Baltics troika: what is interesting about the expanded list of the Russian national team

Arsen Zakharyan's potential return to the Russian national team and the chance for a whole group of Baltika Kaliningrad players were the main extraordinary decisions of the national team's coaching staff when choosing an expanded list of players who can play in the October friendly matches against Iran and Bolivia. This is the opinion of a number of experts, who also identify a large number of names in this preliminary application — 42 people.

Baltika Players

Goalkeeper Maxim Borisko, defenders Mingiyan Beveev and Vladislav Saus were called up from the Kaliningrad club. They successfully proved themselves as part of Baltika, which became the main sensation of the first third of the season. Now this team is in third place in the Russian championship after nine rounds without losing a single match.

Maxim Borisko has been the main goalkeeper of the Russian youth national team several times and even has experience playing in official international matches — in 2021 he participated in the selection for the European Championship. In particular, with him in the goal, our team defeated Spain at home (1-0).

Lechi Sadulaev, a midfielder from Akhmat Grozny, has also been called up, whose club has not lost in the championship for six consecutive matches since the appointment of Stanislav Cherchesov as head coach. However, this player has already played for the national team in previous years. In addition, it is worth noting the call from Rostov of midfielder Konstantin Kuchaev, who this season became the leader and captain of the Don club.

"It's great that Karpin is paying attention to the guys from the regions whose teams are surprising us this season," Boris Ignatiev, the former head coach of the Russian national team, said in a conversation with Izvestia. — Kuchaev and Sadulaev have been doing great lately. In addition, both of them are well known by the coaching staff of the national team — Lechi was called up there earlier, and Konstantin played in Rostov back when Karpin worked there. In addition, the current head coach of Rostov, Jonathan Alba, works at the national team headquarters. They know these players well, so they call them as soon as they show their best side. And the called—up Baltika players are new names for the national team. And it is very good that they were rewarded with a challenge for the great game they show under the guidance of Andrey Talalaev.

Zakharyan's Return

One of the most talented footballers of recent years left for Spain two years ago. Then, being a key player of Dynamo Moscow, Zakharyan decided to try his hand at one of the top European national championships. He moved to Real Sociedad, but was unable to gain a foothold in the main squad. To a large extent, he was hampered by injuries that have plagued the 22-year-old midfielder for almost the entire period of his stay at the San Sebastian club.

In August, Arsen recovered from another injury and returned to the team's application, and after the September break for the national team matches, he twice came on as a substitute in the middle of the second halves of the Spanish championship games. And immediately after that, he received a call-up to the national team.

— After such a long absence and medical problems, Arsen played for 25 minutes twice, — the official website of the RFU quotes the explanation of the head coach of the Russian national team Valery Karpin. — We show that we are watching him, that he is in the clip. Moreover, Golovin, who plays in the same position, was injured. (Kirill) Glebov and (Sergey) Pinyaev are also missing. Therefore, there is a certain deficit. Shortage. That's also why we paid attention to Zakharyan.

Due to the injury of Alexander Golovin, who plays for Monaco in the French Championship, only French PSG goalkeeper Matvey Safonov and American Atlanta United midfielder Alexei Miranchuk were included in the list of our foreign players.

—Karpin is quite right to try to test our guys from abroad, giving them the opportunity to play with players from the Russian Premier League," Anatoly Byshovets, former head coach of the USSR, CIS and Russian national teams, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — He tries to keep the foreign players in the cage so that they do not break away from the atmosphere of the national team. Therefore, it is logical that Zakharyan received a call as soon as he started playing at least a little for his club in Spain. The coach's explanation is completely understandable, that it is necessary to show that Arsene is being watched. He may not be included in the final list. Maybe he shouldn't go to the national team now, and it's better to be at the club to play with his teammates and practice more with them after his injury. But it's important to show him that they haven't forgotten about him.

With a margin

42 players is a very large number for any team's application. In particular, six goalkeepers appeared on the expanded list at once — in addition to Borisko and Safonov, these are Alexander Maksimenko from Spartak Moscow, Stanislav Agkatsev from Krasnodar, Denis Adamov from Zenit St. Petersburg and Evgeny Staver from Rubin Kazan.

— Before the start of the training camp, the players will play three more matches, — Karpin explained to the official website of the RFU such a wide list. — And, as we can see, there are always injuries or some kind of ailments. Therefore, it is better to call more, and shorten the final list.

This is not the first time that Moscow-based Lokomotiv has had the largest representation in the expanded list. There were seven players from this team: defenders Alexander Silyanov and Evgeny Morozov, midfielders Alexey Batrakov, Dmitry Barinov, Danil Prutsev and Zelimkhan Bakaev, striker Dmitry Vorobyov.

— Such a wide list is quite a normal situation for friendly matches, — Anatoly Byshovets summed up. — As Karpin correctly said, given the injuries that may occur before October, a lot of guys may lose their health, so it's better to have an overabundance of names on the list than a lack. In general, the coaching staff has added almost all the best and currently healthy performers to the expanded squad. And it will be interesting to see which of them will remain on the final list.

Russia will play the match with Iran on October 10 in Volgograd. The national team will meet with Bolivia four days later in Moscow at the VTB Arena stadium.