Roman Rotenberg: "Russia has the Red Machine, while Denmark has the Red Thread"

Following the conclusion of UEFA Euro 2020, the general manager of the Russian national team, Roman Rotenberg, spoke about the development of both ice hockey and football:

- This year, there is a lot of talk concerning the results of the Russian football and ice hockey national teams at their respective tournaments.

- Ice hockey and football are the two most popular sports in our country. The Russian ice hockey national team is one of the world's leaders and brands, as our position in football is different and there is more competition there. Nevertheless, UEFA Euro 2020 was an interesting competition for us ice hockey people.

- In what way exactly was Euro 2020 interesting for you?

- Denmark were one of the surprise packages of the competition. Unfortunately, they managed to stop Russia, before they lost to England as a result of a dubious penalty in extra time. Everyone knows that Denmark struggled after winning UEFA Euro 1992, a period which resulted in their country creating the "Red Thread" program. When creating the program, they took the best from the Spanish and Dutch systems of training young players. The Danes used the 4-3-3 system across all of their teams, improving the technical skills of their junior players and allowing footballers to join their teams when just five or seven years of age. Between 2010 and 2018, Denmark didn't achieve any real success, but they subsequently qualified for the knockout phase of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and a lot of their leading young players are playing their club football in Europe's best leagues. Denmark are now being mentioned as one of the favourites for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

- How can Denmark's football experience be useful for ice hockey in Russia?

- Their Red Thread program is similar to our Red Machine National Development Program. Moreover, academies in England and Italy are following the same principles, so we can speak about a world trend.

- What principles are we talking about?

- The priority of the progressive development of our young players over the need for instant results, something which previously resulted in lots of transfers and a series of other problems. We have to focus on the importance of young players being brought up with the correct principles while being educated well, the link between coaches, parents, players and their coaches and ensuring that players enjoy being involved in sport! There are a lot of details to consider. In Russia, we've had a lot of discussions concerning the Red Machine program, with some of our critics questioning the need to follow a unified system of preparation. We can see with the Red Thread program, though, that these principles do work. One thing is needed: time.

- How much time do we need?

- Danish football chose the right direction for its development, and over a decade of work, it has become one of the leading football systems in the world. Our ice hockey is following the same course. As we know, the Red Machine National Development Program was launched after the 2018 Olympic Games, but in fact it had actually started eight years ago. We're confident that soon we will see our national team achieving excellent results.