Grandees with a flaw – Newspaper Kommersant No. 214 (7415) dated 11/18/2022

Group H of the World Cup kicking off on November 20 in Qatar seems to be almost the most unpredictable among all eight. The fact is that many questions arise about the potential of both of her formal favorites – the national teams of Portugal and Uruguay. At the very least, it is unlikely that anyone will be surprised if they have serious problems in matches with rivals – the teams of Ghana and South Korea.

If you choose a capacious definition in order to characterize the national teams of Portugal and Uruguay before the Qatari World Cup, then the word “stubborn” seems to fit perfectly. At least there are a lot of questions about their condition and capabilities.

The Portuguese team should have alerted those who are worried about it during the qualifying tournament: inexpressive games, the first place given to the Serbs after a home defeat, along with a direct ticket to the championship. As a result, the North Macedonia team helped the Portuguese to get to Qatar, saving them from having to fight in the decisive play-off match with the European champions, the Italians.

Even more doubts about the Portuguese should have appeared this autumn, that is, immediately before the World Cup. They are associated with an injury, due to which Diogo Joto, the most reliable Portuguese scorer, did not get into the Qatari application, as well as with the situation in which Cristiano Ronaldo found himself in conflict with the leaders of Manchester United. Without Ronaldo, even the 37-year-old, the Portuguese national team is still impossible to imagine. How impossible it is to guess in what form the disgraced genius will approach the championship. If it’s bad, then this will be a real test for coach Fernando Santos: if you don’t put a legend in the squad, they will kill your own, but if you put it in, you risk breaking the game.

Those who still expect to see the Portuguese in the advanced stages of the playoffs can, however, be comforted by the fact that, even if we forget about Diogo Jota and the evil Cristiano Ronaldo, the application of the Portuguese national team is still full of excellent players. Rafael Lean has blossomed at Milan to become one of the sharpest players in the Italian league, while Ruben Dias at Manchester United has proven himself to be one of the best centre-backs in the world. And there is also Juan Cancelo, Diogo Dalot, Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Juan Felix. With such a set, in theory, you can dream of a lot, you just need it to finally work efficiently and smoothly.

The Uruguay national team, like the Portuguese, also suffered terribly in qualifying for the world championship. And the torment led to the resignation of the coach-patriarch Oscar Tabares and the appointment of Diego Alonso, who has a modest track record, who has never worked at the level where he has now entered, to the vacant post.

His legacy was not without flaws. The main ones are the age of the former heroes of the Uruguay national team, which made even the greatest of rivals fear her. Diego Godin is 36 years old, Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani are 35 each. Godin and Suarez are already playing out in Argentina and Uruguay. Cavani is still trying to cling to the European Big Five, but Valencia seems to be his ceiling. They are hardly capable of feats. At the same time, without Suarez, who is both mind, and honor, and conscience, the Uruguay national team cannot do just the same as the Portuguese national team without Ronaldo, no matter how he feels.

However, it is possible that it is not worth exaggerating. In the end, even taking into account the decline of Godin, Suarez and Cavani, the Uruguayan team is still strong in absolutely all lanes without exception. At the gate – seasoned Fernando Muslera. In the center of defense, Ronald Araujo, progressing in Barcelona, ​​was added to Jose Jimenez. In midfield, Rodrigo Bentancur and Federico Valverde have matured to elite status. And in attack next to Suarez, you can put a young Darwin Nunez, and this combination of hardiness and freshness seems very entertaining. So the Uruguayans may still fight.

The South Korean national team, which is coached by a person who knows perfectly well the most powerful competitor in the quartet, the Portuguese Paulo Bento, has carefully preserved its best qualities for decades: this is efficiency, the ability to keep a high pace throughout the match. They often cause difficulties even for the top teams. At the last World Cup, the Koreans, for example, did not leave the group, but they did not let the German team out of it either, slamming it in a classic style for themselves: the Germans conceded both goals, exhausted by tireless opponents, in stoppage time.

Efficiency, of course, is not bad to spice up the class of individual stars. The current Korean team also has them, even if, in essence, these are only two players. The first is Kim Min Jae, who unexpectedly confidently settled into the role of the central defender of Napoli, despite the fact that there has always been a shortage of quality players in this role in the team. The second is, well, of course, Son Heung Min, who, leading Tottenham, claims to be the sharpest player in the English championship. In the national team, he is a man-orchestra. Son Heung Min both disperses attacks and completes them, he is both a sniper and an assistant. In general, this is the person around whom the whole game revolves.

But there is a catch. Toward the end of the group stage of the Champions League in the match with Marseille, the Korean’s facial bones were broken. The face, of course, is not the leg, but in any case, the damage required a complex operation and a period of recovery. And these adventures are clearly not going to benefit Son Heung Min.

The performances of the Ghana national team in 2022 certainly aroused mixed emotions among those who hold them dear. At the African Cup, the Ghanaians, the continental grand, suffered a crushing failure, finishing the fight already in the group stage and managing to lose to the Comoros team. But then they put the squeeze on the decisive stage of selection for the world championship of the mighty Nigerians who got in the way. This was the rarest case when Ghanaian football players showed an iron character, not bending under pressure from others: in their homeland they are often accused of psychological instability.

If they show character in Qatar, they may surprise. Ghana’s bid is by no means bleak. It has some good defenders from decent European clubs like Leicester, Strasbourg and Celta, and Inaki Williams compensated for the lack of forwards. He was born in Spain, has been playing for Athletic all his life, and the Basques consider him theirs. Williams even played a match for the Spanish national team, but in the end decided to change sports citizenship and represent the country of his parents who emigrated to Europe.

However, the lion’s share of Ghanaian strength is in midfield. In it, next to the age, but still technical André Ayew, Arsenal’s Thomas Partey, who is at the peak, and Mohammed Kudus, the bright talent of Ajax, play an extremely interesting combination.

Alexey Dospekhov