Frankly, there is no particular desire for matches of the Russian national team in which there are no tournament tasks, while the possible moment of the team’s return to international tournaments is absolutely not not clear. But professional duty obliges.
The Russian national team, in the absence of opponents, plays with whoever wants. There has already been a match with Kenya, and Cuba is an equally exotic option. It’s a shame that the Liberty Island representatives turned out to be completely uncompetitive.
Shoemaker without shoes
The choice of Cuba as a rival is, in principle, surprising. But in the end, the Cubans recently played a friendly match against Uruguay and looked more or less okay. The defeat with a score of 0:2 can be safely included in the trump card of the Cuban team.
Only for some reason a different composition arrived in Russia. The list of players for the Russian tour has raised eyebrows in Havana. The team, ranked 169th in the FIFA rankings, arrived with reserves. The nomination included seven players for whom the match against Russia was supposed to be their national team debut. Additionally, 10 players have played less than six matches for the national team.
It is unclear why the backup invitee list opposed the core of the Russian team. In such a situation, it would have been much more appropriate to field the Russian youth team. Or at least a team without Golovin, Kuzyaev, Glebov, Safonov and other key players.
In general, there were a lot of strange things in the story of the arrival of the Cuban team. Consider the fact that guests arrived with shoes that were not suitable for playing on natural grass. It turned out that the Cubans had come with synthetic playing boots. Again, it’s unclear exactly how this happened. Did the guests really not know what kind of lawn awaited them in Volgograd? And how is it possible that in Cuba, with its hot climate, there are no natural fields?
Perhaps the Cubans simply decided to take advantage of this trip and the situation to take away souvenirs from Russia. Additionally, as RB Sport discovered, the bill for 11 pairs of shoes was paid by an RFU representative. The Cubans got their supplies from the Volgograd Sportmaster, which had excellent publicity.
Surprisingly, the Cuban national team players chose boots with plastic spikes in the store. Another reason to worry. In Russia, they even participate in regional championships. So what was the point of buying boots?
Have random people been to Russia?
In Cuba, before the match against Russia, journalists accused the management of the national team of corruption. According to local journalists, the Cubans are selling places in the national team. Apparently, the guests did not even bother to assemble the plane so that they could accommodate friends and relatives of the leaders of the local federation.
And the composition itself raised questions. Maybe they decided to bring Cubans to Russia for money? In general, in Volgograd, Cuba played without any names, even by the standards of his country.
Almost reached France with Gibraltar
A day earlier, the French team destroyed Gibraltar in qualifying with a score of 14 to 0. Russia and Cuba did not reach this figure, limiting themselves to only 8 goals. It could have been 9 if Pinyaev had scored from the penalty spot.
But here it is hardly worth drawing a parallel with the French. Firstly, they did not choose an opponent, but participated in the Euro qualifiers. Secondly, the 2022 World Cup finalists are, in principle, much stronger than the Russians, so the phenomenal performance of Mbappé and company should not be considered a sensation.
In the case of Russia, it is generally unclear why such matches take place. Show that the team is alive? The destruction of Cuba is unlikely to help achieve this. On the contrary, such matches in principle ridicule the very existence of the national team in current conditions. I would like to avoid this.
Anton Mozgovoy, Athletistic
Source: Sport
I’m Scott Moore, a professional writer and journalist based in the US. I’ve been writing for various publications for over 8 years now, and have been working as an author at athletistic for the past five years. My work has been featured by some of the leading sports websites and magazines across Europe.
