Russia Beats Sweden in Euro 2008

Soccer coach Guus Hiddink showed his famous “upper cut” ceremony again in Innsbruck, Austria.

Hiddink demonstrated his “upper cut” action every time the Korean national soccer team beat European teams in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, successfully bringing the team to the semifinal.

The current head coach of the Russian national team performed the signature action yesterday when his team beat the Swedish team 2-0 to make it to the quarterfinals at the final Euro 2008 Group D match held at the Tivoli Stadium in Innsbruck.

With two wins and one defeat, Russia secured a ticket to the quarterfinal at the second place in Group D, following Spain, which beat Greece 2-1. It is for the first time in 20 years that Russia made it to the quarterfinals since 1988 when the then Soviet team won the second prize in the match.

Russia’s winning of the quarterfinal ticket is as dramatic as Korea’s experience in 2002. After losing to Spain 1-4 in the opening Group D game, Russia beat Greece, last year’s winner, 1-0 on Saturday and then Sweden, which it had to beat to advance to the next round.

Russia and Sweden are at the similar level at 24th and 30th places, respectively, on the FIFA rankings. But their attitudes differed greatly at the match. Sweden showed a passive play, while Russia began strong attacks from the initial stage of the match.

After the Russian team made many quick attack attempts, Roman Pavlyuchenko scored the first goal 24 minutes into the first half began by successfully leading the pass from the penalty zone to the goal. In the second half, Russia’s play became more aggressive. Five minutes into the second half, Russia’s Yuri Zhirkov passed the ball to the center of the penalty zone and Andrey Arshavin successfully scored a goal with sliding.

Hiddink said, “They tried to get forward as quickly as possible to get the goal they achieved in the first half. In the second half, they tried to push a little bit more. I am especially very proud of the team.”

The Russian team is scheduled to have a match against the Dutch team from Hiddink’s home country. It also happened to be the Netherlands who beat Russia 2-0 in the 1988 quarterfinal.

The head coach said, "It`s a special game because I know the (Dutch) players, I know the coach (Marco van Basten) and more people within the squad I had worked with. But we play the style that they like to play. It has to be an interesting clash."

Meanwhile, the entire Russia was in a festive mood. The Russians celebrated the victory until late night at Red Square in Moscow.

kimsk@donga.com