Struggling Russia face World Cup of misery
Even Putin has realised they have everything but a team
RUSSIA installed a surveillance unit in London as part of their mission to beat England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
And they have spent over £800mill i on on the stadium where the Confederations Cup, the dry run for that tournament, opened last night.
So it was always going to be a bun-fight when the national team manager arrived to discuss his strategy to compete with the world’s continental champions.
The conversation with Stanislav Cherchesov on Friday was over inside about 20 minutes, though, and there were plenty of free seats in the compact press conference room at Krestovsky Stadium.
It is Cristiano Ronaldo’s image, not a Russian’s, which adorns t he St Petersburg magazine placed in this city’s hotel rooms.
Russia’s match with Portugal in Moscow on Wednesday is the only sell-out fixture of a tournament for which only 60 per cent of tickets appear to be sold. The indifference reflects an intractable problem facing those who did what had to be done to ensure that next year’s World Cup was Russia’s — the national side is simply not very good.
Cherchesov is a sardonic i ndividual who l i kes to deflect pressure away with his easy lines in dry wit.
‘I am a diplomat, talking a lot about nothing, ri ght?’ t he 53-year-old said at the end of his press conference.
But no one can disguise that he has had President Vladimir Putin breathing down his neck in the last week. Putin observed on Thursday, in his annual televised phone- in session during which he takes PRESSURE: Russia manager Cherchesov questions from members of the public, that ‘fans and those who love Russian football expect better results from our national team,’ who have won only three of their last 15 games. ‘We’ll hope that the guys play with full commitment, like real warriors and athletes, to at least please the fans with their efforts to win,’ Putin added. He went on to say he had asked unnamed ‘world-class’ specialists how well Russia can play and received a pessimistic prognosis, in which poor youth coaching and too many foreign players in the Russian league had been cited. When appointed to succeed Leonid Slutsky after the pitiful Euro 2016 campaign, Cher - chesov was tasked to find a bright young team for 2018, t hough his
problems have included a lack of competitive games and the poorest pool of players Russia have had to choose from since becoming their own country in the early 1990s.
They have naturalised some Brazilians — Lokomotiv Moscow goalkeeper Guilherme Marinato and CSKA Moscow full-back Mario Fernandes — though only one of the squad of entirely Russian-based players for this tournament looks like he can leave a mark on the tournament now under way.
He is Aleksandr Golovin, the CSKA midfielder considered Russia’s best player of his generation, who only turned 21 two weeks ago and is considered the best Russian talent since Andrey Arshavin.
Golovin has fewer individual surprises on offer than the former Arsenal player but is thought to have a better overall understanding of the game, operating both deep and in advanced positions.
Beyond him, there’s not much to excite Russia: 21- year- old No 10 Aleksey Miranchuk maybe, though he can get knocked off the ball. No wonder Cherchesov was so reluctant to dwell on Putin’s comments.
When The Mail on Sunday pressed him to elaborate on how it felt to have the president so interested, he responded with an eyeballing, simultaneously observing a silence for 15 seconds or more and eventually breaking it with unexpectedly good English.
‘So. I answered the question two or three minutes ago. Do you want me to answer it in English?’
The press conference was still going when the Russian team press manager arrived at your correspondent’s shoulder to reinforce the message. ‘He already answered on this,’ he whispered insistently.
Russia’s determination to project a positive message to the world suggests that the stadiums and infrastructure will be in place by next summer. There’s little nonsense in this place. The huge cost overruns have not prevented the Krestovsky Stadium being built, connected by the new Western High Speed Diameterr toll motorway which links St Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island to Finland. If the Kremlin considers a project a priority, it happens. Dealing with t he racism and hooliganism that has characterised Russian football will be more of a challenge, with some at the top of the local World Cup organising committee in denial, judging awkward questions as proof of a foreign conspiracy. Former sports minister Vitaly Mutko told one Russian newspaper last week that he suspected ‘special brigades will visit towns and cities and shoot [footage] showing how wrong our fans behave. We just have to be ourselves.’ But privately Mutko does have concerns. Significantly, the best-known ringleader of last summer’s clashes with England fans in Marseille, Alexander Shprygin, was barred from attending last night’s New Zealand match after organisers told him his fan ID, needed to attend games, had been cancelled.
Shprygin said he knew of other last-minute cancellations.
Cherchesov just wants some wins to avoid becoming only the second host nation, after South Africa in 2010, not to emerge from a World Cup finals’ group stage.
He presumably found it less than helpful to find Mutko saying in the same newspaper that Roberto Mancini, recently installed at Zenit St Petersburg, had been lined up as national manager before him.
‘There is saying in Russia that even wars help you when you’re playing at home,’ Cherchesov said.
‘The fans are emotional when it’s the national team. I hope we will live up to the hopes that millions have in this country.’