Dirty dozen add spice for Guus

By IAN LADYMAN

Last updated at 23:00 11 September 2007

Court cases, assaults, suspensions and even a suicide. It sounds like the plot from a bad Hollywood movie but in reality it forms the background to the Russia team that Guus Hiddink will send out to beat England at Wembley tonight.

Man management is traditionally

the preserve of the club manager

rather than the national coach but

Hiddink has had to rehabilitate

some of Russia's most complicated

footballers in his bid to qualify for

the finals of Euro 2008.

Calling the Russian squad the

Dirty Dozen' — as some have done

this week — may be stretching the

point but some of the issues

Hiddink has dealt with during his

short time in the job certainly put

Steve McClaren's recent injury

problems in context.

"It's always good to have some

characters who might think

differently from everybody else

because it makes it spicy," said

Hiddink yesterday when asked

about the make-up of his squad.

"Most of the rebellious characters

have some idea of how football is

played and sometimes they have

some extra or special qualities.

Coaches must not be afraid of

using the extra or special qualities."

Certainly the most tragic case in

Hiddink's squad is that of attacking

midfielder Konstantin Zyryanov,

who has had to rebuild his life after

his wife jumped to her death from a

window five years ago — taking the

couple's four-year-old daughter

with her.

Hiddink handed Zyryanov his first

cap last season and the Zenit

player has subsequently developed

into one of his most progressive

and reliable footballers.

Writing about such human

tragedy in the same context as

footballers who have merely had to

overcome problems with discipline may appear inappropriate but it

only serves to illustrate the issues

Hiddink has had to confront in

order to restore some sense of

direction to a proud and demanding

football nation.

Igor Semshov, for example, was

banned for five games after kicking

a referee up the backside during a

domestic match. Eat your heart

out Paolo Di Canio.

"I thought his decision was unfair,"

said the Dynamo Moscow

midfielder. "And I don't like to lose."

Equally unpredictable is the

temperament of Spartak Moscow

striker Roman Pavlyuchenko, who

was banned for four games for terrorising

a referee in his room after a

league game against Tom Tomsk.

Remarkably, that sanction was

overturned on appeal — prompting

one to ponder just what players

have to do to get into serious

trouble in Russia.

One player who did not play for

some time was the man once

known as the Russian Michael

Owen, 23-year-old Dmitry Sychev.

Sychev was banned for six

months for going through the civil courts in a bid to bludgeon a

transfer from Spartak Moscow to

Marseille. Eventually he got his

move, but only when he returned to

Russian football with Lokomotiv

did his goalscoring form return.

Hiddink scoffs at the notion that

he has been brave to integrate such

complex characters into his team.

He said: "In top football it is

important to work on the edge to

keep moving forward and keep

going for the top.

"England, too, have so many players

in the past and maybe now who

have something extra in personality

or skill. It is not just Russia."

Compared with some of the

Russians, McClaren's players

appear to be relative introverts.

Hiddink, however, believes that

the two groups of players will be

well matched on the pitch tonight

and clearly feels his team can come

out on top in two games between

the nations that will effectively

decide their destiny.

"We hope to get a result," he

added. "We are working towards a

strong team, which is very competitive

for the qualification of World

Cup 2010. But I don't want to take

the pressure off when there is still a

chance to qualify for 2008."

Hiddink, of course, was many

people's favourite to take over from

Sven Goran Eriksson last summer

and has not ruled out interest in

the England post in the future.

He said: "I don't know, I cannot predict the future."

But he did have

one word of warning

for the English

game regarding the

number of foreign

players in the Premiership.

He said: "I have

heard some people in

the FA have concerns

about the future of

English players. I can

imagine that everybody

has that

concern.

"If you compare

the situation to Russia, in a few years

there will be a maximum of four

foreign players in the club sides."