Baku boys: the Russian youth national team holds the first FIFA Championship
The Russian U15 national team failed to compete for victory at the FIFA World Cup and festival, which is taking place in Azerbaijan these days. In the 1/16 finals of the A-level, our team lost to Mexico (3:2). Now the players under the leadership of Denis Pervushin will continue playing in the matches for the allocation of places. Earlier, Russia won all five meetings in the group, scoring 15 points with a 44-1 goal difference. It should be noted that this tournament was the first official competition for the Russian team under the auspices of FIFA since the spring of 2022. In addition, the national team performed with the national flag and anthem for the first time since that time.
Five to one
The main Russian national team and domestic clubs have not participated in FIFA and UEFA competitions for 4.5 years, so their international matches have friendly status. This applies to both youth and youth teams: they compete in tournaments that are not included in the official calendar of the two federations. The situation is similar for the clubs — there are only pre-season Cups and some foreign sparring matches. During this period, a calendar has developed: winter training camps in the UAE and Turkey, games with rivals from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Serbia, summer tournaments and trips of national teams to Minsk, Tashkent, Cairo and other cities.
Things got off the ground in June 2026, when our men's national under-15 team was invited to the FIFA World Cup and Festival in Baku. This is the organization's new tournament for youth teams. The first draw features 189 national teams divided into 32 groups: in 29 groups of six participants each, and in three more groups of five. The competition was opened to all 211 national FIFA member associations, but the number of invited and actual participants varies.
Our team went to the capital of Azerbaijan in almost optimal composition. The application included players from the youth teams of Zenit, Krasnodar, Dynamo, Lokomotiv, Rostov and other leading clubs in the country. The matches were played in a specific format: 8×8 on reduced fields, two halves of 20 minutes each. The number of substitutions is unlimited (they can be made at any time), and the offside rule applies only within 14 m of the goal.
In the group stage, the Russians won five out of five matches, defeating Sudan (12:0), Sierra Leone (7:0), Djibouti (13:0), Afghanistan (8:0) and Turkey (4:1). During the meeting with the Turks, Matvey Rodionov and Ilya Khrabry scored goals, and after the Turkish team converted a penalty, Matvey Abdulkhalikov and Anatoly Tsimin brought the score to a big one. In the playoffs, the participants were divided into six levels (A, B, C, D, E, F). The group winners, including Russia, continued to compete at level A. There, in the 1/16 finals, our national team had a match with the Mexican team. Arsen Bestaev and Matvey Rodionov hit the opponent's goal, but the Mexicans scored three goals in response. After this loss, the Russian team no longer claims the main title, but will continue to play for the allocation of places (17-32).
Double standards
Denis Pervushin, the head coach of the U15 national team, expressed hope after the tournament that this experience would be the first step towards the full return of Russian teams to international competitions. However, officials from the RFU urge not to rush to a positive agenda yet.
"There is movement, but there are no concrete results, except for the U15 national team," Alexey Sorokin, adviser to the RFU president and general Director of the 2018 World Cup organizing committee, told Izvestia. "But it's not our fault. The situation in international organizations is such that we are simply not allowed to return. Football colleagues can travel to all the forums, hold face—to-face meetings, attend conferences - we can spend as much time as we want on this and it's right to continue doing it, because I'm sure it will eventually achieve its result, but so far they just won't let us. It depends on a number of factors. I think everyone understands them perfectly. This is a firm position of the Europeans, which we cannot yet overshoot. But this does not mean that these efforts should be abandoned. As in the parable: you have to keep whipping milk to make butter.
Earlier, Mesut Ozil, the world champion in the German national team, expressed a constructive position on this issue. He called for the lifting of sanctions against Russian football.
— I want to appeal to FIFA: let them put aside these double standards and treat everyone equally, — said the former midfielder of Real Madrid and Arsenal after the match between the veterans of Zenit and Istanbul Basaksehir (2:3) in Turkey. — The sports community has always united people. FIFA did not impose a ban on Israeli teams in this process, but it did impose one on Russian teams.
The meeting between the veterans of the Russian and Turkish clubs was held as part of the XIX Verona Eurasian Economic Forum in Istanbul. The blue-white-and-blues were represented by Alexander Spivak, Alexey Igonin, Maxim Astafyev, Denis Ugarov, Konstantin Konoplev, Valentin Egunov and Pavel Dronov.
The Turkish club featured Euro 2008 bronze medalists Mehmet Topal and Semih Shentürk, as well as former Istanbul football players from the 2000s and 2010s. In addition to Ozil, the game was attended by the former Borussia midfielder, and now the head coach of Basaksehir Nuri Sahin, as well as the president of the club Geksel Gyumyushdag. The latter issued a statement.
— There are double standards — this is obvious to the whole world, — said Geksel Gyumyushdag. — It is unfair that sanctions are being imposed on Russia, while similar measures are not being applied to Israel, neither in football nor in other sports. This is our position, which concerns not only football, but also all other areas.
It should be noted that of the game sports, only representatives of water polo, volleyball and handball returned to international tournaments.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
