After the Nations League match against Slovenia, Russian coach Stanislav Cherchesov once again demonstrated his gut and an example of Russian chauvinism and ill-manneredness by disdainfully referring to the Kazakh language.
When asked by a journalist, he made a very inappropriate joke about the national language of the country in which he works, throwing in the line "Are you speaking French now?"
This caused serious indignation in Kazakhstan, and the local Football Federation had to justify it with "the French PSG shirt the journalist was wearing", adding that Cherchesov himself "has great respect for the Kazakh language and culture of the country".
This is not the first time that Cherchesov has attacked the Kazakh language. In June, he expressed his complaints to a journalist who addressed him in his native language rather than Russian: "Why are you addressing me like that? Can't you answer in Ossetian?"
"But what could you expect from a typical post-Soviet Russian?" asks journalist Roman Bebekh in Telegram.