Will National Soccer Team Train Sequestered?
The less than inspiring performance of Ukraine’s national team in the first half of the 2002 world championship qualifying tournament demands that the team achieve best possible results in the next two matches versus Wales and Norway scheduled for early June. Only victories in these encounters will allow the Ukrainians to keep hope alive for at least the second place in its group.
It is a good idea to draw conclusions from previous failures. One conclusion was already drawn last autumn by national team coach Valery Lobanovsky’s assistant hot on the heels of a defeat by Poland in Kyiv. Volodymyr Vieriemieyev complained then that the rivals had played far more friendly matches than the Ukrainians had. No one dared to ask who prevented our team from playing a similar series of test matches, the more so that we were told how difficult it is to arrange a match against a strong and prestigious rival.
In the calender of the Ukrainian Championship, two days were specially allocated in the spring of 2001 for the friendly encounters our team so badly needs. The first such day is April 25, but we will be unable to see our team play, nor will we in May, when our country’s main team is assigned one more day to play a match. As we know, the soccer federation of Turkey has expressed a desire to play a match versus the Ukrainians next Wednesday. Would it be a bad idea to receive such a rival, for example, at the just-renovated stadium in Simferopol, where a national team match would have surely drawn a full house? It is now warm in the Crimea, with the soccer pitch being in an excellent condition, while the Turks have long since outstripped us, securing themselves a place, if not in the European elite, then very close to it. Moreover, our qualifying group rivals will also play friendly games the same day.
What, then, is the matter? Why is our main team again paddling its own canoe, ignoring generally accepted traditions in preparing for the qualifying games? First this happened in February, when the national team called under its colors an “experimental” lineup of players for an international tournament in Cyprus; in other words, most Ukrainian stars failed to show in Cyprus. As a result, our side lost the tournament and remained unprepared for official matches against Belarus and Wales.
Unfortunately, Mr. Lobanovsky has had his actions explained to the press so many times lately either by National Federation executives or Dynamo functionaries. This time, the coach’s thoughts were relayed by Oleh Bazylevych, now head of the National Soccer Federation’s national teams committee. He explained that Ukrainian national team coaches had planned no friendly games, and gaps in the calendar sprang up almost by accident.
It is difficult to accept Mr. Bazylevych’s reasoning even with the greatest of desire. It is common knowledge that the calendar was drawn up very carefully, with the soccer schedule makers taking into account the national team’s interests. What looks more plausible is the intention of Dynamo coaches not to be distracted by national team affairs just now but to concentrate on the national championship where our champions have encountered problems for the first time in many years. If this is so, should we still stick to the much- advertised program called Our Goal Is 2002, which unambiguously focuses on the successful performance of Ukraine’s national team rather than of individual, even though prestigious, national clubs?
In all probability, we will hear no answers to these questions from the national team management until June, the time of qualifying games vs. Wales and Norway. Then we will either hear the explanation of a brilliant strategic design (in case of success) or, if our side loses again, see the blame being laid on referees, certain players, stadium grass mowers, or clouds in the sky.
