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ARSHAVIN: UNDERSTAND FOOTBALL THE SAME WAY WITH KERZHAKOV
The Russian forward of Arsenal Andrei Arshavin
talked to Sport Express ahead of the coming World Cup qualifier against
Finland.
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Andrei Arshavin Photo SPORT
EXPRESS
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"I spent a week in St. Petersburg training with my
former club - Zenit," said Andrei. "Everybody was quite kind
to me. I cannot say that I communicated a lot with anyone just a bit with
everybody."
"I hope that these trainings in my former club would be useful. In
any case they were better than a week of doing nothing."
"I don't think that the attitude of people in St. Petersburg has
changed when I left. As far as I can see they like me equally even though
I am playing in a different team now."
"The change of the club does not influence my attitude to the national
team. I am coming there with the same pleasure as before. And seeing Guus
Hiddink, other players and coaches I forget all my club's matters."
"Hiddink did so well in Chelsea so to be frank I had suspicions he
could stay in the London club. I am sure they wanted him to stay in the
club."
"To my mind there was nothing bad in Hiddink's combining two positions.
Main thing for me is that he remains in the Russian national squad."
"I think Guus has enough energy for two works though it was for him
to decide his future. Anyway he stays with us and I am happy about it."
"Finland is a very disciplined, harsh and uncomplying team. It will
be the same as in Moscow in terms of players and their interplay but of
course it will be more aggressive and goal-oriented."
"I don't state that the Finnish play will depend only on our performance.
There are always two teams playing on the field and the actions of the
one depend on the actions of the other."
"A team that is stronger at the moment will get the initiative even
if it stronger in this period of time."
"At the moment our task is to win the match without looking at the
group standings. And then we will see if we can compete for the first
place or keep the second one, that will depend on the fact whether we
manage to solve the task for the coming match."
"In the nowadays football nobody defends personally against a player
so I don't think I will have a personal guard."
"But nothing depends only on those players who try to cut an opponent
off the game. Do you think there are people who don't know how dangerous
Messi is? And can you say that many succeeded in canceling him out?"
"I can imagine Hiddink's team without big in attack, and don't exclude
the possibility of my playing together with Kerzhakov. We will play the
way the coach decides."
"To tell the truth I never pay much attention to the dimensions of
players so I see no point playing big against big."
"Everything depends on the fact who is in better form at the moment
of the game and whose display in better."
"If Kerzhakov and I are to play together again I think we will easily
recall our interplay schemes. When we used to perform for Zenit our unit
was very effective first of all because we are both players of a high
level and secondly because we understand football the same way."
Sport
Express Daily, 05 June 2009
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