The grants installed updates – Newspaper Kommersant No. 54 (7499) dated 03/30/2023

This year’s first window reserved for national team matches closed after a series of curious premieres. We are talking about performances in the qualifying tournament for the European Championship in 2024, updated after the recent Qatari world championship of top teams. Not all of these premieres were successful, and the Spaniards and the Danes, for example, have already managed to suffer defeats from rivals quoted much lower – the national teams of Scotland and Kazakhstan.

In the past days, the starting rounds of the qualification of the European Championship took place. It will be hosted by Germany in 2024, and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), as you know, did not allow the Russian team to participate in the tournament. The teams admitted to it, as it was before the previous championship, are divided into ten groups in the selection, from which the hostess of the championship is exempted. The two best teams from each go directly to the final stage along with the Germans. A dozen more will then contest the three remaining spots in the so-called play-off stage – mini-tournaments, admission to which will be based on performance in the League of Nations.

In general, everything is more or less traditional. But there is a nuance that made at least the first matches of the qualifying event much more interesting than usual. And this additional, or something, shade was given to them by the calendar.

The start of the European selection was preceded by the World Championship in Qatar, which ended on December 18.

A mandatory consequence of any world championship is the renewal of national teams, especially those that have not achieved the desired results.

This is how it always happened. But they always had enough time to test the adjustments, because the World Cup was held in the summer, in the off-season, through quality training camps, through friendly or semi-friendly, let’s say, that is, not of fundamental importance, as in the League of Nations, matches. Now, due to the specific timing of the season’s competitions, the teams have been deprived of this reserve. Shortly after the World Cup, club tournaments resumed, and there was virtually no pause before the start of the selection. So we got such premieres from the sheet.

Meanwhile, personnel transformations took place after the Qatari championship in all teams without exception. True, on a different scale. Those who have achieved success have small ones, which do not radically affect the ideas about these teams. The French, for example, who won silver, said goodbye to goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and defender Rafael Varane, but they saved the backbone. And the Croatian bronze winners, although it was impossible not to pay attention to the solid average age of the Qatari version of their base, did not abandon any of their “dinosaurs”, except for Dejan Lovren. 37-year-old Luka Modric is still in the ranks, as are his slightly younger partners – Marcelo Brozovic, Ivan Perisic, Andrei Kramaric.

But for the teams that retired in Qatar before the French and Croats, as well as the current owners of the continental title of the Italians who did not make it to the world championship at all, the changes are much more noticeable. In this regard, except that the British showed themselves to be conservatives, relying on proven personnel and schemes. The national teams of Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands are led by coaches appointed after the World Cup – Luis de la Fuente, Roberto Martinez, Domenico Tedesco and Ronald Koeman. And if, for example, Martinez in the Portuguese team and Koeman in the Dutch team refrained from a sharp injection of fresh blood, then de la Fuente and Tedesco injected it so much that their teams, if you look at the names, are only remotely similar to literally just failed in Qatar.

The premiere shows of these teams were completely different in quality. The value of two devastating, with a total score of 10:0, the victories of the Portuguese with regaining the status of a key character under Martinez, despite leaving for Saudi Arabia and a series of scandals at the end of last year, Cristiano Ronaldo is doubtful, since they defeated the football “dwarfs” – the Liechtensteiners and Luxembourgers. But the victory of the Belgians with Tedesco (who managed to train Spartak), who defeated – 3:0 – a really strong opponent, the Swedes, and even on a foreign field with a rather bright game, its value is undoubtedly much higher.

Most of all, the Spaniards alerted the giants, who just decisively turned off the old course, although it did not look like it was leading nowhere.

Luis de la Fuente abandoned football with a bet on possession, and his clip did not include half of the participants in the World Cup in Qatar, but it included players who had not come close to the national team before, such as Osasuna defender David Garcia and Espanyol forward Joselu. So far, de la Fuente is doing so-so. The Spanish national team defeated the Norwegians confidently, the Scots could not oppose anything, losing 0:2. And this was already the second sensation of the starting rounds of the European Championship qualification after the loss – 2:3 – of the Danes to Kazakhstan.

Alexey Dospekhov