Six victories in the first six official matches held at their posts by the head coach of the Russian national team Vyacheslav Bykov and his team caused fans and the press to burst into multiple “cheers”. They saw an infallible messiah in the new coach and demand immediate victories, first in the Channel One Cup, and then in the championship, where the Russian team has not won for nearly 14 years. For Russian sports, and hockey in particular, this is a familiar development of events, and according to tradition, universal approval will be followed by an equally unanimous censure and “witch hunt”. PROsport selected several experts and interrogated them with bias, demanding, sorry for the expression, constructive criticism. And he looked what came of it. At the same time, we deliberately did not begin to communicate with Bykov himself - at least officially, - leaving this for later.
SUGGESTION
As mentioned above, in Russia there are only two extremes - either everything is good or everything is bad. There is no third. You can recall how rejoiced at the first successes in the Eurotour of the national team of Vladimir Plushev, how they spoke about the invulnerable luck of Vladimir Krikunov. Moreover, on the eve of the disastrous World Cup 2000 in St. Petersburg, the general leitmotif of the central sports newspapers of Russia regarding the team of Alexander Yakushev was as follows: "Russia convinced that it has a national team."
Here's how Ak Bars striker and Russia's top scorer Alexei Morozov reacted to a request for criticism:
- If the team only wins, why criticize it! If we win, why not write good? What do you have nothing to do? You are so weird! Are you bored? Leave the team alone! While the flaws in the game are not visible. They may pop up only when we start losing. Now everything is going well, everything is going according to plan. Coaches are checking out new players.
However, the player can’t criticize the coach publicly. It is right. That's just to talk about the lack of flaws somehow too much. For example, Vladimir Yurzinov, wise in experience, sees in this unambiguous attitude to today's national team traditional Russian traditions:
“We always expect a miracle.” Miracle come on! Our Russian hero Emelya, he didn’t really discuss why suddenly the pike of his desire to fulfill the beginning, but simply demanded more and more. But a miracle is a difficult thing; he needs to study for a long time. It is probably wrong now after so many years of stagnation in our hockey to immediately demand victories always and everywhere. It’s better to think together what the Bulls brought to our hockey, to understand the situation.
RUSSIA ALREADY READ
If you take a quick look at the game of Bykov’s teams, it seems to be nothing - it’s the same attacking hockey that almost all of his predecessors preached before him. In an interview with PROsport, the ex-head coach of the national team Vladimir Krikunov so bluntly said: “Well done Bykov, did not break my drawing of the game.”
Meanwhile, the fundamental difference between Bykov’s tactics is that he was either the first to suddenly guess, or to understand for a long time how to use the strengths of Russian hockey players - skating, speed, high individual skill. The current system of the national team’s game with three forwards starting to actively attack an opponent in his area immediately after losing the puck was used very rarely, if at all, in Russia. Coaches avoided this long-practiced tactic in the world due to its high risk coefficient. Forwards require good interchangeability (in fact, they no longer play when selecting the two extremes and the center, but as if in a circle they replace each other - hence the name of the cycling system, from circle - circle, cycle), and therefore, high physical readiness and teamwork. Hence, from time to time, failures in defense occurring today, and a very interesting difference between the “+6” goals with six wins.
In fact, the indicator is not bad - less than three goals per match; danger is different. There are suggestions that the phenomenal start of the Bykov team is caused by the blitzkrieg effect. For many years, coaches of other teams learned all the shortcomings of the Russian team and with closed eyes could explain how to beat it. Unexpected metamorphosis confused them, and so far they still do not know the recipe. However, there is a concern that Bykov iKo revealed their cards too soon. Competitors have almost five more months and two stages of the Eurotour to pick up the keys, and they know how to choose the right tactics in a computer-hockey technology and deep analytics enthusiastic Europe. Most likely, they have already shifted the game.
WEAK LINK
However, knowing Bykov and his right hand Igor Zakharkin, there is no doubt that they, too, will not be idle and will certainly figure out how to mask their weaknesses in the organization and emphasize the strengths. But how to solve the problem of the goalkeeper line? “Goalkeepers can be a big problem at the World Cup,” agrees Vladimir Krikunov. - Since 1996, I have not stopped talking: there should not be legionnaires goalkeepers in the Super League. It is necessary to close this position for foreigners in general! You see, even the introduction of a colossal tax from this season has not changed much. Non-Russian guys still play in most clubs, only Alexander Fomichev in Omsk is the first number. Alexander Eremenko and Vasily Koshechkin at best divide time in half, Kostya Barulin - in a deep reserve, Maxim Sokolov does not play, Sergei Zvyagin is injured. This is the most painful, problematic position. And how Bulls will decide it - I don’t know. Will he trust someone personally and make the main bet on someone specifically? But to whom? The same Fomichev, who, in theory, should be the main goalkeeper in the national team, rarely played in CSKA at Bykova. Hopes that someone from the NHL will come to Moscow? And if Khabibulin refuses, and the clubs of Bryzgalov and Nabokov reach the playoffs? We must ask Vyacheslav Arkadevich what he is going to do and how he will solve this problem. ”
Honestly, there’s literally nothing to add to the words of the Dynamo coach.
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
Relations between Vyacheslav Bykov and colleagues from the Super League so far do not quite correspond to the ideas he shared with PROsport this spring, a few months before his official appointment. If there is a connection, it is one-sided. Bykov, as planned, constantly calls up with club coaches, seeks advice on candidates for the national team. Krikunov recalls that Vyacheslav Arkadevich on the eve of the first stage of the Eurotour spent several hours with him, discussing each candidate, his strengths and weaknesses, asking about the characteristics of each. Other coaches admit that after each tournament played, Bykov calls and reports on how the club player performed, which game components he should pay special attention to.
However, it is surprising why coaches, who, it would seem, had to support the new coach No. 1 in the first place, overwhelmingly remain silent, at least in public. Several experts even refused to discuss Bykov’s team with PROsport, citing extraordinary employment and a coaching ethic, which supposedly does not allow too much interest in the life of colleagues.
WILL ABROAD HELP US?
Although they try not to speak out loud about it, it is not yet completely clear how Bykov’s relations with the NHL legionnaires will be built. It seems that there is Sergey Nemchinov in charge of North America, it seems that all overseas players are in the field of view of the head coach. But Bykov has so far carefully circumvented the issue of the notorious relationship between the Enhael players and Super League players at the World Championships in Moscow. It is understandable. It’s worth mentioning the exact number now, it will be immediately put in the headlines, and then they will poke if something happens on the eve of the tournament, as it happened on the eve of the Olympics with Vladimir Krikunov.
In fact, Bykov needs NHL players only to strengthen openly weak positions, and if there are too many of them, the very internal spirit of the team that is talked about so much will suffer. But will they only allow the head coach at the home world championship, at this big fair of Russian hockey achievements, to leave behind the advertised stars popular among the people?
Some of the Super League players see this danger, especially those who, by personal example, know what it means to play for the national team all year round at the low-prestigious stages of the Eurotour, and then on the eve of the World Cup or the Olympics, to be left out of the national team, sometimes simply because the player from the NHL is already invited and awkwardly refuse his services.
“If you hadn’t insisted, I think I would have kept silent,” the defender of the Omsk “Vanguard” Dmitry Ryabykin surrenders after much persuasion. - Vyacheslav Arkadevich has a headache without my questions. But I, for example, are interested in: how many of those guys who are now playing in the Eurotour will perform at the World Cup? What are the chances of getting into the Moscow championship for Super League players? And then you know how it often happens with us: they get ready, go alone to the Eurotours, and before the championship - “thank you, relax!”, There are already others. In general, is it worth trusting the traditional statements of NHL players about their readiness to come at any time made in the fall or winter? They will be much more significant in the spring, at the end of the difficult season. For example, to the direct question “Can the head coach of the national team count on you?” The New York Islanders striker Viktor Kozlov, after a few on-duty phrases about “readiness to come any minute”, told PROport the following:
- In order to play in Moscow, several conditions must coincide. First of all, I have to feel that I can help the team and show the maximum of opportunities. And secondly, I should not be bound by any contractual obligations with the club. As you can see, so far I have not answered any of these points, but we'll see ...
Vladimir Yurzinov sees another danger that may await Bykov in relations with NHL players.
“It's how it is,” says an experienced trainer. - At first, everything is fine, the parties exchange compliments, and then one awkward expression, an overly sharp response, and a fire of a big information war flares up. Your brother-journalist has already perched up in search of sensations so to raise a question that it is very difficult not to substitute. Therefore, Bykov should be very careful in his statements regarding potential players from overseas.
DIFFICULT CHOICE: CHAMPIONSHIP OR OLYMPIAD
And the last question, which in the light of the anticipated victory at the home world championship, somehow disappeared by itself: what is more important for Russian hockey - the Moscow world championship or the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver?
Ask any employee of the hockey federation, and he will explain to you that the Olympics is the most important event and for this purpose the FHR made such an unpopular decision to introduce the goalkeeper tax not from 2009, as it was planned before, but right now, in order to have time to bear fruit Vancouver. Also, the FHR insistently assures that no one will remove Bykov in case of failure in Moscow 2007.
However, it is not clear why in this case the contract with the coach was concluded for only two years, and therefore, the key tournament for him will be the 2008 World Cup in Canada. It would seem a trifle, but it’s one thing to build a national team for a specific short-term goal - to win the tournament exactly one year later, and it’s another thing to work for the Olympic perspective, as Sweden’s national team is doing, actively playing very young hockey players, who are essentially too early appear in the national team. I would like to know for sure that Bykov and his team - at least not publicly, at least in a closed office - were explained where to lead the team. And then Detroit Red Wings defender Daniil Markov is sure that it’s worth coming to Moscow for one purpose only:
“Russian fans should not be afraid that we will perform somehow at the home championship. I don’t understand where the conversation is coming from, that we will be satisfied with medals of any value. Believe me, we should only be the first in Moscow and just forget about any other place. There is none, and that’s all. ”
Alexey Demin, Pavel Savchik, PROsport