Russia Looks to Russia for Its Euro Team

It’s a strategy that worked well for Egypt in the African Cup of Nations: Choose the majority of your players from a few clubs in your home country, then hope that their experience playing in the same league will help your team overcome the power of the high-paid superstars on other squads.

Egypt ended up as the ACN champions. Russia is hoping to accomplish a similar feat.

Russia coach Guus Hiddink is following this local-player strategy in choosing his team for Euro 2008. Hiddink released his provisional list today, and of the twenty-five players, only one is based abroad: Ivan Saenko from FC Nuremburg.

The team will be dominated by players from the traditionally stronger Russian clubs: UEFA Cup winners Zenit St. Petersburg have six players, CSKA Moscow have five, and Lokomotiv Moscow have four. In other words, sixty percent of the squad comes from these three clubs.

The surprise omission was Dynamo Moscow player Alexander Kerzhakov, and the surprise inclusion was CSKA striker Sergei Semak, the 32-year-old midfielder from Rubin Kazan, who didn’t participate in Euro qualifying but has been in good form recently.

Hiddink has been busy giving interviews lately that seem designed to play down expectations for the team. But I’m sure that in his dreams he’s picturing the trophy and thinking about Egypt.

For more on the Russian squad, check out our Euro 2008 Russia page.

Provisional Russia squad for Euro 2008

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

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

Midfielders: Diniyar Bilyaletdinov (Lokomotiv Moscow), Yuri Zhirkov (CSKA Moscow), Igor Semshov (Dynamo Moscow), Dmitry Torbinsky (Lokomotiv Moscow), Vladimir Bystrov (Spartak Moscow), Konstantin Zyryanov (Zenit St Petersburg), Roman Shirokov (Zenit St Petersburg), Sergei Semak (Rubin Kazan), Alexander Pavlenko (Spartak Moscow), Oleg Ivanov (Krylya Sovietov Samara)

Forwards: Andrei Arshavin (Zenit St Petersburg), Pavel Pogrebnyak (Zenit St Petersburg), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak Moscow), Dmitry Sychev (Lokomotiv Moscow), Roman Adamov (FK Moscow), Ivan Saenko (Nuremberg).