Cameroon national team refused to play a friendly match with Russia, which was scheduled for June 15th. This is not the first time that a potential sparring has been disrupted for Valery Karpin's team, and it is not a fact that the situation will improve in the near future.
More than a year and a half has passed since the last official match of the Russian team. In November 2021, the national team lost to the Croats in the decisive match for qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, and three months later, a joint statement by FIFA and UEFA closed our way to the international arena due to the conflict in Ukraine.
During this time, Russia managed to hold only five friendly matches. The national team, which in the current conditions is formed mainly from players «for the future», played with Kyrgyzstan (2:1), Tajikistan (0:0), Uzbekistan (0:0), Iran (1:1) and Iraq (2:1). 0). During the same period, European teams played two to three times as many games, including the World Cup and the UEFA Nations League.
There could have been more matches At the end of March, the head of the Russian Football Union (RFU), Alexander Dyukov, said that the organization was studying the possibility of holding matches with teams from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cameroon could have been the national team's first rival outside of Asia, but African officials blocked the match.
Similarly, the match with the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team fell through at the end of 2022. The meeting was planned to be held on November 19, but after criticism from team players Miralem Pjanic and Edin Dzeko, as well as functionaries of the Football Union of the country of Bosnia, they refused to meet.
Another offer of international sparring was already rejected by the RFU. We are talking about the cup of the Football Association of Central Asia (CAFA), which includes Afghanistan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Russian national team was invited to take part in the tournament, which is scheduled for June 9-21 in Bishkek and Tashkent, but the RFU referred to «organizational difficulties».
Refusal to participate in the CAFA Cup can be interpreted as a hope to return to European football as soon as possible, since consent would well coincide with the logic of moving to Asia. The possibility of changing the continental affiliation has long been discussed in the Russian football community, but no final decision has been made.
Will the outflow of players begin? The lack of competitive matches quite clearly harms the national team. If the current situation drags on, then perhaps a whole generation of young talented footballers will form a team that does not know what it means to participate in an international tournament. There is a growing risk of an outflow of young football players abroad, to countries where they can potentially break into the national team and play at the Euro and the World Cup. «. In May, the club's general director announced that the Russian plans to obtain a Serbian passport. He can only become the first in a chain of players who have changed their country. FIFA rules allow you to do this without complications in the absence of official matches for the «native» team.
There are still rivalsThe situation is aggravated by the removal of the Russian national team from Euro 2024. This means that the official matches of the national team in the country will not be seen for at least more than a year. And if now the players in the middle of the club season are ready to go to training camps and matches in unusual and even exotic destinations, then no one can imagine what will happen in a year of such practice.
However, this does not mean that the national team should stop gathering. In the absence of better options, any match is valuable, even in a friendly format and not with the main team. In addition, the RFU is confident that the national team will not reach the point where there will be no one to play with.
Recently, the media have discussed options for matches against the national teams of Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and China. Another potential rival from Africa was also reported in the face of the Ghana national team. Such sparring, of course, help to keep the national team functioning, but only significant changes will really bring it back to life, whether it is the lifting of sanctions or a transition to another confederation.