The Hindu : Sport : Russia needs to cut down on simple errors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 26, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport

Russia needs to cut down on simple errors

Spain to stick to strategy of quick, attacking play

— Photos: AFP

Spanish coach Luis Aragones would like to see marksmen like Cesc Fabregas give a torrid time

NEUSTIFT (Austria): Russia coach Guus Hiddink wants his young team to avoid schoolboy errors when it gets a second chance to beat undefeated Spain in the European Championship semifinals on Thursday.

Hiddink blasted his players for giving the ball away too easily after losing 4-1 to Spain in their group opener, and they seem to have learned the lesson.

Two weeks later, the Russians have kicked Greece, Sweden and the Netherlands out of the tournament while conceding only one goal.

“They have beaten very difficult opponents,” Spain midfielder Xavi Hernandez said.

“This match will be different, but we are not changing our philosophy to dominate the ball for 90 minutes and play offensively.”

“There’s a lot of talk about (Andrei) Arshavin, but I think Russia is a bloc,” Xavi said.

“They have players that are not that well-known in Europe that are doing well, like Yuri Zhirkov on the left midfield and (striker Roman) Pavlyuchenko.”

Spain injury free

Spain fullback Joan Capdevila got a knock in Tuesday’s training and left the session early but was not seriously hurt. The rest of the squad is injury-free.

Hiddink has slight worries, with midfielder Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, forward Ivan Sayenko and Alexander Anyukov all carrying minor injuries from the quarterfinals.

While they may be fit for Thursday’s semifinal match in Vienna, Hiddink will have to pick a team without central defender Denis Kolodin and attacking midfielder Dmitry Torbinski, who are both suspended after picking up their second yellow cards of the tournament against the Netherlands.

One possible replacement for Kolodin would be Roman Shirokov. However, he played so badly in the first game against Spain that Hiddink dropped him and he has not played since. That leaves Vasily Berezutsky as favourite to start in central defence alongside CSKA Moscow teammate Sergei Ignashevich.

Winning combination

Spain, which is unbeaten in 20 matches and has won the last 10, is likely to stick with the line-up that beat Russia in the group stage and also knocked out Italy in a penalty shootout in the quarterfinals.

Coach Luis Aragones drilled the presumed starting players, led by strikers Fernando Torres and David Villa, in a practice match against the substitutes at Spain’s base camp in Neustift on Tuesday. Villa scored a hat-trick against Russia and is the tournament’s top scorer with four goals.

Aragones said getting past the quarterfinals — Spain’s traditional stumbling block — had boosted the team’s confidence.

“We had a little handicap because people always talked about the same thing,” the 69-year-old coach said of breaking Spain’s quarterfinal curse. “But the team needs to forget about those things and think positively.

“Now we’re facing a rival that is physically the strongest of the teams in the semifinals. It will be complicated.”

A similar team

Hiddink, who has coached three Spanish clubs, said he would have preferred to face Italy now.

“I’d really like the Italians because tactically you can work against them,” he said. “It is a team where lots of people stay in one place behind the ball, but that leaves space elsewhere where you can play.”

He noted that Spain, like Russia, wants to control the match by keeping possession of the ball.

“Spain is a similar team to Russia — they want to play football,” he said. “But if they go 1-0 up, as we’ve seen, they drop back and play on the counterattack.”

While Hiddink will want to forget the group-stage loss, he has positive memories from his previous encounter with Spain. The Dutchman coached the South Korean team that beat Spain in a penalty shootout in the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup. — AP

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport