Russia aim to entertain in Slovenia
Reuters - Tuesday 17 November 2009, 02:00
MARIBOR, Slovenia - Russia will stick to
their crowd-pleasing style of attacking play when they take a
narrow lead over Slovenia into Wednesday's World Cup play-off
return leg, coach Guus Hiddink said.
The Dutchman, who has taken three teams to football's most
prestigious tournament with his entertaining brand of football,
said Russia would not suddenly become defensive just because
Slovenia snatched an away goal in Saturday's 2-1 first leg.
"Since I've been here we always tried to play aggressive,
attacking football that most fans love to watch," Hiddink told
Reuters.
"It would be against Russian nature to take a cautious,
defensive approach. It doesn't mean that we would totally
neglect our defence and just attack, attack, attack.
"Slovenia need to score to have a chance for overall victory
so they will have to attack as well. Therefore we must play a
balanced game and try to get them on a break, if possible."
Hiddink has never failed to guide his teams to a major
tournament, having taken his native Netherlands to the 1998
World Cup, Australia to the 2006 edition and co-hosts South
Korea on a surprise run to the 2002 World Cup semi-finals.
He instilled his free-flowing style into Russia to steer
them to the Euro 2008 semi-finals to add to his string of
unlikely feats with unfancied teams.
Hiddink will likely keep faith with his proven players and
field the same line-up for the second leg at the Ljudski vrt
stadium in Maribor, providing Chelsea winger Yuri Zhirkov shakes
off a sore knee.
CONFIDENT SLOVENIA
Slovenia, ranked 49th by FIFA, remain confident in their
ability to overturn a one-goal deficit, with the Balkan
country's Prime Minister Borut Pahor even promising last month
to clean his players' boots if they pull off an upset.
"We know what we have to do to win," said Slovenia striker
Nejc Pecnik, who scored with just two minutes remaining in the
first leg to boost his team's morale ahead of the home leg.
The Slovenians, whose only previous World Cup showing came
in 2002, feel they should fare much better on the familiar
natural turf in Maribor rather than the synthetic surface they
played on at Moscow's Luzhniki.
"Playing on grass and in front of our passionate fans will
give us a distinct advantage," Slovenia captain Robert Koren was
quoted as saying by local media. "I think it will be a totally
different match from the one we played in Moscow."
Probable teams:
Slovenia: 1-Samir Handanovic; 2-Miso Brecko, 5-Bostjan
Cesar, 4-Marko Suler, 13-Bojan Jokic; 18-Aleksander
Radosavljevic, 8-Robert Koren, 7-Nejc Pecnik; 10-Valter Birsa,
11-Milivoje Novakovic, 14-Zlatko Dedic.
Russia: 1-Igor Akinfeyev; 2-Alexander Anyukov, 4-Sergei
Ignashevich, 5-Vasily Berezutsky, 18-Yuri Zhirkov; 7-Igor
Denisov, 11-Sergei Semak, 6-Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, 17-Konstantin
Zyryanov; 10-Andrei Arshavin, 9-Roman Pavlyuchenko.
Referee: Terje Hauge (Norway).