To give out praise, by the way, is possible by starting not even with Guus Hiddink. And from that really far-sighted sage-manager who thought up in the summer time in advance to play the Russian Championship tour, which stood on the November calendar right next to the trip to Macedonia. Wondered a week of inconsequential training. She, though crumpled by meteorological incidents and household absurdities, was incredibly valuable. This was confirmed, by the way, not only with the naked eye, the difference in the freshness of teams on the field of the Gradsky stadium. But, by an indirect example, the draw of the German national team in Cyprus was mishandled by the local football bosses only after the weekend Bundesliga fights.
Well, and then - a solid "Hiddinkiada." The Dutchman happily escaped the danger of not guessing with the starting lineup, as happened, according to many, in the St. Petersburg match against the Estonians. Now, oddly enough, force majeure helped Hiddink. The injuries of Anyukov and Ignashevich practically saved him and his assistants from thinking about the number of defenders and the personal list of this line: Berezutsky with Kolodny in the center. But the combination of midfielders looked daring know-how. Semshov in the role of an opornik - with a living-healthy, but not playing Aldonin! Bystrov and Zhirkov on their flanks, but in roles that were completely uncharacteristic of them (especially the Spartak), were not so much flying forward as not allowing opponents to scatter. But Titov, in a captain’s way wisely limited himself to playing along from the depths and let go of daring closer to the penalty box of the reckless Bilyaletdinov! Finally, the attackers Arshavin and Pogrebnyak, whose diligence and efficiency were, in fact, involved the tactical plan of Hiddink. He dared to play away from a position of strength. It should have appeared among the Russians and it turned out to be much more than among the Macedonians.
The first half, with an almost perfect embodiment of pressure, instigated where the ball was lost (even in someone else's penalty!) Vividly reminded the picture of the September Moscow match between Russians against Croats. Then the Balkan guests besieged about the same thing, hobbled the Hiddink recruits, who were just beginning to study new game codes for them. There was, however, a difference, and what a difference: unlike the then Croats, the current Russians got goals! Moreover, the balls, which happens infrequently, were the result of not perfectly executed attacks on the move or perfect positional rallies. Both became direct (it doesn’t happen more direct!) Consequences of the tactics taken as the basis. The Macedonians in their half were lost, panicked under the growing guest grip and simply lost the ball, elementarily losing rebounds. This was followed by a clear pass in two penetrations into the penalty area, Bilyaletdinov's assistant deeds and technical reprisals of Bystrov and Arshvin with the Macedonian goalkeeper.
After the first goal, it was desperately interesting whether the Russians (more precisely, their coach) would want to continue in the same tactical spirit with a strategically changing situation. They continued after the second! Closer to the break I caught myself thinking that the players revel so much in the coincidence of what they intended and turned out that even if they had ordered the coach to change the tonality, to go hung up - they would disobey, play as they liked. It seems that this is the first time that in the actions of the Russian national team the football algorithm according to Hiddink, which is memorable in Korea and PSV, is so distinctly glanced, a little less - in Australia. There were no secondary characters on the field. There were no zones or even spots where seriously someone’s weakness or ineptitude would alert.
The first half was suspiciously good to stay true for a long time. However, the second, by and large, very slightly corrected the impression. And this taking into account that during the break Srechko Katanets tried his best to change the mood and build his team, which seemed primitive toothless without the disqualified shock tandem Pandev - Naumoski. However, the only after-attack by the hosts, which made Akinfeev fly into the corner (Maznov a little smeared his head), found answers more weighty. The Russians only slightly loosened their grip on the alien half, but added to their compactness. And in the area of the Macedonians became more air. Breathe them a bench on time seconded Sychev. In an accelerated game, the score did not increase several times just because of the vain desire of the Russians to show off, to surpass themselves.
Although much better nowadays? Not all at once.
Sergey NOVIKOV
MACEDONIA - RUSSIA - 0: 2 (0: 2)
Goals : 0: 1 - Bystrov (19), 0: 2 - Arshavin (32).
MACEDONIA: Nokoloski, Noveski, Petrov, Sedloski, I. Mitreski, Lazarevsky, Shumulikoski, Shakiri (Tasevsky, 37), A. Mitreski (Yanchevsky, 46; Grozdanovsky, 71), Maznov, Stoykov.
RUSSIA: Akinfeev, V. Berezutsky, A. Berezutsky, Kolodin, Semshov, Titov, Bystrov, Zhirkov, Bilyaletdinov, Arshavin (Pavlyuchenko, 90), Pogrebnyak (Sychev, 56).
Warnings: Petrov (44), Pogrebnyak (47), Sychev (65), Kolodin (85).
15th of November. Gradsky. 7 p.m.
Judge: Paul Allerts (Belgium).