Group D Preview- Russia

Russia qualified for EURO 2008 with a lot of luck after losing to israel in qualifying. Their strongest 'card' is manager Guus Hiddink, a great tactician and a highly respected international manager who has succedeed wherever he has been. The spine of the team comes from UEFA Cup winners Zenit St Petersburg so spirits in the camp should be high. Captain Andrei arshavin's 2 match ban will be a big loss because he is a player with great vision and unpredictability a player who can win a game by himself. This is a prelatively young team and the only one that plays with 3 at the back and wing-backs covering the entire flank the russians could advance to the quarter finals but much will depend on their poening game with Spain

PROS:
1)Good team spirit, tactically astute manager
2)Anyukov could be the best up an coming right back in Europe
3)Progrebnyak and Pavlyuchenko are typical british style centre-forwards who should give defences a scare

CONS:
1)Arshavin's absence in the first two games
2)Their defence is a bit slow
3)Overall quality not the best

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