After a completely unconvincing game against Tajikistan (0:0), the next meeting of the Russian team as part of a trip to Asia was of particular interest. At the very least, it was interesting to see what changes Valery Karpin will make to the game after the last match, as well as how the Russian team will perform against the most “formidable” opponent this autumn.

In the FIFA ranking, Uzbekistan occupies 77th place – before that, our team met with Kyrgyzstan (95th) and Tajikistan (108th). And compared to the last game in Dushanbe, Karpin completely reshuffled the entire starting lineup, releasing, perhaps, the most “combatant” version of the Russian team.

However, no one saw combativeness from our team …

Thanks Shunin

For the match with the Uzbek national team, Karpin for the most part put up substitutes from the last match with Tajikistan. Nevertheless, it is precisely this line-up that now looks more combative than the experimental one with an abundance of young people. On the field at the start, among others, experienced Shunin, Jikia, Kuzyaev, Barinov and Fomin appeared.

However, our team did not receive any dividends from this “experience” in the first half. In the first 45 minutes of the meeting, the Russians did not create a single dangerous moment – after good activity and sharpening passes in the first minutes, the game of our team gradually faded by the end of the half.

At some point, it seemed that the Russian national team could not interfere with the 18-year-old Sergey Pinyaev, who skillfully dispersed the attacks in the last match with Tajikistan. Moreover, Georgiy Jikia was also unpleasantly surprised in the first half. The captain made several mistakes, which miraculously did not lead to dangerous moments. Apparently, he did not fully recover from the injury.

Photo: © RFS

However, by the end of the first half, the national team of Uzbekistan looked no better. The tactic of throwing from the center behind the backs of the Russian defenders aggravated the game a couple of times, but without serious moments. Nevertheless, it was the Uzbeks who created the first dangerous moment in the match: in the 44th minute, Eldor Shomurodov made a sighted cross from the front to the near corner of the goalkeeper’s area, from where Farrukh Saifiyev powerfully shot into the touch – Shunin dragged the ball at the near post.

Probably, a missed goal “in the locker room” of our team would not even hurt, since in the second half the longing continued …

Zero creativity

Karpin did not make a single substitution during the break, which hinted at a certain coach’s intention regarding this game. With the start of the second half, the Russian team was again more active than the opponent, pressed well, worked in counterpressing and periodically aggravated at the gates of others. However, apart from Andrey Mostovoy’s good shot from an acute angle, our team showed nothing until the 75th minute.

And on the 75th, the Russians could well have scored: Arsen Zakharyan went into the penalty area from the right edge, shook the defender and made a pass to the center on Sobolev, who received the ball and shot into the corner – the Uzbek goalkeeper transferred to the corner. Many thanks, probably, it is worth saying to the national team of Uzbekistan. In the second half, after the departure of the main star in the face of Roma forward Eldor Shomurodov, the hosts fell into a deep sleep on the bench, practically not even reaching someone else’s penalty area. Disturbed only at the end, but without real danger.

As a result, in the second match in a row, the Russian team demonstrates utter impotence in attack and the absence of any high-class creativity. One gets the impression that the players of our national team did not experience much enthusiasm either before the matches with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, or during them. Not a single goal scored in two games, but not a single missed one – in short, neither fish nor fowl. Otherwise, the autumn performances of the national team under the leadership of Karpin cannot be described.

It remains unclear why our players went on this Asian tour, which has brought nothing but disappointment to the fans so far. Wouldn’t it be better to really disband the team during the lockdown? It even begins to seem that with such a game we really would have nothing to do at the World Cup, and after all, the performances of the national team should have proved exactly the opposite.

Of course, in Qatar and even in the qualifying tournament, the motivation of the players would be completely different – but the attitude to the cause and professionalism are tested just in such seemingly on-duty meetings. When young footballers, as it was in Dushanbe, play carelessly in their debut match, and the stars are in no hurry to rehabilitate themselves before the country for the failure of their younger colleagues, there are a lot of questions for the team. And the answers to them are not yet encouraging.

Open video