Greece-Russia Preview

November 10th, 2011 | by: nick | Comments(1)

Since I maintain the Russia and Greece pages here at World Cup Blog, this is a unique post because it allows for a two sided preview. Check out the Greece Blog for the other side. Russia are traveling to Piraeus this week to face their Euro 2004 and Euro 2008 opponents, Greece. This will be Russia’s final match of 2011 as Greece will take on Romania on Tuesday. Russia, like Greece, come in after topping Group B with the Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, and Armenia being the main contenders. After briefly being in second place to Slovakia at the beginning of the campaign, Advocaat’s men solidified the top spot after defeating Armenia in June. From then on, no one looked like overtaking Russia.

Previous Meetings

EURO 2004: June 20, 2004
Group A: RUS 2-1 GRE
Goals: Kirichenko 2, Bulykin 17, Vryzas 43
After two early defeats to Spain and Portugal in what was terrible tournament, Russia surprisingly defeated Greece 2-1 with two early goals from Kirichenko and Bulykin. Russia had already been eliminated and took the field with no pressure at all. It was very evident as they played a free flowing game compared to the first two. As Russia emerged victorious, Greece celebrated a quarterfinal berth at the expense of Spain.

EURO 2008 June 14, 2008
Group D: GRE 0-1 RUS
Goals: Zyrianov 33
Unlike 2004, Russia faced Greece at Euro 2008 with serious prospects to qualify from the Group D. After a 4-1 thrashing to Spain, Russia had their most difficult game behind them and Sweden’s defeat the same day provided an opportunity. A victory for Russia would put them on level terms with Sweden and set up a critical encounter in the last match. In what started as a even game, Russia were in front after Nikopolidis opened the goal up for Konstantin Zyrianov. Russia held on to win, marched on to defeat Sweden 2-0 four days later, and qualified from the group stages for the first time since the Soviet Union.

Squad and Formation
Dick Advocaat has a number of injury headaches this time around and thank goodness it’s just a friendly. With Kerzhakov and Pogregnyak injured, Advocaat has been forced to call up Aleksandr Khokorin of Dynamo Moskva and Artym Dzuba of Spartak Moskva. Aside from those two changes, it is the same squad that took on Slovakia and Andorra last month. Based on that, it looks like Advocaat will use this friendly match as practice for his usual full strength line up.

Players to Watch

Andrei Arshavin
Despite less then impressive performances this season, I think Arshavin will put a good performance against Greece. He has the full support of the squad and the coach which will provide some motivation.

Igor Semshov
Semshov played as an attacking midfielder against Macedonia and Ireland in September and proved to be very lethal. He scored a goal against Macedonia and had several major opportunities against Ireland. He is usually a defensive midfielder but if Advocaat gives him a spot further up the field, he might shine this Friday.

Prediction: GRE 1-1 RUS
Greece are likely to score first as they’ve done at home through out most of the qualification campaign but Russia have scored in four of their last five games are likely to respond with an equalizer.