European Shield 2012-13: Game 8 Preview - Serbia V Russia
23rd May 2013Competition leaders Russia travel to Belgrade to face an in-form home side that, after an impressive 46-10 win over Germany last week, will be looking to take over top spot.
To do so Serbia must beat Russia for the first time in five meetings, although the trend of results has seen the Bears’ margin of victory diminish each time, culminating in last September’s 21-20 victory in Naro-Fominsk.
“We are looking forward to the game against well-known and highly motivated opponents,” said Serbia coach Marko Jankovic. “The atmosphere in the squad is excellent; the players don’t feel at all fatigued or over-worked after two weeks of hard training and matches.”
Jankovic makes two changes to the squad that beat Germany a week ago. Mihailo Boškovic (shoulder injury) and teenager Nemanja Petrovic (unavailable) are replaced by Red Star’s Velibor Sreckovic, who played twice in last year’s fixtures, and debutant Filip Stošic.
”We’re under a different kind of pressure than against Germany,” continued Jankovic. “We carried the favourite’s burden and we carried it well. Now we have history against us and we haven’t forgotten two thrilling finishes in the most recent clashes. Nevertheless, we know that it is going to be a hard battle for every inch of the pitch; we have a big desire to win, but we have to keep calm during the game.”
The Serbs are expecting a sizeable crowd at the Makis Stadium, the site of Russia’s victory in their world cup qualifying match in 2011. Then, strike centre Petr Botnarash scored a hat-trick, but the powerful three-quarter is unavailable in what remains a largely tried and tested Russian squad, 11 of them from Vereya Bears including debutant Kirill Nechaev, and led by influential player-coach Eduard Ososkov.
"I think that the game is going to be very difficult,” admitted Ososkov. “It will be intense and physical for both sides. Serbia is the most physically powerful and highly motivated team in the European Shield. They have had a good training programme including trial matches and the big score against Germany will only add to their optimism. We expect them to attack us from the very beginning of the match.”
Russia’s championship season has started, prefaced by a Moscow 9s championship and the national squad played a trial match against a student XIII. Ososkov is already looking to the future. “We plan to have new players in August against Germany to start preparation for next two-year period,” he added.
SERBIA 20-MAN SQUAD
Miloš Zogovic (Car Lazar), Mirko Božovic, Stefan Nedeljkovic, Stevan Stevanovic, Dalibor Vukanovic (Dorcol), Marko Cuk, Velibor Sreckovic, Radovan Tajsic (Military Academy), Marko Milenkovic (Niš), Igor Vratnjan (Podbara), Nemanja Božic, Mile Podkoljnjak (Radnicki Nova Pazova), Miloš Calic, Vladislav Dedic, Vojislav Dedic, Ivan Djordjevic, Vladica Nikolic, Nebojša Živanovic (Red Star Belgrade), Strahinja Jevtic, Filip Stošic (Soko Vranje)
RUSSIA 18-MAN SQUAD
Sergey Beliavskiy, Alexey Mikhaylov, Sergey Zuev (MGPU), Dmitriy Bratko, Igor Chuprin, Vadim Fedchuk (Storm), Grigory Esin (St Petersburg), Rustam Bulanov, Sergey Gaponov, Anatoly Grigorev, Sergey Konstantinov, Aleksandr Lysokon (c), Kirill Nechaev, Alexey Nikolaev, Eduard Ososkov, Andrey Sevostianov, Maksim Suchkov, Vladimir Vlasyuk (Vereya Bears)