Preview RUS-AND: No Celebrations Yet, Advocaat Urges Caution

October 10th, 2011 | by: nick | Comments Off

Four years ago, Russia faced Andorra in their final Euro 2008 qualifier under very nervous circumstances. Russia had to win and hope Croatia defeat England at Wembley the same day. Well thats what happened. Russia barely defeated Andorra 1-0 while a dramatic game saw Croatia defeat England 3-2. This time, Russia sit at the top of Group B needing only a draw to qualify. Only Ireland can surpass Russia if Andorra pull off a major upset on Tuesday. Aside from that, Russia’s task is very direct and clear cut.

Russia
Dick Advocaat has refused to allow his players to celebrate. Although it theoretically looks like Russia have qualified because they are heavy favorites to win on Tuesday, complacency have gotten the better of Russia on two occasions and Advocaat is urging caution. First in 2007, Russia were defeated by Israel en route to Euro 2008 handing England a life line. The second and more disastrous was the 2010 World Cup play off with Slovenia two years ago. Russia allegedly began to celebrate before even facing Slovenia and entered the pitch full of overconfidence. All Russian fans know what the final outcome was on that cold November evening in Maribor back in 2009. Dick Advocaat will make sure that that type of thing does not happen this time around. It would a total embarrassment to lose first place to Ireland after a hard fought away victory against Slovakia, a team that made it to the last sixteen last year. It would be even more embarrassing to then lose a playoff and not reach the tournament at all.

With that said, Advocaat will be preparing his team to stay focused and not relax until the final whistle is blown at the end of the game. Advocaat will likely feature a full strength squad with most of the usual starters. He will be forced to make two changes due to the suspensions of Zyrianov and Anyukov. But, both players have good cover in the from of Roman Shishkin and Aleksandr Samedov.

Andorra
There isn’t much to say about Andorra except for they have endured another another campaign with no points so far. UEFA.com has pointed out the contrasting ambitions of these to sides. Russia is attempting to qualify for the tournament while Andorra will be striving to gain at least a point from this campaign.

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