Russian national team manager Stanislav Cherchesov answered questions from journalists after the workout that took place at Arena Khimki stadium in Moscow on Thursday, the 25th of May.
- What can you say about the workout? What is the current condition of the squad?
- To begin with, everybody is in a good mood. As for the readiness... It has only been three days. You can feel it yourself when you have not trained for a day and you have the opponent feel it as well when you have not trained for two. We correctly adjusted the workload and used meters so that to check everything. That was a retractive intensive workout. And it helped players understand our expectations.
- Dzyuba did not attend the training and Akinfeev arrived only toward the end. Why was that?
- They did attend the training but worked in the gym. That was on schedule for Dzyuba, and Akinfeev suffers from heel pain. He did appear in official matches but hardly participated in training sessions. He might have to stay in Russia for two or three more days to recover.
- Kudryashov was working on an individual schedule toward the end of the workout...
-He was suffering from collateral ligament pain. We had him undergo relevant procedures and decided to avoid any risk for now. It is more difficult to keep such things under control during ball work. Tomorrow we will re-examine his leg’s condition after the workload and will go from there. I hope that everything is going to be ok.
- When Neustädter must be expected?
- I spoke to Dick Advocaat yesterday and the day before yesterday. Fenerbahce have legal reasons and are entitled to let a player join the national team’s camp 14 days before the first official match. We have agreed that Roman will appear in Turkish League match this coming weekend and will join us on the 28th of May.
- So shall Gabulov be expected after the second leg of Arsenal’s relegation match?
- Yes, indeed. And we will make sure to watch both matches.
- Which of the four fields that are going to host the Confederations Cup you think is the best?
- We have to play on all fields to see which is better. For now we have only played in Sochi and everything was excellent. I saw the pitch in Tushino but did not have a chance to test it. And I have not been to Kazan or St Petersburg lately.
- The pitch is now being changed on Krestovsky stadium...
- Let us be optimists. If professionals decide to change the pitch, then they should go ahead and everything will work out fine.
- Portugal have now announced their squad and some of the top players are missing, as in the case with Germany. Does this affect the level of Confederations Cup?
- I would not say that Portuguese or German squads are short of top players if some players are missing. We are facing the same situation when certain players have to sit out. That is normal considering how long and intense the football season is. The same things happens before world cups and nobody can say that this affect the level of the tournament.
- Who do you think is the strongest contender?
- On paper, that would be Germany. Normally they qualify at least to the semi-finals.