 10 in Porto. She will leave for Portugal without a head coach. The reason is simple: Borodyuk, in addition to working in the youth team, is part of the headquarters of Guus Hiddink. And since the main team also has an official match in these terms (October 11 game with Estonia), Hiddink decided that his assistant should not go anywhere. Nikolai Khudiev and Viktor Losev, assistants of Borodyuk, will lead the “youth team” in the Port.
Meanwhile, matches with Portugal - butt. Let's go - we will win a ticket to the European Youth Championship (it will be held next summer in the Netherlands). We will not pass - we will not conquer. In addition, the four best teams following the results of the championship will be selected for the Beijing Olympics.
And now, when two big bets are at stake, the youth team goes to the decisive match without a head coach. “I need Alex on the first team,” Hiddink explains.
But what about the construction of the pyramid of domestic football and about a single institute of national teams? After all, not only the RFU President Vitaly Mutko, but Hiddink himself was a big fan of speculating on this topic.
In fact, this whole story is compromised not so much by Hiddink as by the very idea of hanging on it the construction of all kinds of verticals and pyramids. Hiddink went to Russia as a coach, and not as a business executive. And he understood his main task and, it turns out, understands it very simply: getting into the final part of the European Championship. Yes, he was no stranger to populist reasoning about youth football. But, in the end, a man came to a foreign country and may think that it’s customary for us to start any business with talking about the younger generation. Moreover, the way it is.
Appointment of Alexander Borodyuk at the same time as a “youth team” and Hiddink's assistant on paper looked very correct and symbolic: Borodyuk was the link between the main team and the closest reserve. Fascinated by this aesthetics, the RFU never guessed to compare the two calendars and ask the question: how will Borodyuk be torn between the two teams.
“If we pass the Portuguese, then next year we will play according to a completely different calendar, which does not overlap with the matches of the national team,” says Borodyuk. “Then the problem will disappear by itself.” Here, of course, the key phrase is "if we pass the Portuguese." And what will happen if we don’t get through and in one fell swoop remain without the European Youth Championship and without a chance to get to the Olympics?
Guilty will be Nikolai Khudiev and Viktor Losev, who will take the team to Portugal? Borodyuk, who is her head coach? Guus Hiddink, who did not let Borodyuk go? Or Vitaly Mutko, who rebuilds the pyramid?
Chrmen DZGOEV