Courtesy: UEFA.com

Russia rallied by Dinamo duo

Tuesday, 20 February 2007

by Dina Yurieva & Paul Saffer

Russia are aiming to go one better than two years ago in the 2007 UEFA European Futsal Championship, and they begin their campaign in Group F on Tuesday in Dabas, Hungary boosted by new recruits as they take on the hosts, Lithuania and Greece.

Newcomers
National champions MFK Dinamo Moskva have reached two UEFA Futsal Cup finals since Russia's runners-up exploits in Ostrava, where they lost to Spain, and Brazilian-born duo Pelé and Cirilo have been among the stars of that competition in recent years. And the pair are now in the Russian squad, having taken citizenship, and are set for their major competition debuts having played in the Galician Cup in November, where Russia beat Slovenia 3-1 with Cirilo scoring but lost 4-1 to Spain.

Iran beaten
However, apart from Sergei Malyshev, the Dinamo contingent, which also includes goalkeeper Pavel Stepanov, Konstantin Maevski and Pavel Kobzar were absent last month when Russia travelled to Iran for another warm-up event. They beat the perennial Asian champions 2-1 and then Uzbekistan 4-2 before finishing with a 2-2 draw against an Iranian youth squad. The full selection gathered on Friday in Shelkovo near Moscow for a training camp, and all signs are that their biggest rivals for a place this November in Porto will be group hosts Hungary, who Russia coach Oleg Ivanov saw play Ukraine in two friendlies last week, drawing 5-5 and then drawing 3-1.

Hungary preparations
Indeed, this is the only one of the seven qualifying groups to contain two nations from the 2005 finals, Hungary having won a berth for the first time on that occasion. And although they lost their matches, going down 4-2 to Spain, 5-0 to holders Italy and 5-3 to Portugal was no disgrace. Since then they have kept up a busy programme of friendlies, including in Spain and Brazil, though their last win was 4-2 against Finland in November. The next day they drew 5-5 with the same opposition, and in January in Slovakia lost 4-2 and drew 3-3.

Greek improvement
It will not be easy for Hungary, who have lost all their previous fixtures against Russia, but by contrast they have a 100 per cent record against both Lithuania and Greece, beating the latter 4-2 as part of their successful 2005 qualifying campaign. Greece, meanwhile, will hope to banish the memories of their debut futsal encounter when they lost 24-0 to Russia in 1999 qualifying. However, in the last set of qualifiers things went better, following up a 13-1 defeat of Albania in the 2004 FIFA Futsal World Cup preliminaries with draws against Croatia and Latvia in the European group won by Hungary. Last March they met Hungary twice in friendlies, losing 6-0 in Godollo and 9-2 in Dabas, but in Bulgaria in January won 6-3 before a 5-3 loss the next day.

Lithuania task
Lithuania, who start against Russia, coincidentally also entered the futsal world in 1999 against one of these group opponents, losing 5-3 in Hungary. Defeats against that opposition followed in their first World Cup and European campaigns, and they had to wait until match No20 before their avoided a loss, holding Finland 1-1 in 2002, and two games later they beat Belarus 4-2. In 2004 World Cup qualifying they held the Netherlands 5-5 and beat Finland 7-1 in the subsequent European campaign for a first competitive win. They warmed up for this edition with a tournament last November in Belgium, and although they lost to the hosts and the Netherlands they overcame England 8-1 for their record win.



Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com