Hubble, Bubble, Oil and Trouble….

 

 

Artem Chobanian

 

Russia. A mysterious country for the rest of the world. Not everything is clear there; how people live, what they like and dislike, the traditions and culture. However, there’s one phenomenon that has become more obvious in recent years, Russian football.

The countries of the former USSR have never been considered strong when speaking about football. But the situation changed when Ukraine qualified for the 2006 World Cup. Before that, in 2005, Russian team CSKA won the UEFA Cup and this year Zenit St. Petersburg also lifted that trophy. Perhaps though, the most significant achievement for Russia is the national team qualifying for Euro 2008!
The path to the finals was not very easy. The Russian squad had major rivals: England, Croatia and Israel. Before the beginning of the group stage, their chances were considered equal with Israel and Croatia, but certainly lower than England’s. The matches showed how wrong the bookmakers were in terms of England and right about Russia and Croatia.

Russia played well against Israel and Croatia, shared victories with England, and defeated the weaker teams. Everything had to be decided in the last matches Russia – Andorra and England – Croatia. Russia won 1:0 and waited for their luck. We think everybody remembers that wonderful match in England, where the home team needed at least a draw to get to the finals of Euro 2008. Croatia had already qualified for the Euros and had nothing to prove in that game. But how well they played! They defeated England 2:3 and helped the Russians into the finals.
That is, in short, a little history about Russian success in the qualifying matches. They played very well, but needed a smile of fortune to qualify. She did the Russians a favour and now this team are looking forward to the Euro 2008 finals.

 

Squad

The Russian squad is a very well balanced playing machine, but they need to be controlled to gain success. The coach Guus Hiddink is very cautious in choosing the players to join the team. He announced that he would summon a press conference on May 28th to share his views of the team’s progress and call the players who would travel to Austria and Switzerland.

Most important for this squad is Zenit’s success in the UEFA Cup final on May 14th. Their victory means that half of all future Russian players will have a positive attitude to the Euro matches and what’s more important — self-confidence and belief that their team can beat their rivals in the tournament. Guus Hiddink is a sly coach, but football journalists are smarter! No matter how secretly Hiddink has hidden a possible sketch for the future team players, we managed to learn his ideas about the setup of the side. Some famous Russian sport journalists presented their view of who would get to Austria.

The announced Russian squad is:

Goalkeepers
• 1 Igor Akinfeev
• 12. Vladimir Gabulov
• 16. Vyacheslav Malafeev

Defenders
• 2 Vasili Berezutski
• 4 Sergei Ignashevich
• 5 Aleksei Berezutski
• 8 Denis Kolodin
• 14 Roman Shirokov
• 22 Aleksandr Anyukov

Midfielders
• 3 Renat Yanbaev
• 7 Dmitri Torbinski
• 11 Sergei Semak
• 15 Diniyar Bilyaletdinov
• 17 Konstantin Zyrianov
• 18 Yuri Zhirkov
• 20 Igor Semshov
• 23 Vladimir Bystrov

Forwards
• 6 Roman Adamov
• 9 Ivan Saenko
• 10 Andrei Arshavin
• 13 Pavel Pogrebnyak
• 19 Roman Pavlyuchenko
• 21 Dmitri Sychev

 

Coach

Perhaps the most significant person in all of the Russian team is the coach, Guus Hiddink, or “Lucky Guus” as he is called in Russia.

Guus Hiddink is lucky. Everybody knows that. He’s been lucky all his career as a coach. He is aware of that too, but has never confessed to it. When he agreed to work with the Russian national team, he promised to make that team stronger. He did. After the first successful matches, Hiddink announced that they had a chance to get to the finals of Euro 2008, but the team had to play more aggressively in when attacking and press the opposition when they were defending. They did.

In general, all football professionals were sure Russia would not pass the qualifying round, and even Hiddink was very gloomy at that time. However, the one thing he was thinking about was the promise the Croatian team captain gave at the press conference. Just a couple of days before the match the English media announced that their team would easily beat Croatia and those statements made the Croatians angry. The captain said they would prove their team was better. The match at Wembley was wonderful. Hiddink got all the details via his mobile phone and was perhaps one of first to learn about the result. 
“We played Russian roulette. I was surprised England lost at home. I didn’t believe in a miracle, but thought there was a chance for a positive result for us. I was so excited that I even let the guys have some beers to celebrate…”

 

Group Stage

June 10th the Russian squad will play their first match against Spain. This will be the most difficult game for the Russians. Since the beginning of the new era for Russian football the top Russian clubs have terrible statistics against Spanish, German and Italian teams. Perhaps, after Zenit’s confident victories over Villareal, Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich this bad luck will stop. However, Hiddink thinks his squad can pass the group stage if they play successfully against Spain. “Even if we lose to Spain, we will fight hard against Greece and Sweden“.

The fact is that there’s a great difference between the play of Zenit (that are very stable and strong this year) and the national team. Some journalists emphasise that Hiddink should use Zenit tactics and strategy to achieve success in Euro 2008. Of course, Hiddink could have consulted Dick Advocaat, another famous Dutch coach. But Guus Hiddink refused to play in a Zenit style way.

Russian fans and sport journalists hope their team may have some advantage for the season has just started in Russia and all the other teams will have their players tired after the end of their seasons. Well, we have to wait and see if this ‘advantage’ really helps. As for the opponents in the group, we think the Russian team are lucky. Really, if we look back at Zenit and Spartak Moscow playing this year, we should say Russia have great chances to get to quarter-finals of Euro 2008.

 

View from the Country

If we try to forget that Guus Hiddink has been lucky again, we must admit that Russia is full of expectation for the oncoming tournament. Frankly, the Russian team deserved to play in the finals of Euro 2008, but what will await them this summer?

Guus Hiddink should not worry about his future -according to the contract with Russian Football Federation, after his success in the qualifying matches the sides extended the contract until the end of the 2010 World Cup. All football specialists and sport journalists think Russia will pass the group stage, but they are not sure if the squad will move any further.

Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, wished good luck to the national team in his last year of ruling the country. He said he was not a football fan, but liked almost all kinds of sport and hoped that the football would become the pride of Russia.

As for the players in the team, they all are sure they will get out from the group successfully. But we guess the most realistic idea of their chances was uttered by Sergei Ignashevich, one of the most experienced Russian players, “When we play at our clubs, we all have one or more leaders, but right now our team do not have one… Let’s hope the leader will appear during the group matches and will encourage us with his example”.

 

Writer’s Verdict

One of the most significant weaknesses is the one stated above by Ignashevich. The Russian squad do not have a true leader, an extra-class player who will inspire and lead the team to victories. But what’s more important is that the team is wonderfully balanced with a good defence, decent midfield players and very aggressive attackers. Let’s hope Hiddink’s genius and the Russians well known stubborn character will bring joy to the fans and glory to the team!