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ANDREY ARSHAVIN BEST IN 2009
Andrey Arshavin has been voted the best player
in Russia and CIS countries in 2009 to receive the third consecutive Zvezda
Award.
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Andrey Arshavin Photo SPORT EXPRESS
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Russian striker Andrey Arshavin became the main star of
the year for the third straight year to set the record of Sport Express'
Zvezda award. He collected 204 votes to earn the first place in the standings,
while Igor Akinfeev and Andrey Pyatov finished on the second and third
places with 128 and 56 points respectively.
The Arsenal man talked about main ups and downs of the previous season
in an interview to Sport Express.
"This year my victory in Zvezda award was with a bitter taste and
everyone knows the reasons", said Arshavin. "The first victory
was memorable because it was the first one, the second was on background
of Euro-2008. Unfortunately, this time it was darkened by Russia's failure
against Slovenia".
"This season it was not necessary to demonstrate really fantastic
football to earn Zvezda award, so it means that competition was much easier.
Though in case Ukraine reached the World Championships, Ukrainian players
would have won this award".
"I would definitely have included Igor Akinfeev to the list of best
players of the previous season. I would also mention Zhirkov, UEFA Cup
winners Pyatov and Chigrinsky and of course Vladimir Bystrov".
"The future president of the Russian Football Union Sergey Fursenko
will need to think about development of children football, I think it
is one of the most important tasks nowadays".
"He will also need to decide question of the head coach of our national
team, who will lead us in the coming World Cup qualifying campaign".
"Guus Hiddink created absolutely unique microclimate in the team
and made players respect themselves, which helps us be more confident
on the pitch".
"Of course there are reasons of our loss to Slovenia, and the first
one is poor performance of the captain and leader, i.e. me. And the second
reason is that we stuck in the midfield at the end of the first half and
beginning of the second one".
"One more serious factor was that Slovenia physically looked better
than Russia in both games".
Sport
Express Daily, 11 Jan 2010
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