The mood in the Russia camp was positively bullish following their 2-0 victory against Sweden, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov insisting that, with progress to the UEFA EURO 2008™ quarter-finals assured, they are now planning on staying in Austria-Switzerland until the end of the month.Arshavin praise
Appearing for the first time at these finals following a two-match suspension, Andrei Arshavin inspired the requisite victory in Innsbruck to set up a mouth-watering tie with the Netherlands. His astute pass instigated the move that led to Roman Pavlyuchenko’s 24th-minute opener and the No10 then launched and sealed the flowing move which rubber-stamped second place in Group D. It was a performance that did not go unnoticed among his team-mates. “Arshavin put on a superb show,” said Yuri Zhirkov, who set up the No10’s strike five minutes after the break. “He was a true leader. We were thinking only of victory and we won on merit. When Arshavin scored the second goal, we realised we would not let go of this victory. Now we have to have revenge on the Dutch for the 4-1 friendly defeat.”

Bilyaletdinov bullish
That loss in February of last year was a fairly rare, pre-tournament indication of what was to come from the Netherlands as an attacking force, though Bilyaletdinov underlined the pitfalls of Dutch complacency. “They beat us 4-1 when we last played, so they possibly have it in their heads that Russia are not to be taken seriously. We must take advantage of this. Now we want more than just qualification from the group. We don’t want to go home until 30 June, but it won’t be any easier from now on.”

Recuperation time
This last point was echoed by captain Sergei Semak, who admitted that “the Dutch have made the best impression at the tournament”. With just two days to recuperate before Saturday’s quarter-final in Basel, Russia could have done with an easy run-out against Sweden; not wholly unsurprisingly, with their opponents needing only a point to finish second ahead of Russia, they did not get it. “I don’t think it was easy at all; we spent a lot of energy and emotion on this match,” admitted Semak. “We are very happy to have qualified but there’s no euphoria, we need to prepare for the next match. The most important thing is to recover. We get less time to do it, but I am sure we will recover in time and then we’ll see what we can do.”

 source: EURO 2008

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