Spain rematch a side issue for Semak

Reversal of fortune
Russia lost their opening UEFA EURO 2008™ Group D game 4-1 to Spain but victories against Greece, Sweden and, in quarter-final extra time, the Netherlands have taken Guus Hiddink's side to the last four, where they will face their first opponents again in Vienna. However, if thoughts of avenging their Innsbruck reverse preyed on the Russia players' minds when they watched Sunday's quarter-final, Semak stated: "It's not that important whether it was Spain or Italy, the most important thing is that it's a semi-final."

Mistakes
The 32-year-old midfielder also reminded his team-mates why the first match against Spain was lost. "The number one reason was individual mistakes, and of course when they were 2-0 up it was much easier for them to play," Semak said, adding that despite the scorching heat in their Basel base, the team have recovered well from the Netherlands game on Saturday. "Our conditioning is good, our morale is good. There is still time to prepare, so everything will be OK.The heat doesn't really bother us – in the end, both teams face similar conditions."

Injury concerns
In a light session at Basel's Rankhof Stadium, midfielder Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, forward Ivan Saenko and defender Aleksandr Anyukov all trained apart. "All of them have slight problems and I can't tell you whether they will play against Spain," said coach Guus Hiddink, although no more details were revealed. Bilyaletdinov is already thinking about Spain after watching their encounter with the Azzurri, won on penalties after a 0-0 draw. "It was a boring game, though I only saw the second half," he said. "The Spanish were trying to be careful, but against us they played much more attacking football. I was interested to see what happened. It was a dramatic match, with not many chances, but tactically a good contest."

Realism
He also reiterated that the errors committed a fortnight ago against Spain will not be repeated. "So far we are concentrating on ourselves and we have not talked about Spain," the 23-year-old revealed. "But I do not think we will repeat the mistakes we made in the first game. The coaching staff will get us right for this match." For all the great strides Hiddink's men have made here, they still seem to be taking it one step at a time along the road to EURO glory. "I don't know if we can win the tournament," Bilyaletdinov added, "because to do that we need to win two more games, two very difficult games."