The full-length documentary film "Football Nation" produced by Teleprostir Studio is released in Ukrainian cinemas. The producer and director of the tape is Volodymyr Mula, the author of the script is Mykola Vasylkov. I believe that this tape is doomed to be a success for the audience - despite the war, the epidemic, the hardship due to which many people cannot buy tickets to the cinema, and even despite the destroyed cinema halls in many cities.
Why am I sure of this? First, in an hour and a half, the authors showed interviews with eighteen heroes of Ukrainian football - from Golden Ball winners Oleg Blokhin and Andriy Shevchenko to young national team players Oleksandr Zinchenko and Roman Yaremchuk. This constellation alone should attract the attention of viewers of all ages.
Secondly, the success of the film will ensure the high level of Volodymyr Mula as a producer. Suju also from his previous works, in particular "Yuki. The history of the victories of free Ukrainians" - a film by the same authors, which became the highest-grossing picture of Ukrainian non-fiction cinema of the era of independence.
I confess: I myself did not fully accept "Yuki". The Moolah-producer in this tape is much stronger than the Moolah-director, so the tape is built according to the principle of a TV program: talker - chronicle - talker - chronicle. A full-length TV special is not bad, but it is not the same as a documentary. In such products, the main actor is a journalist, and the director is not the leader of the creative process. In real non-game cinematography, the main one is the director. He must come up with and realize the figurative structure of the screen work.
The authors described the genre of the film "Football Nation" in the credits as a documentary film. They were modest, in my opinion, for nothing: this is a full-fledged docudrama that combines documentary and production episodes. Volodymyr Mula organically combined classic documentary fragments, including interviews with stars, and staged footage about the teenager Vitaly's dream of joining the Ukrainian national team, his work on himself to realize this dream, and his parents who support him.
Moreover, Volodymyr Mula and Mykola Vasylkov found a young hero in the football school of the American Chicago. Why not in Poltava, Cherkasy or Kropyvnytskyi? In my opinion, this is the right of the authors of the film. Moreover, our football could potentially attract many players of Ukrainian origin, born outside of Ukraine, to its ranks. And if someone thinks that the authors are trying to conquer the American audience in this way, then it is in vain: the rights to the footage of Ukrainian football matches used in the film are too expensive, so the film will be released only in Ukraine for the time being.
Among the strengths of "Football Nation" is a high level of video sequences and music, dynamic editing and high-quality picture. The authors boldly and appropriately use videos from drones. Here it is worth mentioning the cameramen Stanislav Tkachev, Oleg and Oleksandr Shevchyshyn, as well as the editing director Andrii Lunnik. The soundtrack to the film was the song of the group "Sky" "To the End".
Constructive criticism will not hurt the authors of the film, I am sure. I do not agree with counting the birth of the national team of Ukraine from 1992. Not because the USSR formally had a national team of the Ukrainian SSR, which usually consisted of football players from the lower leagues and played at the Union Spartakiads and other minor tournaments. But Ukrainian coaches and football players played a huge, and sometimes a key role in the life of the first, Olympic, youth and youth national teams of the USSR. In the mid-seventies and the second half of the eighties, Ukrainians made up the majority of the starting lineup of these teams. It is worth mentioning the coaches Valery Lobanovskyi and Oleg Bazilevich ; Yuriy Voinov, the only European champion in Ukrainian football (1960); Golden Ball winners Oleg Blokhin and Igor Belanov; our top scorer at the 1970 World Cup and coach of the Olympic champions in Seoul in 1988, Anatoly Byshovets; the only Ukrainian football player awarded with a bronze medal at the World Cup (1966), Yozhef Szabo; the best Soviet scorer of the same championship Valery Porkuyan, who did not get a medal. The Ukrainian football school was born earlier than three decades ago, and our national team did not emerge out of nowhere. Until 1991, there were many heroes in Ukrainian football. Wasn't it possible to carve out five minutes in the film and talk about them? It would be informative for young people and enjoyable for older fans who remember these heroes.
Also, in my opinion, the film lacks psychologism, deep dramatic conflicts. First of all, this concerns the period of the birth of the national team. Formally, the film tells about the first match of the Ukrainian national team against the Hungarians, which took place in Uzhhorod on April 29, 1992. But this is not enough. Our wife's first trainer was Victor Prokopenko of bright memory. Do you know how many matches this cheerful and humorous Odessa native, who was born in Mariupol, managed the national team? Up to three! Then he was allegedly replaced by Anatoly Konkov. Allegedly, because he did not play a single match and was not approved by the executive committee of the federation. Then the national team was led by Lobanovskyi's famous associate Oleg Bazilevich.
Oleh Bazylevych has not been with us for four years, but he managed to write a very interesting book "Football System". This is what he wrote about the formation period and the first matches of the national team:
"The players did not receive money for being called up to the national team. We played only in friendly matches. Often there was no money to rent sports facilities - they changed clothes on the bus. Young footballers had no experience in international competitions. Clubs reluctantly let them go to participate in training and games of the national team. After all, the national team is a concentrated expression of the state and direction of football in the country.
However, we won a number of victories: we beat the USA national team twice, the national team of Lithuania and the then strong Belarus. The match against the "golden generation" of the Bulgarian team, the real stars of European football - Stoichkov, Kostadinov, Balakov, Lechkov, Sirakov - was especially important. They played on the road in a tie - 1:1.
When the time came for the official matches, I specially planned the meeting in the conditions of the middle mountains. But the leadership of the Federation did not allow us to hold it. And the coach of Kyiv "Dynamo" did not let his players go to this gathering, referring to the preparation of the white and blue team for the Champions League matches.
This canceled out my two-year work: I trained some football players, and in the official match against Lithuania, whose team was objectively weaker than ours, I was forced to put completely different players on the field. We lost to Lithuania - 0:2. I was fired. Although the decision to fire the coach after the first defeat in two years does not stand any criticism.
Dynamo Kyiv, which their coach did not let into the national team, took the last place in their group, losing five matches out of six. Then I don't understand what this mentor was fighting for".
Do you know the name of this Dynamo coach? Jozef Jozefovich Szabo. Well, how was it possible not to ask Szabo questions about this situation while shooting the film? And then ask his opponents. Bazilevich and Prokopenko are no longer there, but their associates Volodymyr Muntyan and Mykola Pavlov, who know all the nuances of those events, are nearby. This should have been done not for the sake of a scandal, but to increase the dramatic conflict in the picture. After all, a sharp conflict is the basis of a high-quality plot of the film.
Another, in my opinion, important episode that is not sufficiently in-depth is Valery Lobanovsky's personal psychological drama. In my opinion, one of the most dramatic matches in the entire history of the national team of Ukraine was the guest playoff match for a ticket to the World Championship in Japan and South Korea in 2002 against one of the strongest teams in the world - the German national team. The game is mentioned in the picture, but not much else.
In general, our national team is the unofficial "champion of the planet" in terms of the number of face-to-face matches played for tickets to the championships of the world and the continent. We fought in six playoffs. Therefore, the match in Dortmund on November 14, 2001 was very important from a psychological point of view. Then Lobanovsky surprised the experts even before the referee's starting whistle. To see goalkeeper Maksym Levytsky from Moscow "Spartak" in our goal instead of the proven, cold-blooded Dynamo Kyiv player Vitaly Reva; in the support zone - Anatoly Tymoshchuk, who was inexperienced at the time, instead of the experienced Andrii Husin; and there was no place for Serhiy Rebrov in the starting line-up. And the Germans had the coolest football players in the world at that time: Kahn in goal, Remer, Tsyge, Ramelov, Ballak, Janker and Birkhoff on the field. They organized a real blitzkrieg - in the fifteenth minute we were "on fire" 0:3. Lobanovsky immediately replaced Tymoshchuk, whose knees were literally shaking, with Husin. Then, already in the second half, Ballak scored his double, and Andriy Shevchenko scored our only goal in the 90th minute, only sweetening the bitterness of the defeat.
Despite the clear advantage in the class of German stars, it was primarily a coaching defeat of Lobanovskyi himself. Too boldly, he decided to experiment in the composition. And the Ukrainian football press did not spare the meter. I had to talk to him in those days. Valery Vasyliovych was very worried. He left the national team, remaining only in "Dynamo". And, I dare to think, this match accelerated the tragedy: half a year later - on May 13, 2002 - Lobanovskyi left us forever. He was relatively old, lived only 63 years. Now journalists, who especially "suffocated" the meter in those days, regret it very much. I think their comments would have strengthened the composition of the film.
And finally - about the name. "Football Nation" is a good title. But does it correspond to reality?
I understand that I will provoke the anger of many, but I will express my position: unfortunately, it does not answer. Now, at the end of 2022, Ukraine ranks twenty-seventh out of 211 teams in the FIFA ranking. It is clear that objectively we are inferior to Brazil, Argentina, France, England, Italy, Spain, Germany. But to see higher than Ukraine in the rating of the USA, Colombia, Iran, Morocco, Peru... And at the same time to assure that we are wow? In Europe, according to the UEFA rating, we are sixteenth out of fifty-five.
So, the authors are telling lies? No. They do an important thing - formulate our dream.
While Mula, Vasylkov and their colleagues were creating this picture, domestic political scientists, cultural scientists and sociologists under the leadership of Oles Doniya wrote the book "Ukrainian Dream". It is presented on the same days when the pre-premier screenings of "Football Nation" are held. So, being a football nation is one of the components of the Ukrainian dream. Political scientists distinguish between "hard" and "soft" state power. Football is a form of soft power. It is not for nothing that the level of development of the state and society is evaluated by the level of football development in the country.
This is a dream as a guide to action. For everyone - from the president of the state to every citizen; from a world football star, to a young man from Chicago, Vitaly, who dreams of playing for the Ukrainian national team. This is a dream that exists despite the war, despite the destruction caused by Russia, with which we are doomed to live next door. Despite all the bad things that have happened to us and continue to happen. We have no other way but to break through the rock for our future.
Semyon SLUCHEVSKY
