Tragedy of the year
Unfortunately, we’ll have to start our overview of the main sporting events of the year with the tragedy that happened in Yaroslavl. The tragic death of the whole Lokomotiv hockey team became one of the tragic pages of the world history of sports: members of the team were not only from Russia, there were Czech, Canadian, Belorussian, Slovak, Swedish and Latvian citizens there. Russian hockey lost one of the best teams in its history: Lokomotiv- Yaroslavl was tree times champion of Russia. The plane carrying the whole team crashed on September, 7, 2011 on its way to Minsk, Belarus.
Over 100,000 people came to the funeral ceremony in Yaroslavl.
Victories
Beach football
Russian national beach football team became the World Champion for the first time in 2011, and that made the big football authorities look upon their ‘younger brothers’ with interest and respect. The President of Russian Football Union, Sergey Fursenko, promised financial support for beach football in Russia.
Football
The Russian national team made the Euro 2012 finals. Despite severe criticism from fans and sport journalists accusing the team of poor quality of their game-style, the team achieved its main goal. Also, for the first time in our history, not one, but two Russian teams managed to participate in the play-off of the most prestigious European competition, the Champions League – Zenit-Petersburg and CSKA-Moscow. Another two Russian FCs – Rubin and Lokomotiv – also made their way up to the next round of the European League, so it seems that Russian fans will be able to see four Russian teams playing in European football competitions.
Athletics
Russian national team performed successfully in the World Championship in South Korea, winning 10 gold, four silver and 6 bronze medals, becoming the second in the general set-off. The US national team was the first, and the team of Kenya was the third. This is the best result for our national team since 1991.
Sport project of the year
One of the most sensational projects of the year was Dagestani FC Anzhi-Makhachkala. After Suleiman Karimov took up the task of financing the club, it spent some 55 – 70 million euro on buying new players, thus becoming one of the most extravagant FCs of Europe, leaving behind even Real and Barcelona. Anzhi got Roberto Carlos, Samuel Eto’o, Yuri Zhivkov. The world finally heard this club's name, and world media is actively discussing rumors of the club’s possible transfers.
Scandals
This year’s scandals related to Russian football could easily fill several seasons. 2011 was a year of aggressive confrontations between Moscow and St.-Petersburg football fans on one side and supporters of Caucasian FCs on the other. Some of the nationalist radicals even tried to organize boycotts of games with North Caucasian teams. Nationalists also insulted the teams, their supporters and players on various occasions and even threw bananas at Roberto Carlos, who currently plays for the Dagestani team ‘Anzhi’. The famous Russian football player Yuri Zhirkov, who chose to play for the Caucasian football club, also had to endure the humiliation of football fans booing him at each game. Junior teams had a fight in Vladikavkaz – the public knew about it only thanks to Internet, another instance in which Spartak football player Gogniyev was beaten up by the police in Grozny.
The Montenegran footballer Nicola Nikezicha was also beaten up, as he claims, on the orders of his club’s administrators, who wanted him to break off the contract.
Fans of Petersburg’s FC Zenit almost wrecked their team’s game with the Cypriot team FC APOEL, and one of the most popular football reviewers, Dmitry Guberniyev, allowed himself to insult one of the Russian national team members, Vyacheslav Malofeyev, on air on one of the federal channels.
There are a lot of other examples, but the most striking thing is that Russia’s Football League didn’t take any real action in any of these cases.
Good fortune
However, Russian football fans can’t complain that luck deserted their favourite clubs this year. For the first time in the history of Russian football, two teams managed to get into the Champion’s League play-off – Zenit and CSKA. It seems that Zenit had a great deal of luck in winning this position.
The results of the European Cup-2012 draw were also very fortunate for Russian teams – all other teams in Group A(the national teams of Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic) are of the same level. Nevertheless, football critics still say that the Russian team will need some luck to beat its opponents.
Injuries
One of the most discussed football injuries of the year was of one of the CSKA players, Igor Akinfeyev, after his clash with Spartak player Wellington. The incident was rough but not extreme, but it was not the first time that the Brazilian player had caused an injury and failed to apologize. For their part, CSKA fans threatened to deal with Wellington in their own way.
Losses
One of the bitterest losses by Russian players in the outgoing year was the failure of the Russian ice hockey team of Vyacheslav Bykov at the World Championship. The team hardly made it to the play-offs, managed to beat its principal opponents, the Canadians, but then Bykov’s team lost to the Finnish national team, only to lose third position later, ending up with no medals. Together with the crushing defeat by the Canadians at the Olympic Games in Vancouver, the failures show that the system of training and equipping the national team needs changing. Judging by media reports, the Bykov-Zakharkin duo was unprepared. And the supervisors too were not prepared to admit their mistakes. Moreover, the emotional Zakharkin got himself into newspaper arguments with veterans and dared make offensive outbursts against his elders, which doesn't lend popularity to heads of the national team. The Russian Ice Hockey Federation urged Bykov and Zakharkin to resign. Zinetula Bilyaletdinov became the new leader of the national team. He is to train the team for the main start of the quadrennium of the Olympic Games in Sochi. Yet the fate of coaches is changeable and there would probably be no one to predict who will end up supervising the Russian national team right at the start of the Winter Olympic Games 2014.
Debut of the year
The Russian national team made its debut at the Rugby World Cup in 2011. Specialists and journalists gave different ratings to the first experience of the Russian national team. Some noted that Russian rugby players failed to make a serious battle even with the weakest team of the group, the US team. Others paid more attention to the record the national team had set. The Russian team managed to make 8 attempts to score in 4 games, which is a record for debutants of the World Cup. But the achievement should not be overestimated. Three out of eight attempts at the opponents’ end were made in the second half of the last match, when the Russian team was already losing to Australia. But the team failed to score a try in the game vs. the US team.
Pessimists and optimists had different evaluations of the game and the further prospects of the Russian national rugby team. They believe that the Russians would not only attend the World Cup in England but also win a match or more. Others are confident that the level of rugby in Russia is still too low for top teams and “second-class teams”.
Giya Saralidze exclusively for VK
