For Russian fans, the World Cup is a dream tournament. It seems to be done as usual, in the usual format, but without the Russian team. So you need to find a new motivation to watch the traditional May tournament. For someone, “beautiful hockey” is enough, someone worries about their favorite players from other teams, but the most obvious object for sympathy is the Kazakhstan national team. They are not only our neighbors, but there are many players who were born in Russia. There are only two Muscovites, and there are also natives of Voskresensk, Yaroslavl and Barnaul.

It’s just not easy to root for this team from Kazakhstan. There is a high risk of losing nerve cells, resulting in a bitter taste of disappointment in the mouth. This was hinted at by friendly matches with the Latvian national team, which turned out to be a rout for the Yuri Mikhailis team. However, no one could have imagined that the first official match in the tournament would end like this. 1:9 is a disgrace anyway, but when it’s 1:9 from Denmark, it’s okay to shout “watchman” and sound the alarm. But how did the weakest version of the Kazakhstan national team with a handful of foreign players fail so gloriously?

If you look at the offensive and defensive line, the Kazakhstan team looks very good with their names. But saying such a thing about goalkeepers will not work with all desires. Conceding five goals against the Danes, Andrey Shutov made only one appearance for Barys last season. It was the first and so far only game in the KHL for the 24-year-old goalkeeper. Ilya Rumyantsev, who replaced him and conceded four goals, has never played at this level. The student of Yaroslavl Lokomotiv has been playing in the Kazakhstan championship for the past year and a half.

It can be understood from the same control games as Latvia that you cannot go very far with the Shutov-Rumyantsev tandem. Both goalkeepers conceded 5 goals each. This not only reassured the outfielders, it also made life difficult for the coach. When two goalkeepers are not equally convincing, it is quite difficult to even choose between them. True, there is also Sergey Kudryavtsev, the most experienced goalkeeper of this brigade. A few years ago, he was considered a pretty promising goalkeeper and even played enough for the Barys. However, the expected progress did not materialize.

The situation can be saved by Nikita Boyarkin, who was the main goalkeeper of the Kazakhstan national team at last year’s World Cup. But on the eve of the tournament, a young talented goalkeeper was injured. But even then, the local hockey federation had a “plan B”. It’s no secret that the Kazakh national team willingly takes advantage of the naturalization of foreigners playing for Barys. Dallman and Dietz, Bochenski and Dawes, Boyd et al. Who didn’t just play for the Cossacks! In the current team, in addition to the previously mentioned Dietz, there are three: Blacker, Svedberg and Wolf. But it could be more.

Jacob Lilja refused to play for the Kazakhstan national team. The Swedish striker recently received citizenship, but refused to go to the World Cup. How you refused to renew the contract with Barys. And the fact that the newly minted “Cossacks”, leaving Nur-Sultan, instantly forgot their new passport, we have already passed it several times. Lilja’s example was followed by former Finnish goalkeeper Yoni Ortio, who also accepted Kazakhstan citizenship. A year ago, he signed a new contract with Barys, thinking he would defend the national team at the World Cup. However…

“They wanted to solve this problem by naturalizing Yoni Ortio, who plays for Barys in Kazakhstan. It seems that the matter is closed, but the Finn refused to go to the World Cup. I think we should trust our students, not legionnaires. As practice shows, naturalization of foreigners is not always justified”– says Andrey Nazarov, the former head coach of the Kazakhstan national team and now the coach of Sochi. And it’s hard to agree with him.

Ortio is not the first foreign goalkeeper in Kazakhstan to try to close the hole created after Yeremeyev, Kolesnik and other bison left hockey in previous years. For several years this watch was used by Henrik Karlsson, but in the fall of last year a centennial Swede with a Kazakh passport announced his retirement. The Swede was changed to a Finn and they tried to get him into a new debut number for the national team, but that idea turned into harsh reality. And it broke because it was so unstable in the beginning.

Not only in Kazakhstan but also in Belarus at some point they decided that naturalization was an easy way to survive. But our neighbors, stunned by handing out passports to their left and right, forget how easily the first person they meet accepted citizenship, just as the next Canadian or Swede would simply reject him. If legionnaires who have lived in the country for many years and learned their language and culture are worthy to play for the national team, then temporary workers can be substituted at the most inopportune moment. Just like Orthio did.