WILL RUSSIAN NATIONAL TEAM FOLLOW IN CSKA FOOTSTEPS?

MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti sports commentator Mikhail Smirnov) - Russian soccer fans who have applauded CSKA's triumphant pace through the UEFA Cup and Russia Cup during the past two weeks are now looking forward to the national team's matches. On June 4, it will face the Latvian team in a qualifier of the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany. On June 8, Russians will play a friendly match with the German national team. These will be inauguration events for the Russian team's new chief coach Yury Syomin who, if he could, would have swapped the dates of these matches. With the Germans, he would have chosen to experiment with the make-up and the novices without caring a lot for the result, but with the Latvians he should be content with nothing than victory. Otherwise, with Portugal and Slovakia leading in Qualifying Group 1 with 15 points after seven matches and three points ahead of Russia, Latvia occupying the fourth place with one point less, our future will appear rather bleak. On June 4, the leaders will face each other in Lisbon.

One wonders if Syomin will be able to benefit from the victorious fervor of six CSKA players he invited to the national team.

On the one hand, the temptation to use CSKA partnerships, especially in the defense and the center of the field that showed themselves to the best advantage in the recent Cup matches, will be great. The best were young goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, defenders Sergei Ignashevich, the Berezutsky brothers, Yevgeny Aldonin and Yuri Zhirkov. However, the participation of Ignashevich and Vasily Berezutsky in a match against the Latvian team is rather doubtful because of their injuries after yesterday's painstaking Russia Cup victory (1-0) over the Khimki club (the Moscow region). The CSKA players' fatigue after the pressure of the previous matches was obvious.

So, Syomin can make a choice in favor of the players of his former club. He has already invited six of them to attend training sessions for a St. Petersburg match. Lokomotiv is represented in the national team in all the lines: goalkeeper Sergei Ovchinnikov, defenders Vadim Yevseyev and Dmitry Sennikov, half-backs Dmitry Loskov and Marat Izmailov and forward Dmitry Sychev. It is a puzzle which goalkeeper, Akinfeyev or Ovchinnikov whom the former national team boss Yartsev kicked out of the arsenal after the European championship, Syomin will prefer.

But no matter how Syomin will resolve his dilemma, the Russian fans, having already got used to football victories, will expect the national team to follow suit.