.png)
We have a guest blog today from one my WR's Всеволод Елгаев....we will just call him Seva! (I have 0 idea how to properly say his real name and I've known him for almost 6 months)
Maybe It’s sounds a bit funny to most of the people who are interested in football, but in Russia football really exists. I’ll start from the beginning, the first football matches were held back in 1986 in the country that was known as the USSR. At the beginning it was like some kind of a strange foreign game for the fans, and I can tell you honestly that not all the people understood the rules and objectives of the game, but still there were quite a lot of spectators at the games. In this time fone of the best teams in Russian football history was founded, the Moscow Bears.
After the beginning of the new-era in Russian history, American football started to increase in its development. Russian coaches visited some NFL training camps, for example that of the Philadelphia Eagles. By the end of 90’s some of the players in the NFL Europe were from Russia. Harry Gamble (President/Gm of the Philadelphia Eagles) visited Russia as a ambassador of the game.
At the beginning of 2000’s Russia’s junior team beat germany in the European Tournament and became a Euro champions. In 2008, Sergey Ivanov joined the NFL Tampa Buccaneers camp and played pre-season games.
Since around 2010 footballs popularity started to reduce, the reason is quite obvious, financials. But the last season showed that most of the problems were solved and Russia is ready to make a huge step forward in this sport. Last season two best teams in Russia (Moscow Patriots, Moscow Black Storm) started to invite some Imports such as, Talib Weis, Bobby Rome and Joe Small. They made a huge impact in the semi-final rivalry between each other. The game can be watched on youtube with the link below:
I am looking forward to the 2014 season, because the number of the teams in the Russian national championship is increased.
Some Russian players are also currently playing for teams throughout Europe :
Ilja Redin
Turku Trojans
Finland
and myself:
Vsevolod Elgaev #84
Rhein-Neckar Bandits
GFL
When comparing Russian and German football, I must admit that Germany is one of the best leagues in Europe. In Germany now there are over 150 teams divided up in to 6 leagues, while in Russia there are only 40 teams. Also in Germany there is much better team organization and a better infrastructure, which allows for Football to better develop. Also, Germany has/had more Americans, and they have played a big role in to the advancement of the GFL.
-SEVA
0 comments:
Post a Comment