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YURI ZHIRKOV - NATIONAL TEAM LEADER
The leader of the national team of the season was determined yesterday.
And Yuri Zhirkov got this trophy.
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Yuri Zhirkov Photo SPORT EXPRESS
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Sport Express established this price in 2000. And the nominees
have already been: Valery Karpin, Alexandr Mosotvoy, Viktor Onopko, Alexandr
Smertin - twice, Andrei Arshavin and Konstantin Zyryanov.
If you are good at arithmetic you can easily see that one person is left.
The matter is that in 2005 when the national team has failed the season
altogether and did not qualified to the World championship 2006 we thought
it blasphemous to give somebody the trophy. But formally we found the
best and it was Arshavin.
Yuri played all the matches of the national team this season and closed
not a usual position in defence. And at the same time he worked excellently
in defence and helped a lot in attack.
He fought with all his might even when there was no more power. No wonder
Zhirkov got into a symbolic team of the Euro, as well as into the thirty
candidates for Golden Ball award.
And how did it happen that Zhirkov became the leader of the national team?
During the whole year the Sport Express readers voted after every match
of the national team and in such a way the best six was selected: Akinfeev,
Arshavin, Zhirkov, Zyryanov, Pavlyuchenko and Semak.
Then there were three different polls that helped to determine the best
one.
1. A poll among fifty veterans of the Russian football. Their opinion
as we have reported before is as follows: Zhirkov, Akinfeev and Arshavin.
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2. A poll among visitors of our web-site http://www.sport-express.ru/.
Zhirkov acquired 5133 votes (39,8%) out of 12 882 respondents, Arshavin
- 4592 (35,6%), Semak - 1256 (9,8%).
3. A poll among journalists of Sport Express Football department. The
first one is Zhirkov again, second - Arshavin and number three - Semak.
Thus Yuri Zhirkov became first in all three different votings! This year
became splendent for our national team - it fought through to the Euro
semifinals and won bronze medals. I think it is unfair that in our football
there are dozens of different trophies but they all are connected with
the club. And it makes this trophy of the best national leader even more
valuable.
Sport
Express Daily, 26 Dec 2008
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