football test

The current Slovakia national team coach Vladimir Weiss worked in Saturn (Ramenskoe, Moscow Region) from February 2006 to June 2007. He came there from a modest Slovak Artmedia, who reached under his guidance the group stage of CL.

Weiss’ Russian experience wasn’t a complete failure but, certainly, it was not success either. It didn’t take him too long to build a skilled and tight performance in the defense but Saturn’s attempts in the offensive were much less impressive. Besides, Weiss’ team was extremely unlucky – injuries, foolish goals at the very end and the like. A number of Slovak players came with the coach but they obviously weren’t those capable of a decisive breakthrough. For all that, the coach’s hand was easily identifiable, and his plans on the pitch were quite clear; that is why football specialists valued Weiss’ efforts higher than the fans did.



A kind of “trademark” of Weiss’ Saturn was an abnormally large number of draws. In the Russian championship, where 90% of (supposedly) fixed-result games end in either team’s victory, it was like a certificate of honesty but the fans didn’t like it at all. At the end of Weiss’ first season they displayed a banner reading by analogy with a beverage advertisement (“Collect twenty bottle caps and get what-you-have-always-dreamed-of free of charge”): “Collect twenty draws and get a ticket to Slovakia free-of-charge”. The banner was rather bitter but the fans, in fact, weren’t. Their attitude to the Slovak was quite positive (at least, more positive than one could expect judging from his results).
In 2006, Saturn was on the 11th position in the championship owing to a large number of low-valued draws (16 in 30 games, with 7 to 7 balance of victories and defeats and a positive goal difference). In the spring of 2007, the trend persisted, and the Slovak was dismissed, without any scandal or bad-mouthing.
The probability of Weiss’ return to Russia in the future is high. Should he leave the national team, he’ll certainly be one of the best options for any of the Russian Big Five.

Juande Ramos “visited” CSKA for a month and a half this autumn. Generally, when a coach is dismissed under such circumstances it means that he proved to be fully incapable. Was it the case with Ramos? It hardly was. His further work in CSKA was conditioned, first and foremost, by their participation in CL next year and – less important – by their reaching play-off in the current CL. At the time when he started both of the goals seemed more or less attainable. Six weeks later, CSKA still had chances to qualify for play-off (and realized them a month later) but in the national championship the game was lost. It seems that Ramos acted decently in the circumstances when he warned CSKA bosses that he had made the decision to leave, thus providing a new coach with the opportunity to take over the team and to get into its affairs before the winter pause.
For all that, such a “business trip” to Russia certainly hasn’t added much to Ramos’ reputation – perhaps because all the matter was of somewhat adventurous nature.

Juande Ramos may be seen as a kind of a link between CSKA and Sevilla, who are to fight each other in the first round of CL play-off. Either side considers the other one to be the best or, at least, the second-best possible options. The mood among Russian fans and football people may be described as a moderate optimism, and the chances are seen as, say, 40 to 60 for Sevilla. Besides, the matter with failed drug tests of Berezutsky and Ignashevich was resolved in the most favourable way for CSKA; actually, the defenders were acquitted of taking prohibited substances, and the theory offered by the club was accepted in full. CSKA has engaged a young defender Kirill Nababkin from Moscow. Though very promising, he is hardly a person able to help “the Horses” in this CL. And – highly disappointing news for CSKA fans – Vagner Love will stay in Palmeiras until summer. Should he return, he might become a large problem for Sevilla’s defence, of which a young Czech Necid – a downgraded copy of Koller – doesn’t seem capable.