Mikhail Gershkovich urged to support the national team and Karpin

“It is easy to criticize without answering for anything”

The authoritative domestic coach in an interview with MK calls to support the Russian national team and its head coach Valery Karpin, since any match in the current situation is of great importance for our team.

– Our team played a friendly match with the team of Kyrgyzstan. How much do you think this match was generally necessary based on the current situation?

– In the current situation, this match was like a breath of fresh air for our team. Not only for football players and coaches, but also for everyone who empathizes with our team. Surprised by the abundance of criticism of our team after this game.

Let’s abstract from our team and imagine for a moment that seven or eight leading teams in Europe will not play for at least ten months. And the first games of such teams were also connected with the fact that game connections, purely human connections, would be lost. But due to the fact that the level of football players in these countries is quite high, after a while they would have established these ties. And the game would go.

Our team also did not play for ten months. The guys never even met. And now the first game. There were many debutants in the line-up. Of course, it takes time to establish gaming connections and mutual understanding. So that at least some game starts to be traced. I have already said that the higher the skill of the players, the faster it happens. It is simply not necessary to talk about Russian football players that they are “high” masters. And it takes time to get the game right.

Therefore, the second half, when more experienced players entered the field as part of the Russian team, especially in the second half, a more or less meaningful game was traced. There were scoring chances. We scored a beautiful goal that allowed us to win. So I think that this match gave a lot of reasons to think about how our team should develop further.

And as for the critics, it is easiest to criticize, especially when you are not responsible for anything. Therefore, I want to wish, first of all, that our team has as many such friendly matches as possible. The RFU is now doing a lot of work in this direction and I hope that it will end successfully. And we will play with Iran, and with Bosnia and Herzegovina. And then there will be prospects for the team to live, play, develop. We now have a lot of good young players. They need time to gain experience, to gain a foothold in the national team, to establish mutual understanding within the team. Therefore, the game with Kyrgyzstan was a big plus for us.

– Before the start of the match, there were many different opinions about the level of the opponent, the Kyrgyz team. Meanwhile, as MK already wrote, this team reached the final stage of the Asian Cup for the second time in a row. Yes, and in the FIFA ranking is higher than many other national teams of the countries of the former USSR. How do you rate our opponent?

– I don’t want to say banal things again, but today you just can’t beat anyone. The Kyrgyz, especially in the first half, made a good impression. From the point of view of skill, from the point of view of the organization of the game. Very good guys. This is a fairly serious team. Considering that our national team met for the first time in ten months, it was hard to expect that we would immediately start to shake up this team, which showed quite interesting football, right off the bat.