Russia coach Guus Hiddink has pledged an attacking approach when they kick off their UEFA EURO 2008 Group D campaign against Spain in Innsbruck on Tuesday.
The 61-year-old dismissed the talks of nerves on Friday and said that his side will not be afraid to come out attacking although Spain is widely deemed as one of the tournament favorites.
"Of course there are nerves but I don't want them to play in a way that it will weigh heavily on them and affect their performance, " he said at the team's base in Leogang.
"They must express themselves... I want to see a very, very bright team.
"People like to see a team which is going forward and taking risks so because of this there have been a few changes recently," he said.
Russia will be without suspended striker Andrei Arshavin against Spain and have serious worries over the injured Pavel Pogrebnyak, who walked onto the field but did not train with his teammates.
Yet Hiddink remained philosophical about the possible problem in attack.
"That's a setback," said the former Netherlands, Korea Republic and Australia coach, who has yet to suffer a group stage exit in a continental or FIFA World Cup finals.
"I can't complain and start crying, and anyway I have confidence if Pogrebnyak won't respond well in a few days that the rest of the team can cover for those two losses."
The Dutch is known for tough training and was trying to drive his players to the peak of fitness ahead of tournaments.
But as they are preparing the Spain opener, the Russians have done more relaxing than running since they arrived in Austria late Wednesday after beating Lithuania 4-1 in Germany in the last of three pre-tournament friendly matches.
"We did some good work in the past 14 days and that was necessary because when you play such a strong tournament you must be super-fit and the boys reacted very well to the hard work I set them," Hiddink said.
"We chose (friendly) games in the middle of a tough training schedule and I wanted the players to play feeling slightly tired."
Source: Xinhua
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