The creators of the movie with shooting and chasing love to exploit the conventional plot story. On a burning bridge, about to collapse, a vehicle with goodies on board rushes towards the saving shore. The goal is achieved at the very moment when even the most optimistic of the audience ceases to believe in it. Suspence and catharsis. Everyone exhales, hiding a tear of tenderness from their neighbors ...
Russian handball players have involuntarily been in the role of brave supermen already twice: in the first and so far last matches on German sites. The starting draw with the Koreans, without which later there would be no ticket to the main round, in a desperate final attack, Alexey Rastvortsev asked the fate for a long-range shot.
On Sunday evening, Captain Koksharov and his comrades played the stage even more abruptly. The last chance to get rid of a meaningless, equal to a defeat draw gave them a dozen seconds, calculated from the moment of removal of the Hungarian linear Gyula Gala. Nobody believed in Russians for a good minute, after Vladimir Maximov strangely missed the timeout taken by his opponent Laszlo Shkalitsky. The coach preferred a conversation with the team ... a hassle with the French judges Bor and Bu, who worked out the ending and was really defiantly strange.
Left to their own devices, the players quickly overcame the haste and agreed on how they would take the attack away from their rivals and how they would try to realize their own if there was time left for it.
Time is running out! But the bench "floated" already hopelessly. They didn’t even react to the obvious need to release the second superfluous instead of the goalkeeper: either they didn’t decide who to go out, or they didn’t even prepare the required color according to the rules ...
The rest was akin to brilliant insight. Circling the Hungarian heads with a desperate dynamic change of hands, the guys brought the ball to Koksharov’s left flank. Not to say that the “screed” was a success. The edge hovered over the goalkeeper, freeing itself from the opponent, losing speed and orientation. There was no hope for a seven-meter from the stingy French. Koksharov had only one thing: to contrive and quit. And he managed to push the ball under the legs of the goalkeeper, stirring up the net behind him!
So the Russian team filled the last quarterfinal vacancy. Seven others were distributed the day before. And this gave reason to talk about the shortcomings of the next draw scheme, first applied by the IGF. In the midst of the tournament, almost all the favorites suddenly got a passing match and an opportunity to tell which of the opponents it was more profitable to taxi into the playoffs. And only Maximov’s team had to break into the deadline there and risk being left with nothing. And more precisely - with reproaches for the obvious flaws in the manning and staging of the game, not recognizable in the momentary joy, in the recognizable heavyness of style. With complaints of crows, injuries have flown up.
Admire the fighting spirit and self-control of the guys. These factors outweighed the negative impressions, a snowball growing from match to match, in a pleasant surprise.
A moment of happiness, the price of a moment - as symbols of the precariousness of the foundations of the universe, the frequent conventions and haste of our estimates and conclusions. After all, if Koksharov had missed or the feat of the Hungarian goalkeeper Fazekas, at this place, we’ll be honest, you would probably read quite convincing discussions about the reasons for the most unsuccessful performance of the Russian team during its participation in the world championships.
And now she goes on! Moreover, she received the Polish team as her closest rival - albeit notorious for her victories over the giants, but hypothetically by no means the most formidable of the quarter-finalists. And in a tempting semi-final prospect, a duel looms from a Scandinavian pair Denmark - Iceland. In other words, the intersection with one of the four “most-most” remaining in the battle (Croatia, Spain, France, Germany!) Is possible only in the final.
Dreaming? And why in advance deny yourself something pleasant? Especially since the teams, flashing through the Rubicon, like Sunday, begin to believe that they can do it and not that. We believe together.
Russian national team in the preliminary and main rounds of the 2007 World Cup
results
01/20 . Russia - South Korea - 32:32
01/21. Russia - Morocco - 35:19
01/22. Russia - Croatia - 27:32
01/24 . Russia - Spain - 29:33
01/25. Russia - Czech Republic - 30:26
01/27 Russia - Denmark - 24:26
01/28. Russia - Hungary - 26:25
Player participation
E. Koksharov - 7 games, 47 goals / 65 shots (19 goals from the penalty spot / 25 attempts); K. Igropulo - 7, 30/56 (6/7); A.Rastvortsev - 7, 28/58; D. Krivoshlykov - 7, 21/26; V. Ivanov - 7, 18/38; M. Chipurin - 7, 15/22; D. Kovalev - 7, 14/19; A.Kamanin - 7, 9/19; E. Evdokimov - 6, 6/10; V. Myagkov - 7, 6/9 (3/3), T. Dibirov - 2, 5/12; V. Filippov - 7, 2/15; A. Kainarov - 5, 2/4; A. Chernivivanov - 1, 0/1; goalkeepers: A. Kostygov - 7 games, 76 saves / 251 shots; E. Titov - 7, 8/26.