Pick Your Players, the Euro 2008 Deadline is Coming

May 27th, 2008 | By: Daryl | 5 Comments »

Tomorrow is May 28th, and that means deadline day for Euro 2008 managers. We’ve seen all kinds of provisional and preliminary squads featuring anything from 31 to 24 players. But tomorrow is the day UEFA say “give us 23 names” and that’s it.

Slaven Bilic was ahead of the curve, naming his 23 Croatians way back in early May and Guud Hiddink has decided to get it over and done with, cutting two names from 25 hopefuls and naming his 23 man Russian squad today.

Here’s what Guus has gone with:

Goalkeepers: Igor Akinfeyev (CSKA Moscow), Vladimir Gabulov (Perm), Vyacheslav Malafeyev (Zenit St Petersburg)

Defenders: Alexander Anyukov (Zenit St Petersburg), Alexei Berezutsy, Vasily Berezursky, Sergei Ignashevich (all CSKA Moscow), Denis Kolodin (Dynamo Moscow), Renat Yanbayev (Lokomotiv Moscow)

Midfielders: Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Dmitry Torbinsky (both Lokomotiv Moscow), Vladimir Bystrov (Spartak Moscow), Yury Zhirkov (CSKA Moscow), Konstantin Zyryanov, Roman Shirokov (both Zenit St Petersburg), Igor Semshov (Dynamo Moscow), Sergei Semak (Kazan)

Strikers: Roman Adamov (FC Moscow), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak Moscow), Pavel Pogrebnyak, Andrei Arshavin (both Zenit St Petersburg), Dmitry Sychev (Lokomotiv Moscow), Ivan Saenko (Nuremberg)

The two unhappy souls are Oleg Ivanov of Samara and Spartak Moscow’s Alexander Pavlenko. And by tomorrow there’ll be a few more unhappy souls to be added to that list. Some big decisions to be made too.

For example, Roberto Donadoni has to cut his 24 man squad to 23 tomorrow. Will The Don decide that Antonio Cassano is more trouble in the dressing room than he is for opposition defenders? Someone from the Azzurri has to bit the dust. Same story with many other teams.

Being the one that misses out on the dance is going to hurt, especially after coming so close. No one wants to be the 24th and 25th men in a squad of 23. Some unhappy (and some very happy) players could be learning their fates as you read this. We’ll find out who they are tomorrow.