“We played with good teams”: what is being discussed in the Russian team before the final match of the Euro 2020 selection

The Russian national football team settled in Serravalle, where on Tuesday it will hold the final match of the qualification of the European Championship 2020 with San Marino. The meeting will take place on November 19 at the Olympic Stadium.

On the eve of the wards of Stanislav Cherchesov conducted rehabilitation training in St. Petersburg. Despite the devastating defeat from Belgium with a score of 1: 4, the players were in good spirits and enjoyed talking with the many fans gathered at the hotel to conduct idols in San Marino. Those, in turn, reciprocated and chanted encouraging chants.

The flight along the route St. Petersburg - Rimini was completed as usual. And on Monday morning, the full team entered the field of the miniature stadium in Serravalle, located just 16 km from the airport.

According to the individual program, only Zenit midfielder Yuri Zhirkov was engaged. Monaco midfielder Alexander Golovin, who missed the match with Belgium due to an injury, worked on a par with his partners.

It is reported that about 500 Russian fans intend to attend the meeting with San Marino. It will be served by an Icelandic referee team led by Thorvaldur Arnason.

“We are not going to watch the sights”

After the training, Stanislav Cherchesov spoke about the plan of the national team for the upcoming match, and also summarized the preliminary results of the qualifying cycle.

- Golovin was engaged in the main group today. Does this mean that he recovered from his injury and will help the team in the match with San Marino?

- I am glad that Alexander had a training session. True, she was not so intense and was restorative in nature. In the evening, doctors will talk about the status of each player, and we will build on this.

- And what can you say about Zhirkov?

- Chances are good that Yuri will not play tomorrow.

- Will it be part of your installation to make as many programs as possible on Artyom Dziuba? Or will football players do this without your prompting?

- Honestly, we don’t think about it. For us, team play comes first. And when it is, there are individual bonuses. But this is fading into the background.

- After the match with Belgium, many hastened to blame Guilherme for the defeat. How does he feel?

- We did not talk with him about this topic, but he feels good.

- Is there any personal work with him?

- Such work is carried out only if there are any problems. If everything is normal, there is no need for it. We will analyze the game from a professional point of view. At us all the time something warms up, if not one - then another. Everyone forgot about Fedor Chalov - now they are discussing Guillerme. For two weeks, for some reason, they talked about Zobnin's position. But we always try to extract something useful from everything that we see and read.

- The match with San Marino is almost friendly. There was no desire for the whole team to relax, take a walk in the old city?

- We have our own program here: training, lunch, rest, theory, recovery procedures, preparation for the match. We are not going to watch the sights, we have a different task.

- What?

- Show quality football, represent your country accordingly. I really want the players to do what we require of them. In the last match, it did not work out to the end.

- In 1995, you came to San Marino as a player in the national team. What memories do you have from that match?

- Honestly, I don’t remember anything at all, because it was a long time ago. I do not look back.

- Do you follow the situation of the teams in other groups of the qualifying cycle?

- From the fact that we will monitor this, nothing will change. Yes, we had the opportunity to influence the lot if we had not lost to Belgium. And now you won’t do anything, so the points in the match with San Marino will not be of fundamental importance. By the way, we noticed one pattern. The Czech Republic, which we beat 5: 1, also selected for the European Championship. The same situation with our other rivals in the League of Nations. So we played with good teams.

- At one of the press conferences, you said that your contract expires a few months before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which was postponed to November. Can something be done with this?

- I do not like to talk about such topics. There was a question - I answered him. I do not think this is a big problem that is worth discussing.

“Added to the ball control”

Spartak Moscow midfielder Roman Zobnin shared his impressions of the match with Belgium, and also spoke about the mood of Dziuba, who has a chance to become the best scorer of Euro 2020 qualification.

- What have you personally learned from the match with Belgium?

- I did not take part in the first meeting with them, but I entered the field in Sochi when we tied 3-3 in a friendly match. It is felt that since then we have added to the control of the ball. As for me, you always want something bigger and better. Yes, I made certain conclusions, but I won’t tell you which ones, it’s personal.

- Artyom Dziuba is on the fifth line in the list of the best scorers of Euro 2020 selection. Tomorrow he will have the opportunity to get ahead of the superior Harry Kane, Eran Zahavi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Alexander Mitrovich. Do you discuss this situation in a team?

- Yes, we will try to help him. We just talked about it with Artyom. But he wants to catch up with Alexander Kerzhakov more. Says: "I’ll score seven tomorrow and goodbye." This is a joke, of course.

- Share your experience with the team’s newcomers, for example, with your teammate Zelimkhan Bakaev, who showed himself well in the match with Belgium?

- Of course, I tell him some things. True, I don’t know if I can be called an experienced footballer - I am 25 years old. But I help him.