Recently a Russian colleague was explaining that Russians can't play football well (especially defense), and generally, Russians are not physically gifted. Real Russians were dominated physically and politically since early ages, or so the surprising view goes.

That's all arguable; Soviet popular sports (including football, basketball, though probably not hockey) were indeed often powered by Ukrainians and others. Soviet football was the center of the universe for some time for me as well; I remember watching them in 1982 in Spain leading Brazil 1-0, and wondering, why it is allowed for one team to control the ball all the time... World Cups were typically dramatic for the Soviets; they did reach semifinals in 1966.