We asked the best football player of the USSR in 1972, Evgeny Lovchev, to comment on this news, but Evgeny Serafimovich first turned the conversation to another topic.
– Tedesco and Schwarz are not the two great examples in world football, – says Lovchev. – Nobody in Europe really needs them. But Tedesco particularly bothered me. He worked in Russia, received good money, and then left and began to criticize our country. The same Klopp: after the start of the CBO, he said that he had correctly postponed the final of the Champions League in St. Petersburg.
Someone up there sees everything: he spoke against Russia, and life will punish you. Tedesco went ahead and threw him out of Leipzig. Klopp performed and lost to Real Madrid in the Champions League.
– But let’s go back to Tedesco and Belgium. The golden generation is descending, is there a worthy replacement for it?
– That Tedesco directs the Belgium team is a super offer. A generation leaves, but a new generation has already been raised by his example. True, Tedesco does not have time to wait there for 5 or 10 years for a new generation to arrive.
– But even now, Belgium has a powerful backbone: de Bruyne, Lukaku, Carrasco, Tielemans, Witsel. There is someone to build a team around.
– If we are talking about the fact that a renewed Belgium should become a world or European champion, then we can firmly say that it will not.
World championships are won by the same great football powers: Argentina, Italy. France. Brazil, Germany. Belgium, after all, does not belong to the great powers, although the team was very decent. But she didn’t win anything.
– Bronze in the 2018 World Cup. I don’t think anyone will give Tedesco the task of winning the World Cup or the European Championship. I think the task will be more modest – to qualify and play in these tournaments.
– Of course, the Belgians will be able to get out of the qualifying group, but a lot will depend on the draw.
OUR REFERENCE
Tedesco, 37, took charge of Leipzig last season, earning a Champions League place with him and winning the German Cup. However, in early September, after a disastrous start in the Bundesliga, he was sacked.
Joachim Löw and André Villas-Boas have previously turned down offers to manage the Belgian national team.
