The Spaniards are all seriatim thrilled with their semi-final game against the Russians, but they all agree that it’s still not over. Guus Hiddink admitted that Zbornaja lost from one great team.

“We have accomplished one major success on which we all can be proud. We had some problems in the first half, but in the [...]

The team of Luis Aragones defeated the Russians twice on this tournament, in their first and last match. This time Furia celebrated with 3:0 and completely deserved carved out Sunday’s final against Geramny.

Russia - Spain 0:3 (0:0)
stadium: Ernst Happel, Vienna
referee: Frank de Bleeckere (Belgium)
goalscorers: 0:1 Xavi (50′), 0:2 Güiza (73′), 0:3 Silva (83′)
Russia: Akinfeev - [...]

stadium: Ernst Happel, Vienna
referee:Frank de Bleeckere
assistant referee: Peter Hermans and Alex Verstraeten
fourth official: Kyros Vassaras
Russia: 1 Akinfeev (gk), 2 V.Berezutski, 4 Ignashevich, 9 Saenko, 10 Arshavin, 11 Semak (c), 17 Zyryanov, 18 Zhirkov, 19 Pavlyuchenko, 20 Semshov, 22 Anyukov
substitutes: 12 Gabulov (gk), 16 Malafeev (gk), 3 Yanbaev, 5 A.Barezurski, 6 Adamov, 13 Ivanov, 14 Shirokov, [...]

Furia has the best goalkeeper of Euro, Iker Casillas, so they haven’t practiced penalties for semi-finals, but they have practiced free kicks, counting on uncertain Akinfeev. Before the quarter-final against Italy, the Spaniards relyed on pullin down the tradition - it’s been 24 years since the last time they played in semi-finals and for years [...]