Long-term restructuring: how the Russian national football team is changing

Problems with the composition

After the defeat from Sweden in the final match of the League of Nations, a wave of criticism once again rose against the national team. The lack of meaningful play in the attack, the ambiguous choice of the performers and the inability to defend the desired result - only a few "sins" that Stanislav Cherchesov was accused of.

Of course, the comments to the head coach can not be called completely groundless. The team was afraid to play with the Swedes on an equal footing and chose to withdraw to their half and play from defense. But on the other hand, there were good reasons for this. The main one was the absence of a number of key players who are organizing the attacking game.

Alexander Golovin, Alan Dzagoev, Denis Cheryshev, Roman Zobnin, Mario Fernandez - the key performers in their positions and those who made the weather at the World Championships could not take part in the fight with the “third row”. Add to this the imperfect state of Artem Dziuba, who completed a rehabilitation course only three days ago, and the defeat from the Scandinavians seems to be more and more logical.

It is noteworthy that it was Cherchesov who named him that way. Numerous injuries to the leaders made him almost completely redraw the middle and attacking lines, as well as use some players not in their positions. Even in the match with Germany, it was clear that Alexander Erokhin is extremely unproductive in the role of the flank midfielder. And Alexey Ionov and Dmitry Poloz, who were among the start in the key match of the League of Nations, are still inferior in the class to the main players.

Damage has not bypassed the players and protection. So, already in the course of preparation for the game with Sweden, the location of the team was alternately left by Konstantin Rausch, Fyodor Kudryashov and Sergey Petrov. In the end, all this led to Vladislav Ignatiev and Kirill Nababkin entering the field, the last of which was not called up for the national team for five and a half years. Of course, to count on a terrific understanding here was not necessary either.

Lack of victories in matches with strong rivals

At the same time, it is also not worthwhile to completely withdraw responsibility from Cherchesov. Yes, the 2018th year will be remembered for Russian fans primarily by the triumphant performance at the home world championship. The team fell in love with the whole country and for the first time in history reached the quarterfinal of the world championship. But even in this barrel of honey there was a fly in the ointment.

For the whole year, the Russian national team played extremely unsuccessfully with the teams of their own or a higher level. The head coach intelligently made a bet on football with an emphasis on defense and a quick transition to a counterattack. But in games with serious competitors this over and over again did not work.

So, their only victory over the grandee - Spain - Cherchesov's wards were mined in a penalty shootout, but they lost to Uruguay with a large score (0: 3). There were also defeats from Croatia, Sweden at a party, and a number of unsuccessful test fights with France, Brazil, Austria and Germany.

The assets remain only victories over the once strong Turkey and the Czech Republic, Egypt, led by Mohammed Salah and one of the main outsiders of the World Cup - Saudi Arabia. But it is unlikely that at least one of the above teams can be considered equal or more superior to the Russian team in the class.

All this clearly indicated the lack of real opportunities for the Russians to resist serious teams, and the lack of a plan B. Cherchesov simply did not have time to teach the charges to act in the first place and put them to combinational football. Naturally, this also affected the decisive fight with Sweden, when it was necessary to clamp the Scandinavians in their half of the field and look for gaps in the defensive lines. But the inability to play in a similar style, multiplied by the injuries of leading performers, reduced the chances to zero.

Positive outcome

The unfulfilled hopes of reaching the elite of the League of Nations have spoiled the impression from the performance of the Russian team this year. But it must be admitted that he turned out to be extremely successful for the team. Of course, it didn’t do without a couple of misfires, but on the whole, Cherchesov’s team performed absolutely all the tasks assigned to it. At first, the players coped with incredible pressure and achieved historic success at the home world championship, and then they did not lose face in the new UEFA tournament.

Considering that on the eve of the World Cup, the Russian national team and personally its mentor were subjected to indiscriminate criticism, and many fans and experts did not even believe in success in the group stage, reaching the quarter-finals became a real furore. Russian footballers jumped higher than their heads, but did not lower the bar and even after the world championship continued to demonstrate a solid level of play. Exactly up to the moment, as the epidemic of injuries has wiped out half the team.

If we compare with the match of the 1/4 finals of the World Championship, then in a duel with Sweden only four football players from the team took the field - Dziuba, Daler Kuzyaev, Yuri Gazinsky and Alexander Erokhin. And the last two began to meet with Croatia on the bench. In addition to the injured, the team lacked Sergei Ignashevich, who hung up the shoes on a nail, Igor Igor Akinfeev and Alexander Samedov, who completed their careers in the national team, and Ilya Kutepov, who had recently recovered from damage.

Thus, even a relatively unsuccessful performance in the League of Nations should not negate all the positive moments in the performance of the Russian national team in 2018. Wards Cherchesova were able to re-force fans to believe in themselves.

Hope for the future

But in order to move on, the players and the coaching staff of the national team need to forget about their accomplishments this year and start building a new, modern team. At the World Championships, Russians showed their maximum, 100% realizing the potential of the current squad and this game model. But so that the Friends Arena fiasco does not happen again, the team needs reforms.

The first of these should relate to the model of the game. Of course, no one has yet canceled the counterattack football, but the Russian team has all the resources to build a bright, attacking team that will not only squeeze the result from the matches, but also seek it in a beautiful style.

In addition to Golovin and Cheryshev, a strong generation is growing up with great potential. The brothers Alexei and Anton Miranchuki, Fedor Chalov - are already famous for their skills in creation and are actively called up for the national team, and in a few years they can become the main force of the team. And the young shoots of Krasnodar Ivan Ignatiev and Magomed-Shapi Suleymanov are in a hurry to help them.

Talents are in other lines. CSKA Ilzat Akhmetov and Ivan Oblyakov, as well as midfielder Spartak Mikhail Ignatov, are already showing up in the central now. There are talented defenders in the person of Yegor Sorokin, Nikolai Rasskazov, Konstantin Kuchayev and Mikhail Lysov.

Traditionally, a lot of promising goalkeepers - Alexander Maksimenko is already the first number of red and white, and Anton Mitryushkin very successfully defends the colors of the Swiss “Sion”. The first games based on Krasnodar were played by Matvey Safonov.

Less than two years remain to the nearest major tournament, which gives Cherchesov the opportunity to continue the team restructuring. During this period, young people should mature, get the missing experience of performing at a high level, and then change their more experienced, but already quite aged colleagues in the national team.

Probably, the team will have to gradually abandon the services of a number of veterans - Marinato Guilherme, Anton Shunin, Kirill Nababkin, Vladimir Granat, Vladislav Ignatiev, Roman Neustedter, Andrey Semenov and Alexey Ionov. After all, in their place already now there are a number of younger and hungry candidates before the victories, who after a while promise to become the face of Russian football.