Holding Midfield: Hiddink’s Russia

[Holding Midfield]

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Going into Euro 2008, Guus Hiddink was under pressure in Russia. He had taken over the Sbornaya with an impressive reputation for making underdogs maximise their potential – first at South Korea for the 2004 World Cup then for Australia in Germany four years later – but, so far, not everything had quite gone to plan for the Dutch coach. Truth be told, Russia were fortunate to be at the championships at all. Although they had completely destroyed England in Moscow, their equalising goal had been from a penalty that should have been a free-kick, and they had come undone by the reunited Emile Heskey-Michael Owen partnership at Wembley. Advantage was given to the wally with the brolly’s team after a 2:1 loss to Israel and qualification was only sealed with a measly 1:0 win over minnows Andorra in front of 200 people. To make matters worse, Hiddink would have to go without star players Pavel Progrebnyak and Andrei Arshavin; Progrebnyak suffered a knee injury in a friendly against Serbia, while Arshavin was suspended for the first two games after being sent off late on against Andorra in qualifying. It also didn’t help that Igor Denisov refused to be considered [...]

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