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Rating: Among the teams that will take part in the upcoming World Cup edition (South Africa 2010), one of the most important National teams in the world football scene is missing. Russia.
The Soviet National team, led by the Dutch guru Guus Hiddink, was eliminated in the playoffs by Slovenia after securing second place in its qualifying group - behind Germany, ed. Thus, the dreams and ambitions of the team that perhaps played the best football in the last edition of the European Championships, and of an entire Nation that, despite what one might commonly think, has always been passionate about football, were shattered.
Football in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is a serious matter. Players such as the likes of Yashin, Blokhin, Belanov, and Shevchenko have won the Ballon d'Or, a prestigious award assigned each year by the French magazine France Football. Andrei Arshavin, a Russian from Leningrad (St. Petersburg after the pseudo-metallic phase of the former Soviet Union), plays with the Londoners of Arsenal and is today one of the biggest stars in the Premier League.
Due to technical and economic reasons, Russian football - like Ukrainian, for that matter - is going through a particularly happy phase. Three of the last five editions of the UEFA Cup (now Europa League) have seen Soviet teams triumph. Which are also respected in the Champions League. Just ask Milan, San Siro area, where on Wednesday (tonight, ed.) Internazionale will play for qualification for the next stage of the Cup against the Russian champions Rubin Kazan.
Moreover, on the international stage, the triumphs in the European Cup Winners' Cup of Dinamo Tbilisi and Dinamo Kyiv of Valerij Lobanovs'kyj, teams capable of winning the trophy twice and also clinching a UEFA Super Cup, are notable.
It is precisely Dinamo Kyiv and Dinamo Tbilisi, two teams historically capable, also because "an expression of national pride, of the desire to differentiate themselves somewhat from Russia", that rival with Spartak Moscow for popularity and field successes. The latter, besides being the most titled club in Russian football history (12 times Soviet Union champion and 9 times Russian champion), is still today the Soviet football team enjoying the most following. Even beyond Russia's borders.
The story of Spartak Moscow's origins, brilliantly reconstructed by Mario Alessandro Curletto (university lecturer in Russian Language and Culture) in this booklet of about 150 pages, is rooted in one of Moscow's central districts. Presnja. Krasnaja Presnja (Red Presnja) after the revolutionary events of 1905. It is here that, thanks to the initiative of a group of enthusiasts, the MKS (Moskovsky Kruzok Sporta, Moscow Sports Circle) was born in 1922. The club would change its name several times until 1935, when, inspired by the historical novel "Spartacus" by the Garibaldian Raffaello Giovagnoli, it would take its current name, Spartak Moscow.
It's impossible to tell the story of Spartak Moscow without telling of Nikolai Starostin and his brothers, Alexander, Andrei, and Pyotr. All four, born and raised in Presnja, were players of Spartak. In particular, Nikolai became over the years a constant and fundamental reference figure within the club and Russian football as a whole. In a way, the Valeriy Lobanovskyi of Spartak Moscow. Except for a period of absence due to force majeure and beyond his control, Nikolai Starostin dedicated his entire life to Spartak. From its founding until his death in 1996.
Unlike other historical capital clubs, Dinamo and CDKA primarily, Spartak was not established from above. Its management was comprised of sports enthusiasts, not military personnel. This immediately made it popular and attracted numerous athletes from various disciplines. And some animosities.
According to Curletto's reconstruction, Nikolai Starostin, his brothers, and Spartak as a whole were disliked by Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria. Born, like the "great leader", in Georgia, he was not only called in 1939 to head the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) but also boasted mediocre football pasts with a Tbilisi selection and took a particular interest in the fate of Dinamo, the "police team".
Nikolai Starostin, with his brothers, was condemned to ten years of forced labor on charges of having "publicly praised bourgeois sport" and thus "trying to spread among us - in the Soviet Union, ed. - customs of the capitalist world". As proof of this thesis, the use - known and authorized by institutions - by Spartak to pay its athletes with national-level performance a monthly salary of 80 rubles was brought up. Thus begins a story with incredible facets. Uchta, Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Ulyanovsk (Simbirsk), Akmolinsk (Astana), Alma-Ata: these are the destinations visited by Nikolai during what he himself defined as a "decennial vacation in Stalinist places". A vacation that, in truth, was less long and harsh for Starostin than usually expected. His name was linked to Spartak, ensuring him some popularity. Besides, every commander was eager to entrust their team to the great Nikolai Starostin. Football was played even in the gulags. And it still is, of course. A small Dmitri Torbinski, Lokomotiv Moscow midfielder and the executioner of the Dutch in the last European Championships, was born in an (ex-)gulag, Norilsk. Incidentally, his story intertwines with that of the Starostins because it was precisely Andrej who was sent to Norilsk. Who, unsurprisingly, became the coach of the local Dinamo.
Curletto met Nikolai Starostin only once. In 1990. He wanted to ask him about the time Spartak played in Red Square in front of Stalin in person. But Starostin had other things on his mind. Spartak was playing in Naples. Champions League. The match would end zero to zero. Napoli would lose the penalty shootout in the return leg. A game that went down in history for the many controversies regarding Maradona's conduct and his exclusion from the starting eleven (he would then come off the bench). Anyway, I write this review after CSKA Moscow qualified for the Champions League round by sending home the Germans from Wolfsburg and Turks from Besiktas, and Juventus was thrashed by Van Gaal's Bayern. I wonder how it would have ended in Moscow with a full-time Maradona in top form that time. But today, regardless of the result of Inter-Rubin Kazan, are you really sure that Italian football is so superior to Russian?
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