Russia face their fans

Fans in attendance
Assistant coach Aleksandr Borodyuk, midfield player Dmitri Alenichev, and striker Aleksandr Kerzhakov spent half a hour with more than 100 fans who turned up at the Football Union of Russia's headquarters by the Tivoli Marinotel. Russia have no chance of reaching the quarter-finals after two defeats in Group A.

'Great spirit'
"The games against Spain and Portugal turned out to be different in nature, but the result does not please anyone," said Borodyuk. "Those failures have their own reasons which I am inclined not to talk about. But I will say that the boys were fighting with great spirit and, at least, did not lose their honour.

Mistakes made
"We made purely tactical and technical mistakes, and that is why some stretches of those games were not good. But the Portuguese have also not shown the kind of football we expected. And had it not been for the red card shown to [goalkeeper Sergei] Ovchinnikov, which we think was unfair, everything might have been different."

Tough opposition
Kerzhakov added his thoughts on the sending-off: "I also think that the red card affected the flow of the game greatly, but I have to pay respect to the Portuguese - they were tough opposition."

Portugal 'won't progress'
However, Alenichev, who won the UEFA Champions League last month with FC Porto, was not overly impressed by the hosts. "I know what is happening in their team, and I have friends among the players," he said. "I am quite sure they won't progress to the second stage."

Lone striker
Borodyuk also sought to explain why Russia had chosen to play with just one recognised striker against the hosts. "It does not matter how many forwards we have," he said. "You thought we had just one, but there were two attacking midfield players who should have supported him by breaking into the empty spaces in the Portuguese defence."

Psychological problems
The assistant coach stressed that despite being out of the running for the quarter-finals, Russia will want to make a point in their last match against Greece. "The boys understand this and will prove their worth," he said. "The most important thing to understand is that our problems are psychological rather than anything else."

Final selection
Finally, Georgi Yartsev's right-hand man addressed the possibility of strikers Dmitri Sychev and Kerzhakov playing together against the Greeks. "We are currently in discussion about this, but there are still two days to go before Yartsev makes a final decision," he said.