Artem Chobanian

Days have passed since Euro 2008 and we are still looking back to the games of the tournament to see which teams gained credit and which lost face. Of course, this Euro was very unpredictable and even unreasonable with some of the results, but in general it satisfied football fans all over Europe. Looking at the Russian national team’s performance, their views on the Euro and their play, what they did well and what was wrong, there’s something to learn from this team!

The beginning of the group stage was awful for the Russian team. A terrible surrender to Spain caused by a poor performance that cast a dark shadow over the team that had played some very good matches during the qualifying period. However, for the pundits and true believers that match meant nothing. Almost everybody recalled the 2006 World Cup when the Ukrainian national team lost 4-1 to Spain and then played wonderfully, reaching the quarter-final stage, and, only losing to the future World Champions.

“Magic Guus” said they would go beyond the group stage, because neither Sweden nor Greece showed enough talent to believe that could not be surpassed. His words and his team’s play were magic as the Russians reached the semi-final losing there to the future European Champions! Slavic history repeats itself as the two prominent football countries, Ukraine and Russia, have shown wonderful performances for the last three years.

It’s a fact nobody will argue with: The Russian team played very well against Greece, Sweden and Holland. They deserved better, and it might have been different had they encountered Italy in the semi-final. Not that Italy are a weak team, but their performances at the tournament were far from good. The Italians were lucky, as they are during almost any big tournament. However, these are just hypotheses and nothing more. There were though some excellent things the Russians can take from their performance.

First of all, only those who could notice the new positive influence from Hiddink on the Russian team predicted that this squad would negotiate the group stage. Of course, they had very serious opponents, BUT… Sweden had shown almost nothing in their pre-tournament friendly against Ukraine and were defeated 0-1, though the score could have been more in favour of Ukraine. Although the players themselves were very good, there did not play as a team. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a danger for any team, but he was far from perfect, and the performances he showed with Inter Milan seemed far away.

Greece made the same mistake they made after the Euro 2004 in the qualifying matches for the World Cup 2006. Their coach Otto Rehhagel mentioned once that he knew nothing about Ukraine and it’s team, the only one he heard of (can you believe that?!) was Oleh Blohin, Ukraine’s coach. Moreover, the Greeks didn’t see any rivals in their group who could have prevent them from qualifying. That was a serious blunder. Greece were defeated mercilessly and gained nothing during that qualifying round.

History repeats itself almost in everything: it did after the qualifying matches for Euro 2008. Greece qualified for the finals easily and thought they would surely get through the group without too much trouble. Otto Rehhagel neglected the threat that came from Sweden and Russia, and if they were simply unlucky against Sweden, the game with the Russians was a deserved punishment for their high-and-mighty attitude.

Thus, the Russians showed they had prepared wonderfully for their group rivals and the wingers were dangerous in both games, crashing through the defensive lines of Greece and Sweden. Frankly speaking, after the games against these two teams, almost all (!) Russian football experts were sure Russia will show a great game against Holland. Of course, there was one person we should mention that helped Russia to progress. That was Andrei Arshavin.

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In the articles previewing the Euro, we discussed Guus Hiddink’s resolute decision to bring Arshavin to Austria. Arshavin proved to be a real hero of the Euros. His appearance in the game against Sweden was expected and Arshavin played like a god, guiding his teammates to a great victory and encouraging them to show their best performances. Of course, there was also Pavluchenko and Zhirkov, Zyryanov and Semak, but the major role in the Hiddink orchestra belonged to Arshavin. To understand how good the Russians were we have to recall all details of the game between Holland and Russia.

To realise the scale of the tragedy for the Netherlands team one had to look at van Basten’s face during the match. As a great player he could see the inevitable: his players were going to lose without chances. What Hiddink did was a wise decision to offer the Dutch a total football counter play. The Russian squad outperformed Holland in all parts of the pitch, especially on the flanks. Zhirkov, Zyryanov and Anukov didn’t give their opponents the slightest chance to show their real strength. Even van Persie couldn’t find a proper place for himself, Sneijder was shooting wide and van Nistelrooy was trotting among the Russian defenders like a lost child. Even when the Dutch scored at the end of the second half, the air of impending doom did not disappear.

For the most of the fans and pundits it was clear that Russia just postponed the victory. And really, during the first part of extra-time, the Russian squad could have scored 4 times, but they only scored twice in the second extra-time period, winning 1-3. We didn’t put the word only in the previous sentence in inverted commas, because that word describes at best perhaps the major reason Russia surrendered to Spain in the following game.

As the one has lived for so many years in the USSR and then Russia and Ukraine, I should say this weak conversion of the scoring opportunities has always been the major headache for these countries. Nowadays this “disease” has even worsened. Hiddink’s arrival to coach the Russian national team didn’t improve the situation for the better. Yes, Russia started to win more games, but that’s not the point. They could have won even more if they scored even half as many chances as they created. I can recall Champions League final between Barcelona and Milan in 1994, when Barca had been playing godlike football all season long, but then they could not take any of the chances they had during the final, while Milan scored 4 goals from 5 opportunities.

However, the most important game for the Russians was the semi-final against Spain. Before the match, almost all players prayed to meet Spain again in order to take revenge for the 4-1 defeat in the group stage. The heavens heard their appeals and the Spanish Armada faced the Russian infantry on the pitch once again to challenge each other. At first it seemed that “Lucky Guus” had outwitted Sage Aragones and the first half was very dubious for Spain. But Aragones waited. He was waiting for the Russians to miss as many times as possible, and through this lose confidence. Then his boys finished off their opponents with the same inevitability that the Spanish Armada had beaten their rivals on the sea several centuries ago. The second half was almost impossible to watch — Russia were unrecognisable and folded easily.

Of course, there were and are other opinions about the Holland-Russia and Russia-Spain games. Some say the Dutch just “fused out” and thus couldn’t show their power against Russia. And Russia were very unlucky with Spain… It could be so. It’s up to you to decide which opinion to support. One thing is clear: The Russian squad will not be underestimated by other teams, that’s for sure, and we only hope that this new team will bring fresh ideas into European and world football, becoming gradually one of the strongest and most respected teams in the world.

P.S. As the result of their wonderful performance, Russia ended up in eleventh place in the world rankings. The Russian people are rejoicing, hoping for better results and greater performances. Guus Hiddink will be using his magic and luck to take Russia to South Africa in 2010, and who knows, maybe there will be a new star in the hall of fame of world football…

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