The season is new, and the results are old - the national football team of Belarus started in the League of Nations with a defeat from Albanians

Guys are good! They're beautiful! Good guys and real fighters! It is very expensive to watch their creative, uncompromising and attacking football. Not for fear, but for conscience. And they win!

I would really like to say all these long-prepared epithets to the Belarusian national football team. And add a few more. Say, finally waited: the guys showed the will, character and kept their promises, starting the competition of the League of Nations with an excellent result! At this point, you could even loudly shout “Hurrah!” and, succumbing to emotions, rip off the cap and throw it into the air. Unfortunately, there was no surprise. And no miracle happened. Belarusian footballers in the next official tournament started with the usual defeat, losing to the team of Albania with a score of 0: 2.

Therefore, the speech prepared for the Belarusian national team has to be given to other teams again. In this case, the team of a small island state called Curacao (150 thousand people), for example. In the summer, these men made a lot of noise in the final stage of the World Cup, and it was no coincidence that they got into the number of the best teams of the planet confirmed the day before: they started in the CONCACAF Nations League (Confederation of Football of North and Central America) with two chic victories - they defeated Costa Rica (4: 3), and at home they demolished Nicaragua - 6: 1! And, of course, they're good! And handsome! Clever and real fighters who by their game and results bring the country fame and popularize the name of Curacao. Now we know that this is not only such a delicious liquor, but also a country in which they know how to play football well. What do we got?

And we have 10 million people, hundreds of football schools, developed industry, technology, a high standard of living, excellent infrastructure, a luxurious football stadium, commissioned recently, and to all this – total failures in the field of football, which became a parable. Anecdote. An annual occasion for sarcasm and sad ridicule. For many years, football has been the main sporting problem of the country. Belarus has never been able to qualify for the final stages of the World or European Championships. And it was not even close to realizing this dream, although such a goal and tasks in the football industry of the country put for thirty years. Before each qualifying cycle, the management cheerfully reports that the time has come and now everything will happen: the team has picked up talented and combat-ready, the youth has grown and gained experience, we are able to “hit the bows and captivate the light with our art”. But then everything according to the classics is deruit, and there is no sense. No matter how we sit down, we are not all good musicians. Before the start of the next Nations League tournament, the conversations were the same: “the team is perfectly ready”, “aiming at a high result”, “set maximum goals” and so on and so forth. The results of friendly matches were also habitually encouraging, but this time nobody paid special attention to them, taught by bitter years of experience. Waiting for official meetings. With anxiety and fear. Not for nothing. The first pancake, alas, again turned out to be a lump - the new commander-in-chief of the Belarusian national team Viktor Gancharenko did not change the current trend: again a deuce - 0: 2 from the Albanians.

We can take comfort in the fact that we played on equal terms with them and did not deserve defeat, but these words have already become obsolete, we have heard them more than once. Albania is not Spain or France. I must say that the game of the Belarusian team in principle has not undergone major changes – it is plus or minus the same team, which was a year and two ago. The same childhood mistakes, a lot of effort, but little result, lack of experience and class, lack of skill. And most importantly, the absence of a leader. Both in game terms and mentally: there is no Alexander Prokopenko on the field, and Yuri Kurnenin and Yuri Pudyshev in the dressing room. And until they appear, or rather, until we raise them and educate them, no coaching changes will lead to anything. Because miracles only happen in fairy tales.

Today, the Belarusian team will play in Helsinki with the Finnish team.

TABLET

League of Nations. League C. Group C1

September 26th. San Marino – Finland – 0:7, Albania – Belarus – 2:0 (Aslani, 34, penalty, Muchi, 45+2).

s kanashyts@sb.by