“We are flying from a small house to Domodedovo,” Ilya Kazakov, press officer of the national team, barely concealed pride the day before. - The team will gather on the night of February 4 in Bor, and the next morning will go on a plane. True, there will be few. CSKA, Dynamo and St. Petersburg.
Football players can hardly stand the early rise, it is known to anyone. And therefore, the picture seen in a building similar to an airplane (a little away from the airport) did not surprise. In a small room reigned sleepy kingdom. Some players are located right on the buffet tables. Others quietly sniffed in armchairs. No one snored.
Only it was not the first team, but just a youth team. Some of the young guys tried to read. Torpedo’s Evgeni Lutsenko did it with great difficulty, the information in the newspaper did not catch. Some football players woke up only to look towards the cafe. There was no seller. Sighing heavily, they turned over onto the other side (as far as possible on the side tables). The barmaid’s arrival at work was received with joy, which, if they hid it, was unsuccessful. The VIP lounge immediately made coffee proceeds (hardly always crowded there) a week in advance.
The national team was spared a bit. She just left the base at 8.30 (the youth had already spent almost an hour at the airport). But still, the view of the players was very exhausted.
Only Eugene Aldonin smiled as if he had slept until that 20 hours. He was cheerful, fresh and ready for any dialogue. You can not say about the Russian Buffon - Dmitry Borodin (the speech, of course, that goalkeepers from the lower leagues in the team is not so common).
- Dmitry, can I have a few questions? - they turned to him very politely.
“No,” the goalkeeper muttered.
- Well, at least tell me which club you will play in?
“I already said everything.”
- To whom?
- The newspaper. Read the newspapers. Well, now I will talk to every journalist about this? Do you read newspapers?
- Well ...
“Bad,” the goalkeeper shook his head. - Very bad.
It became even a little embarrassing.
Yuri Zhirkov, with a thoughtfulness that interrupted even his sleepy state, was reading a book. Among those who watched this rare phenomenon (usually Yuri prefers the prefix), a small dispute arose - that he was studying it so carefully. Someone said that Oksana Robski. Someone was leaning towards Kafka (only Kafka is read with such a face). The truth was amazing.
Suddenly rising, Zhirkov put the book on the table and went to drink coffee. It was ... "Comedy Club Jokes." Honestly, Zhirkov seriously rose in someone's eyes. Some jokes of this program really do not require laughter, but reflection.
The book, by the way, was immediately taken by Vasily Berezutsky. And he also became like a scientist studying a treatise.
And Dmitry Borodin showed everyone that he was reading newspapers, focusing on the last page of Komsomolskaya Pravda (jokes, crossword puzzle and half-naked girl ”).
Andrei Arshavin entered the room with a cream or toothpaste casually smeared on his face. Perhaps his early rise was the hardest. But nobody dared to tell the player, and he himself avoided all contacts with the press.
Alexander Borodyuk - the only representative of the coaching staff - tried to somehow amuse the players. He energetically told Pogrebnyak, Aldonin and Semshov. Only the CSKA smiled.
About twenty minutes before takeoff, they announced a landing. The last of the players went to the plane, Andrei Arshavin. He passed through a metal detector with his huge suitcase and was not embarrassed when there was a squeak. The border guard girl tried not easily to compare the photo of the football player in the passport with the original - Andrey lowered his head. An airport employee almost squatted to make out a person’s face worth 3.5 million euros per year. She gave him the document in dismay. About whether the cream, or the paste on the face did not dare to say.
Alexey Shevchenko