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RUSSIA<br />
Successful start Leonid Slutsky (r.) won his first two matches as Russia head coach and is satisfied with the way his team played.<br />
Grigoriy Sisoev / RIA Novosti / AFP<br />
forward to the World Cup. So I want to tell<br />
all football fans planning to come to Russia<br />
that they’ll quite simply be charmed by the<br />
people they meet, especially in the regions,<br />
and they’ll be charmed by the feel-good atmosphere<br />
the tournament will bring to these<br />
cities.”<br />
So would Slutsky himself like to be national<br />
team coach when Russia hosts the<br />
World Cup? “I don’t really think in those<br />
terms,” he said. “I just go from one match to<br />
the next without looking that far ahead. But<br />
it’s definitely the case that, for any coach, it<br />
would be very prestigious, and also very<br />
emotional, to prepare your national team for<br />
a World Cup at home.”<br />
Striving for recognition<br />
Slutsky is currently focusing on the crucial<br />
upcoming EURO 2016 qualifiers. Critics of<br />
the national team still claim the current lineup<br />
lacks stars, but that is not quite the way<br />
the coach sees it. “If ‘stars’ means players<br />
from the top clubs in the best leagues, then<br />
that’s true, we don’t have any,” he acknowledged.<br />
“That said, Cheryshev’s at Madrid,<br />
and we would really like to see him get more<br />
playing time there. But the way I see it, the<br />
Russian championship doesn’t get the recognition<br />
it deserves. I think the national team’s<br />
got really good players, and they’re absolutely<br />
up to the challenge facing them at the moment<br />
– which is to qualify for EURO 2016.” Å<br />
Russia’s path to<br />
EURO 2016<br />
With two wins from as many games at the<br />
beginning of September, Leonid Slutsky<br />
got his tenure as Russia national team<br />
coach off to the perfect start. In 2016<br />
European Championship qualifying his<br />
side posted a 1-0 victory over Sweden –<br />
direct rivals for a place at the tournament<br />
– and also beat Liechtenstein 7-0.<br />
The wins lifted Russia to second in the<br />
Group G standings on 14 points, two<br />
ahead of Sweden in third and eight behind<br />
Austria, who have already booked their<br />
ticket to the finals. Russia’s hopes of securing<br />
automatic qualification are therefore<br />
in their own hands as they head into their<br />
final two games against Moldova and<br />
Montenegro.<br />
THE FIFA WEEKLY<br />
27
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