Russia was left without Europe – Newspaper Kommersant No. 174 (7375) of 09/21/2022

The Russian football team will have to exist in international isolation for a long time, content with friendly matches with low-level opponents. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) did not allow the team, which fell under sanctions in the spring, against the backdrop of the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, to participate in the draw for the qualification of the next continental championship. The tournament, which will take place in Germany in 2024, will be the second consecutive top-level competition after the World Cup, which opens in Qatar in November, which the Russian team will miss after a decade-plus streak of hits in such competitions, and the lack of official games could mean problems for them in more distant future, for example due to a rating drop.

Russian Football Union (RFU) informed that the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) did not allow the national team to participate in the draw for the next European Championship: it will be held on October 9 in Frankfurt am Main. This is one of ten German cities that will host the main continental tournament in 2024, thus remaining without a domestic team.

The RFU, commenting on the incident, called it the sanctions imposed by UEFA shortly after the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason for it. They boiled down to “suspension of the performance of Russian teams and clubs in competitions under the auspices of the organization, by default acting” until further notice “”. The structure recalled that the sanctions were challenged in the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne (CAS). In July, he denied the appeal.

Currently, the RFU is awaiting the “full text” of the CAS verdict, and based on the results of its study, “a decision will be made on further steps in the framework of legal protection.”

Thus, UEFA ahead of time (qualification for the European Championship starts in March next year) and for a long time extended the “isolation” regime for the Russian team. Existing in it, it has the opportunity only to periodically organize training camps (the next one is taking place right now), as well as play friendly matches with opponents representing “friendly” countries who are ready to meet with the sanctioned team. The choice, as practice has already shown, in this case is small. The RFU has already agreed on three matches for the national team before the end of the year. In the nearest, on September 24, she will play with a very modest Kyrgyz team, and the Iranians and Bosnians should become its next opponents. These are quite strong, but still not top opponents. Moreover, the match scheduled for November with the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it seems, has already been in jeopardy. It was opposed by a number of Bosnian sports functionaries, as well as the brightest Bosnian football stars – Miralem Pjanic and Edin Dzeko.

In itself, the lack of serious game practice over a long period of time is an absolute minus for the Russian team in terms of the quality of its preparation for returning from isolation. But UEFA’s decision also has a much more understandable, unpleasant practical consequence for it.

The Russian national team rarely achieves success in major competitions. In fact, in its history there were only two breakthroughs – in the semi-finals of the European Championship in 2008 and in the quarter-finals of the home world championship in 2018.

But it is distinguished by stability in the qualifying stages of such competitions. The last top tournament that the Russian team failed to qualify for was the 2010 World Championship. Since then, she has not allowed misfires. And performances at top tournaments, success in qualifying for them helped to maintain a fairly high rating of the International Football Federation (FIFA). It has value in the formation of qualifying groups, since on its basis the teams are distributed into “baskets”. Those who got into one of the “upper” ones, as a rule, get easier opponents.

At the moment, the Russian team is in 39th position in the FIFA classification and 19th among European teams. But during the “isolation”, a team that is not gaining points is likely to face a sharp drop in it. After all, the German European Championship will be the second top tournament in a row, which the Russian team will lose. The first is the World Cup in Qatar, which opens in November. The Russian national team, having taken second place after the Croats in the main stage of selection for it, got into the final stage – a butt mini-tournament in March. But FIFA, adhering to the policy of most major sports organizations, did not allow the Russian team to these matches.

Now her fans can only hope that the sanctions will be lifted before qualifying for the next World Cup – 2026 (the United States, Canada and Mexico are chosen as its hosts). But even the right to be “seeded” in the third “basket” (at the moment, the Russian team would have ended up in it when forming the groups), which already does not promise an easy life in the selection, the domestic team risks losing.

Alexey Dospekhov