GRE 1-0 RUS: What Happened ?

June 17th, 2012 | by: nick | Comments(1)

Russian fans all over Europe and the world must be scratching their heads as Russia were eliminated after a 1-0 loss to Greece combined with with a 1-0 Czech victory over the co-hosts. Dick Advocaat, who has already resigned, appeared very disappointed in the post match press conference and was angry at any questions that pointed to the reasons for Russia’s failure. This elimination is very disappointing considering Russia had a decent qualification campaign that saw them top a qualification group for the first time since 2001. A few mediocre friendlies may have indicated some weaknesses but a 3-0 win over Italy and 4-1 thrashing of the Czech Republic put the team in better light.

Complacency and Overconfidence?
It might be that the Russian team was a victim of their own success and complacency set in after the opening match with the Czechs. By comparison, Russia played very strongly against Italy and the Czech Republic, almost looking like they were going to win the entire tournament. But when the opponents were co-hosts Poland, the team started aggressively but that slowly progressed to sloppiness. Passing and distribution became inconsistent and the back line began to lose focus. It was not long before the Poles struck and Russia were desperately trying to regain the lead. Against Greece, the situation was even worse as the entire team looked very disorganized. Another concentration lapse saw a misjudged throw-in put them behind. This type of playing is certainly a symptom of complacency.

Wrong Players and Wrong Formation?
Dick Advocaat will face fallout criticism for the players and formation used. But at the end of the day, Advocaat could have done one hundred different things and the result would have been the same. He picked the players he saw fit at the end of the Russian Premier League season and thats what all coaches do. The selection was made and Dick Advocaat can be paraphrased in the post match press conference, the team went out to play and but the needed goal was not scored, so thats football. The score doesn’t always reflect the game and results don’t always reflect the squad. Russia actually played pretty well and dominated possession for large spells in all three games. But all teams win, draw, and lose games, and yesterday’s result just happened to be in a very critical match that did not go their way.

Kerzhakov?
Questions swirling on Aleksandr Kerzhakov have been flying around the media. If Kerzhakov is blamed, then the whole team has to blamed as well. He joined the squad as the second highest scorer in the Russian Premier League. Teams who play against Russia are going to know that and will mark him well. Kerzhakov simply cannot be singled out and blamed. One can ask if he have been replaced with Pavlyuchenko for the matches against Poland and Greece, but that would not have resulted in passage to the quarterfinals, and that’s a whole different story.

Russia will hopefully settle in for a long summer break and a rejuvenated team will take the field against Northern Ireland at the Lokomotiv Stadium on September 7, 2012 to begin their quest to the 2014 FIFA World Cup.