Spanish singer Julio Iglesias was a goalkeeper in Real Madrid, in 1963 he got into a car accident and while he was in the hospital, he mastered the guitar and decided to retrain as a musician. They also played football professionally: the writer Albert Camus defended the gates of the Algerian national team in the 1920s, Pope John Paul II was the goalkeeper of the team of the city of Wadowice in Poland, and the famous tenor of the Bolshoi Theater, People's Artist of the USSR Zurab Sotkilava was the goalkeeper of Tbilisi Dynamo.
OLYMPIC GAMES
Football became an Olympic sport at the 1900 Games in Paris. It wasn't until 1932 that there was an Olympic football tournament in Los Angeles. Women's football has become Olympic view sports in 1996 in Atlanta.
RUSSIA
The most titled Soviet footballer is goalkeeper Lev Yashin - the best goalkeeper of world football for the entire existence of this sport. Lev Yashin - Olympic champion (1956), USSR champion (1954 - 1955, 1957, 1959, 1963). Soviet footballers won the Olympic Games twice: in 1956 and 1988.
The Olympic tournament that fans are looking forward to most of all is football. 16 men's and 12 women's teams will take part in the competition. There are so many games ahead that seven football arenas will be used for the tournaments. Football games start 3 days before the official opening of the Olympics.
Participants in football games
28 national football teams will attend the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The qualification of the competition took place from the end of 2014 to almost mid-2016. Based on the results, all teams were selected and divided into groups.
Male teams participants are divided into the following groups
Group A:
- Brazil;
- Iraq;
- Denmark.
- Sweden;
- Colombia;
- Nigeria;
- Japan.
- Fiji;
- The Republic of Korea;
- Mexico;
- Germany.
- Honduras;
- Algeria;
- Portugal;
- Argentina.
Women's groups
- Brazil;
- China;
- Sweden;
- Canada;
- Australia;
- Zimbabwe;
- Germany.
- New Zealand;
- France;
- Colombia.
The Russian national team could not pass the selection and did not make it to the Olympics, neither the men's nor the women's team. The qualifying tournament is different for each region, usually the continental championship.
The course of the competition will be as follows. The group round will take place first, with each team playing against all the others in their group. Then, from each group, the two teams that managed to score the most points go to the quarterfinals. The playoff principle is already in effect there: the losers are eliminated, but they can compete for the 3rd place.
After the end of each tournament, the winning team will be awarded.
Football competition calendar
The Olympic Games for those who play football will begin on August 3, they will be opened by the women's teams, and will end on August 20, with the end of the men's tournament. The schedule is as follows.
- Group round: 3, 6, 9 August. 6 matches every day.
- Quarter-finals: August 12. 4 matches.
- Semifinal: August 16. 2 games.
- Final: August 19. Match for 3rd place, ceremony of awarding all medals.
- Group round: 4, 7, 10 August (8 matches every day).
- Quarter-finals: August 13. 4 matches.
- Semifinal: 17 August. 2 matches.
The football tournament will take place in 5 cities, at 7 venues. Both final matches will take place at the Maracanã stadium in Rio.
Football fans wait for the Olympics to kick off to watch every game. This sport was not always so popular, but it has been present at the Olympics since 1900. Since then, there has only been one Summer Olympics that hasn't featured football - 1932, Los Angeles. But the women's tournament was included in the program in 1996.
Football is played by two teams, each with 11 people, including the goalkeeper. Each team tries to score a goal. You can hit the ball with your feet, your head, and sometimes your body. It is forbidden to touch the ball with your hands, this can only be done by the goalkeeper if the ball is near the goal.
If the end of the Summer Olympics in football is a draw, the teams will be given overtime. If the overtime is spent, but the winner has not yet been decided, then a penalty shootout is awarded.
The International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA / FIFA) is founded in Paris.
the first intercity football match Petersburg-Moscow was held (score 2: 0).
at the constituent assembly, the composition of the Moscow football league- the supreme body of urban football. The creation of the IFL marked the beginning of the Moscow championships.
the first victory of the Russian team players in an international match was won. In the capital of the Russian Empire, the first team of St. Petersburg beat the Corinthians (Czechoslovakia) team 5: 4.
the All-Russian Football Union, the supreme football body, was created Russian Empire... Founders and first members: Kiev, Moscow, Odessa, St. Petersburg, Kharkov football leagues, St. Petersburg student football league, Nikolaev sports club, Sevastopol circle of sports fans and Tver circle of cyclists, skaters and amateurs sports games... In the same year, the first Russian Championship was held, the VFS became a member of FIFA, and for the first time the officially created national team of the country took part in the football tournament of the Olympic Games in Stockholm.
the first Russian football championship ended with the victory of the St. Petersburg team, which beat the Moscow team with a score of 4: 1 in a repeat match.
the first championship of the RSFSR on football among national teams of cities and regions took place (July 19-25), which gave the name of the first champion. It was the Moscow national team.
the first international football match was held between the Russian team ZKS (Zamoskvoretsky Sports Club) and the team of the Working Sports Union of Finland (TUL). The match was attended by 8,000 Muscovites - a record number of spectators at that time. The meeting ended with a score of 7: 1 in favor of the home team.
the debut of the USSR national football team took place. In Moscow, she hosted the Turkish national team. The first goal in the first match was scored by the team captain Mikhail BUTUSOV. The final score is 3: 0 in favor of the Russian athletes. From 1924 to 1936 Turkish and Soviet teams have met 39 times. Our footballers won 26 matches, 5 - Turkish, 8 ended in a draw. These meetings are interesting in that, according to the results of the games, it was possible to observe an increase in the class of the game of Russian footballers.
the first victory of the USSR national team at a party. Turkey - USSR 1: 2. Playing in Ankara and losing in the long run, Soviet footballers with a frantic assault turned the tide of the match in the last minutes and snatched the victory.
July 13, 1930: The 1st FIFA World Cup kicked off in Uruguay (13-30 July) with the participation of 13 national teams. The team of Uruguay became the world champions, having prevailed in the final of the tournament over the team of Argentina (4: 2)
May 27, 1934: The II World Football Championship (May 27 - June 10) with the participation of 16 national teams started in Italy. The Italian team became the world champions, defeating the Czechoslovakian team in the final of the tournament (2: 1 in extra time)
June 10, 1934: The II-nd FIFA World Cup (May 27 - June 10) with the participation of 16 teams has come to an end in Italy. Team Italy beat Czechoslovakia 2: 1 in extra time in the final of the tournament
dozens football teams from 39 cities competed for the newly established USSR Cup. In the final match, Lokomotiv (Moscow) and Dynamo (Tbilisi) met. The first goal in the cup final was scored by Alexey Sokolov. Having won with a score of 2: 0, the railroad workers became the first owners of the honorary sports trophy.
June 4, 1938: The III-rd FIFA World Cup started in France (June 04-19) with the participation of 15 national teams. The Italian team became the world champions for the second time. The second place is for the Hungarians, the third for the Brazilians.
June 9, 1938: The III World Football Championship (04-19 June) with the participation of 15 teams ended in France. The Italian team in the final of the tournament beat the Hungarian team with a score of 4: 2. In the match for third place, the Brazilians prevailed over the Swedes with the same score as in the final - 4: 2.
in Leningrad, the stadium named after S.М. Kirov - the first stadium in the USSR with a 100-thousand seat, built according to the project of the academician of architecture A. Nikolsky. Architects N. Stepanov and K. Kashin.
the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) was founded.
the goal scored by the Spartak player Anatoly Ilyin against the Yugoslavian team brings the USSR national football team gold Olympic medals... At the Melbourne stadium in the final match of the Games XVI Olympiad The national team of the country played in the following composition: Lev Yashin, Boris Kuznetsov, Anatoly Bashashkin, Mikhail Ogonkov, Anatoly Maslenkin, Igor Netto, Boris Tatushin, Anatoly Isaev, Nikita Simonyan, Sergey Salnikov and Anatoly Ilyin.
the 6th FIFA World Cup (June 8-29) ended at the stadiums of Sweden. For the first time, the USSR national team played in the final tournament. Soviet footballers, having played a draw with the England team (2: 2), defeating the Austrians (2: 0), losing to the Brazilian national team (0: 2), managed to outplay the British (1: 0) in an additional match and reached the quarterfinals, where they lost to the Swedes (0: 2). The Brazilians, who beat the Swedes in the final (5: 2), became world champions.
at the founding conference, the USSR Football Federation was founded. Like its predecessors, the USSR Football Federation was involved in the organization of the national championship, international relations and the development of all national football in general. Valentin Granatkin was elected the first chairman.
in Paris, the final match of the first European Cup in football took place: USSR - Yugoslavia. Having won 2: 1 in extra time, the USSR national team became the winner among 17 participants and the first holder of the Cup for national teams.
London's crowded Wembley Stadium celebrates the 100th anniversary of the English Football League in a match between England and FIFA. The last goal in the first half is defended by Lev YASHIN. His skills are admired by 250 million TV viewers. And although the match ended with a score of 2: 1 in favor of the home team, our goalkeeper was unanimously named the hero of Wembley. The newspapers wrote: "Tall, flexible Yashin proved that he has no equal among goalkeepers."
May 30, 1973: In Belgrade, Dutch "Ajax" won the European Cup for the third time in a row, beating the Italian club "Juventus" 1-0 in the decisive match.
Basel hosted the final match for the Cup Winners' Cup: Dynamo Kiev - Ferencvaros (Hungary) 3–0. The first victory of the Soviet team in European club competitions.
May 30, 1978: England's Liverpool won the European Cup for the second year in a row, beating Belgian club Brugge 1-0 in the final.
defeating the Brazilian national team with a score of 2: 1, the USSR national team became the champion of the Olympic Games in Seoul in football.
at the founding conference, the Russian Football Union (RFU) was founded as the highest public governing body of football. RFU is the successor of the Football Federations of the USSR and the CIS, a member of FIFA and UEFA.
FIFA recognized the RFU as the successor of the USSR Football Federation.
Without the Russian flag and anthem, the prospects for the restoration of rights of a number of Russian organizations - the editorial board of "R-Sport" lists the most important sporting events of the next year.
FIFA World Cup in Russia
The main sporting event for the country not only in 2018, but also over the past four years (after the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi) will be the FIFA World Cup, which will be held in Russia for the first time in history. The tournament will be held from June 14 to July 15, 2018 in 11 cities: Moscow, Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Saransk, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg and Sochi.
In the seven years that Russia has been preparing for the 2018 World Cup, five stadiums have been built in the country (seven more arenas are in the final stages of work), new airport terminals in almost all 11 cities (in Rostov there is a new airport in an open field), 64 bases for participating teams, hotels, bridges, training fields and other infrastructure that will be used during the tournament and after its completion.
At the draw, held in the Kremlin on December 1, the teams of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Uruguay became the rivals of the Russian national team. In the opening match of the tournament, the Russian team will play with Saudi Arabia On June 14, at the Luzhniki stadium, Stanislav Cherchesov's team will play two more group stage games in St. Petersburg and Samara.
Olympic Games with Russia in neutral status
The XXIII Winter Olympic Games 2018 will be held from 9 to 25 February in South Korean Pyeongchang. Competitions will be held in 15 sports and 102 disciplines. Russian athletes will perform under a neutral flag and in the status of Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR). So far, none of the national federations have spoken out against performing in South Korea under a neutral flag.
According to the decision of the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), only “clean” athletes without doping history will be able to participate in the Games. The list of Russian athletes who will be able to start in Pyeongchang, their coaches and other officials will be determined no later than January 28.
At the moment, the greatest problems with the prospect of admission to the Games have Russian skeleton athletes, bobsledders, skaters, skiers and hockey players. Some of the athletes have already been banned from the Olympic Games for life on the basis of the conclusions of the Denis Oswald commission after rechecking the doping samples from the 2014 Games in Sochi. In addition, Russia has lost 11 home Olympics medals. 22 Russian athletes have applied to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in order to achieve the lifting of the ban on participation in the Olympics.
One of the suspended - skeleton player Elena Nikitina - has already won the European Championship. At the Olympics in South Korea, Russians will compete for top honors in figure skating, short track speed skating, biathlon, speed skating, cross-country skiing, hockey and possibly other sports.
Paralympians are waiting for the end of January
In December, the International Paralympic Committee () extended the suspension of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) and announced that the final decision on the admission of Russian athletes to the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang would be made at the end of January.
According to the IPC working group, the Russian side did not fulfill the five criteria necessary to restore the RCC in rights. According to the head of IPC Andrew Parsons, since the deadline for submitting applications for participation in the Paralympics expires on February 23, the next meeting of the IPC Governing Council, which will be held on January 26-28, will be the last chance for Russia to meet all the criteria on time.
RPC was stripped of its membership in the IPC back in August 2016, the Russian team was then removed from participation in the Summer Paralympics. In September 2017, the IPC extended the suspension of the RCC, but allowed the Russians to participate in the selection for the 2018 Games in neutral status in alpine skiing, biathlon, snowboarding and cross-country skiing.
Ice Hockey World Championship after the Olympics
The ice hockey world championship in the Olympic season, as a rule, lost noticeably in status: few are ready to play two major tournaments with an interval of only two months. However, this "rule" will not affect the May tournament in 2018, because it does not participate in the Games in Pyeongchang. Thus, the level of teams in Denmark will be, in fact, even higher than at the Olympics.
Russian fans are guaranteed to see at least one of the top stars in the national team uniform: Alexander Ovechkin or Evgeny Malkin, Nikita Kucherov or Artemiy Panarin or Nikita Zaitsev. Since the moment when the Russian national team was headed by Oleg Znarok, the national team has never been left without medals from the World Championship (gold in 2014, silver in 2015, bronze in 2016 and 2017).
European Home Championship figure skating
It is a rare case, but the European Championship, which will be held in Moscow in mid-January, could be extremely successful for the host country, that is, for Russia. It sounds paradoxical, because at the moment Russian skaters are clear favorites only in women's single skating, where it will be even surprising if Russia does not occupy the entire podium.
But in the other three disciplines, the strengths, if not equal, are quite comparable. In the singles competition, the Russians will be opposed by the Spaniard Javier Fernandez, who won five previous European Championships in a row. Any winning streak, as you know, ends sooner or later, especially since this season the Spaniard is still not in the best condition. It will be more difficult in pair skating, where Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov will have to defend the highest European title in a dispute with the winners of the recent Grand Prix Final Alena Savchenko and Bruno Masso, but this task is feasible.
In ice dancing at the European Championship a year ago, the six-time champions of Russia / lost only three points to the winners. The winners then became two-time world champions and current world record holders Gabriella Papadakis / Guillaume Sizeron from France, who triumphantly passed the first half of this season, but if we assume that at the very beginning of the new year, the most unexpected surprises can happen, why not one of them happen in January Moscow?
New stars light up there
The World Figure Skating Championships, which are held during the Olympic season, are considered by many to be not as serious as in other years. The fact is that many Olympic champions, having withstood the psychological stress and having won the main title in their careers, cannot cope with the burden of fame, the stream of interviews and filming, and finally, simply with physical and psychological fatigue - and do not go to the world championship. For example: in 2014, at the World Championships in Saitama (Japan), of the winners of four gold medals at the Sochi Olympics, he competed only. Tatyana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, Adelina Sotnikova, as well as Meryl Davis / Charlie White thought it good to have a rest.
However, in the absence of Olympic heroes, oddly enough, there is also a positive point. In the post-Olympic world championship, new stars are very often lit up. For example, in 2014, for the first time at a tournament of this level, Papadakis and Sizeron, who are now the main contenders for gold at the Pyeongchang Olympics, competed. At the same post-Olympic world championship, the Russian Anna Pogorilaya loudly declared herself, who now, no doubt, would be a contender not only for getting into the Olympic team, but also for the medal of the 2018 Games, if not for the injury. So it will be interesting in Milan on March 19-25 - even if we don't see some of the heroes of Pyeongchang there.
This European championship is the first in history at separate distances, earlier skaters competed at the European championships only in the classic all-around, and since 2017 also in the sprint, but now there is an opportunity to become the European champion in the profile Olympic form of the program. But there is also a non-Olympic form that will debut in the program of this tournament - the team sprint, where the Russians are the holders of the current world record.
There will probably be a lot of interesting results in Kolomna, and since the tournament will be pre-Olympic, its results, as well as the composition of the participants, are difficult to predict, but one thing can be said with certainty: there will definitely be a full house on the stands of the Kolomna skating center on January 5-7, because high-speed running ice skating is the most favorite sport in this city near Moscow.
Who will challenge Carlsen to the championship?
In November next year, London will host the match for the men's world title. The holder of the title since 2013, the Norwegian grandmaster will defend the status of the strongest chess player on the planet in a dispute with the winner of the March Candidates Tournament in Berlin.
Eight grandmasters will play in the Candidates Tournament. The hopes of domestic chess fans are connected with three players. Sergey Karjakin will play as a participant in the previous championship match with Carlsen (the Russian in November 2016 finished the main part of the meeting in classical chess with a draw - 6: 6, but lost in rapid chess - 1: 3). Alexander Grischuk made his way through the series of FIDE Grand Prix tournaments, and Vladimir Kramnik received a special invitation from the organizers of the competition.
The opponents of the Russians will be Levon Aronian (Armenia), Ding Liren (China), Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So (both from the USA) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan). Experts call the composition of the participants the strongest in all the years of the Candidates Tournaments and believe that each of the eight grandmasters has a good chance of winning. In the December FIDE rankings, the highest odds are for Aronian (2805 points), Mamedyarov (2799) and Caruana (2799), behind only the leading Carlsen (2837).
European Championships unite
The first unified European Summer Sports Championship will take place from 2 to 12 August 2018 in Berlin and Glasgow. The competition program will include seven sports. The German capital will host the athletics, and one of the largest cities in Scotland - in aquatic sports, cycling, rowing, artistic gymnastics, triathlon and golf. Each European Championship will be organized by a separate federation and city administration that will host the starts.
Such combined competitions will now be held every four years. In 2018, more than 4.5 thousand athletes will take part in the European Championship. As conceived by the organizers, the format of the unified championship will make the competition much more spectacular and attract the attention of new fans to the sport and its heroes. Such a global tournament should increase the prestige of the titles won. In total, 184 sets of awards will be played within the framework of the united European Championship.
Football appeared already at the First Olympic Games of our time in Athens in 1896, although its participation was limited to holding an exhibition match between the national teams of Denmark and Greece, which ended with a score of 9: 0 in favor of the Danes.
At the next Olympics in Paris, two games have already taken place, three teams from France, Belgium and England, in the same exemplary format, revealed the strongest. The 1900 UK national team is officially recognized as the first Olympic soccer champion, and the rest of the teams have received awards as well. Also, three teams played football at the next Olympics in St. Louis: two American and one Canadian, the final success was accompanied by the Canadians, who beat their opponents with a total score of 11: 0. The mentioned tournament, like both previous ones, was indicative, initially in the program of the 1904 Olympic Games, football was not included, it was already during the games at the insistence of the Canadians that the organizers agreed to hold the tournament, which took place at the very end of the forum. But these results were recognized by the IOC, and the awards also found their heroes.
Football became an Olympic sport in 1908. This fact was facilitated by two circumstances: the creation of FIFA in 1904 and the holding of the next Olympics in England, the homeland of football. One of the indispensable conditions of the British, who joined FIFA in 1905, was the official recognition of football as an Olympic sport. Since then, football has become an integral part of the Olympic Games program (with the exception of the 1932 Olympic Games in the United States).
Olympic football tournaments are held by the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, which has an Olympic Commission, as well as the organizing committee that hosts this Olympics, and directly by the country that is the host of the Olympic Games. The frequency of the Olympic football tournament every 4 years, in fact, like the Olympic Games themselves.
From 1908 to 1956, the football tournament was played exclusively on the Olympic system, with games of one elimination match. Starting with the Olympic Games in Rome (1960), the format underwent changes, a mixed formula was introduced, according to which, at the first stage, group stage with games in one circle (4 groups of 4 teams in each), at the second stage, the teams that took the first and second places in the groups continue to compete in the Olympic system.
Initially, only amateur teams were allowed to participate in the Olympic football tournament, but in many countries the game did not receive professional status, and therefore the strongest went to get medals. Ultimately, it was decided to allow the participation of professionals, whose age is limited to 23 years. In addition, three players in each team are not subject to this restriction.
Football winners Olympic tournament no cups are awarded, the players who win the tournament receive only gold medals, the finalists are awarded silver, and the teams that take third place are awarded bronze medals.
All Olympic medalists (gold, silver, bronze):
1900 - Great Britain, France, Belgium
1904 - Canada, USA, USA
1908 - Great Britain, Denmark, Holland
1912 - Great Britain, Denmark, Holland
1920 - Belgium, Spain, Holland
1924 - Uruguay, Switzerland, Sweden
1928 - Uruguay, Argentina, Italy
1936 - Italy, Austria, Norway
1948 - Sweden, Yugoslavia, Denmark
1952 - Hungary, Yugoslavia, Sweden
1956 - USSR, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria
1960 - Yugoslavia, Denmark, Hungary
1964 - Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany
1968 - Hungary, Bulgaria, Japan
1972 - Poland, Hungary, East Germany / USSR *
1976 - GDR, Poland, USSR
1980 - Czechoslovakia, East Germany, USSR
1984 - France, Brazil, Yugoslavia
1988 - USSR, Brazil, Germany
1992 - Spain, Poland, Ghana
1996 - Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil
2000 - Cameroon, Spain, Chile
2004 - Argentina, Paraguay, Italy
2008 - Argentina, Nigeria, Brazil
2012 - Mexico, Brazil, South Korea
* - the teams played a draw in the match for the third place and, by the decision of the organizing committee of the games, jointly received medals
