Euro 2008 Russia Football Blog

On their return to Moscow, a huge crowd was waiting for the Russian team that made the country proud of its football abilities and potential. No one would have imagined that Russia would be in the semi-final of Euro 2008. But Dutch headcoach Guus Hiddink continued to prove his coaching credentials by turning the team […]

The Russians were never favourites against one of the best teams in Euro 2008. Spain has been bringing up world-class talent for ages, but it has never managed to dominate Europe in recent times. Their last, and only, success in the European Championship came back in 1964 when they defeated the USSR by 2-1. In […]

These were the line-ups fielded by the Russia and Spain coaches. The winner of the match would meet Germany in the final, which will be played on Sunday 29th June in Vienna. Russia have just eliminated Holland, while the Spanish defeated World Champions Italy. Having met before in the group-stage, Spain beat Russia by 4-1, […]

This is not the first time that promises are being made to teams’ players to incentivate them to give all their best in matches. In tonight’s match against Spain, Russia are seen as underdogs, but as could be seen against Holland, Hiddink’s army are no easy team to beat. Scoring against Iker Casillas, one of […]

Russia boss Guus Hiddink, known as the Magician in Russia, will have no injury worries ahead of the match against Spain. However, he will be without suspended duo Kolodin and Torbinski. Spain and Russia/USSR have met nine times in their history, with the Spaniards winning 5 times while Russia won just once. Spain are on […]

Some may look at David Villa, seeing as he is leading the scoring charts, but that is only thanks to a hat trick against a very lacklustre looking Russian side. Cue Andre Arshavin, after an excellent campaign for Zenith St.Petersburg, upsetting the odds by leading them to UEFA cup glory, big things were expected of […]

Russia entered the match full of confidence after completly outplaying Sweden but they knew they were up against it in this game against the Netherlands.
The first half of this game was very much Russia’s they dominated possesion but couldn’t put the ball in the net on the other hand the Netherlands didn’t produce as much […]

Here are the Line-ups for the Quarter-Final between Holland and Russia which until 14th minute is 0-0.
Russia team:

1-Igor Akinfeyev; 22-Alexander Anyukov, 8-Denis Kolodin, 4-Sergei Ignashevich, 18-Yuri Zhirkov; 17-Konstantin Zyryanov, 11-Sergei Semak, 20-Igor Semshov, 9-Ivan Saenko; 10-Andrei Arshavin, 19-Roman Pavlyuchenko.
Netherlands team:

1-Edwin van der Sar; 21-Khalid Boulahrouz, 2-Andre Ooijer, 4-Joris Mathijsen, 5-Giovanni van Bronckhorst; 17-Nigel de […]

The Netherlands lit up the group stages but Russia were not far behind with their classy win over Sweden, what will the quarter final produce?
A week ago the Dutch looked odds-on to advance to the last four but, though they remain favourites, Russia’s sparkling 2-0 victory over Sweden in Innsbruck on Wednesday has altered the […]

Russia entered their final game needing a win to make it to the quarters, Sweden only needed a draw but would be playing for the win. 2 stats were in either teams way Gus Hiddink has made it passed the group stage in all the teams he has coached vs Sweden progressing from the last […]