The famous journalist Mykola Nesenyuk commented on the start of the world championship on his Facebook.
Mykola NesenyukThis happened in the fall of 1973. The leaders of the USSR at that time decided to boycott the decisive match for qualifying for the final tournament of the 1974 World Cup. It was supposed to take place in the Chilean capital of Santiago, but there was a coup d'état before that, which the Moscow leaders did not like. Thus, for the first time in history, our football players were out of the world finals.
The best matches of that tournament were shown in our country on television. So domestic football fans, at least most of them, turned into supporters of the teams of Brazil, Germany, and Poland. And the Netherlands, whose national team was for some reason praised more than any Yulia Tymoshenko before the elections - and absolutely free of charge. I did not for a second doubt the victory of the West Germans with the great Josef Mayer in goal, Franz Beckenbauer in the center of the field and Gerd Müller in attack. I was sure then and I still have this confidence that only ours could defeat those West Germans, taking revenge for the defeat in the final match of Euro-1972.
In that losing final, we still didn't have Oleg Blokhin and Leonid Buryak, but now they were in their best form. But our team was not there because of the unfortunate coup in Chile. If it weren't for him, we might now be making legends not about the victory over Bayern Munich with Mayer, Beckenbauer and Müller in the unofficial European Super Cup 1975, but about the victory over West Germany in the final match of the World Cup. And Blokhin would become the best football player in Europe not in 1975, but in 1974! But that tournament was held then without us. And then another, and another, and another! We are already used to the fact that our football players are lucky just to get to the world football final, and not to win it. To the point that all the most interesting things in world football happen without us. And it all started almost half a century ago. And now we have to work on getting back into the big football world. So that nothing in the next world happens without us.
Mykola Nesenyuk
