The potential of the Armenian sportsmen in chess and wrestling (sports fans may also mention other sports), their victories in international competitions come to compensate the permanent failures of the economy and political course of Armenia. And the actuality is so disappointing that sports have become interesting even for the ones, who besides their job are not interested in anything else and consider any other occupation waste of time. And the leadership of the country has realized that by spending little money, by providing apartments and vehicles for the sportsmen they can expect a higher result from them. The effects from the victories of sportsmen are so much more than the money spent. People get rid of their negative impulses at least for a short time. This is not another package of reforms for us, which anticipates a lot of money and fails immediately. The victory and success of any of our sportsmen creates an immediate optimism in us and to life in general despite the fact that most of the time the latter is not substantiated. The sports commentators, who during the victories of Armenian sportsmen exclaim irrelevant and naïve statements, such as “let the world know the power of Armenians,” “we are the best,” etc, should know that it creates the counter effect. These statements ruin the impression of the victory. In the beginning we start to believe in the blether heard on TV. Our country has an interminable issue of taking care of its reputation. The sector of science is still resting. The best way of gaining reputation is sport. It turns out that we can even do it with soccer. The evidence of that is the expectation of victor from the soccer team of Armenia. Would it be a scientist, hairdresser, NA chairman, grave digger, they all wish success to our team and are sure that we will win. There was no free seat in the stadium. We all believed in the victory of our team having been in a wide-spread euphoria. Everything seemed great before the opera singer got on the stadium and the a-capella performance of the Russian anthem. The voice of the singer couldn’t be heard well but from his facial expression we could tell that he is performing the aria of Rigoletto from Verdi’s opera. But that wasn’t just it. Afterwards he started to sing the anthem of Armenia. As certain patriotic meaning was projected to that we will not spoil it with our interpretation… We Armenians have strange dependence on Russians. We fist subconsciously feel that they don’t take us seriously. After the project “Property instead of debt” when the best half of Armenia was given to Russia in a nice packing and then the undisguised references of the Russian politicians, according to which Armenia is the outpost of Russia we felt the necessity of the victory of Armenians to Russians in the soccer match. There was a huge moral responsibility set on the Armenian team – to win the team of the friend country. This responsibility could to a certain extent be compared with the Armenia-Turkey match. And soccer, especially in the case of Armenia, is not only a game but also diplomacy. All the other types of sports, are not merely games especially for such poor and small countries like Armenia, are means for national self-esteem and recognition. The refusal of not using this means is a big mistake however, we should be very careful applying it based on patriotic intentions. High bets are extremely dangerous (in this case not in the direct meaning). Sport, just like any other game, is an irrational sector. No one can give you a 100% guarantee that you are going to win in terms of self-esteem and reputation. In the stadium the mistress is the contingency, which cannot be bribed in no event. For any of us victory is a big advantage to ourselves and to our rivals. In the case of the victory perhaps the motives of victory are not that essential but those are necessary to assess the actual weight of the victory. And in this case we have to evaluate the weight of 0:0 score. For Russians it was really zero. For us Armenians the fact that we didn’t lose the Russians is an actual advantage taking into account the fact that they have a strong team. In this case we can also say that this was a political victory as well. The best example of the politicized soccer was the example of the Southern Korea, which has played so brilliantly with the team of Brazil during the World Games in South African Republic. The government of South Korea was in euphoria and even allowed the Koreans watch the game live with Portugal having been sure that the fortune is with them. The team won as we know. But losing doesn’t fully reflect the process of the game. Portugal won the team of South Korea with the score of 7:0 as the history witnesses. And everybody knows the trouble the team and the coach went through. At any rate it is not quite accepted to combine soccer and politics, which our country leader prefers. Those are two different games and the field of those shouldn’t be analogical. The failed Turkish-Armenian soccer policy is the best evidence of that.
