Slovenia-Russia
Football: World Cup 2010 Play-offs, 1st leg
Wednesday,18th November 2009. Kickoff 21:00

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Slovenia

A late 87th minute goal by Pecnik has given Slovenians a major confidence boost before the return fixture in Maribor on Wednesday night. Players, coaching staff, supporters and the local mass media are bussing with confidence over the chances of grabbing the ticket to South Africa.

Moral certainty is determined by 15 minutes of quality football against Russians and the impressive home record during the current campaign, which shows that Slovenians have only conceded one goal. All they need now is to keep a clean sheet and get on the scoresheet once – a very possible and reachable task, if you ask anyone.

Matejas Kek is suspension-and-injury-free, the only casualty is still defender Mavric. One of the main missions, which the head coach should set before his players – is keeping a cool head. It will be a chess-like match for Slovenia where going forward in numbers is absolutely inadmissible.

High tolerance is what Slovenians need, but playing in front of home audience may prove even a negative factor at some point. One of the obvious advantages is hosts’ superior physical condition, which allowed them to wind up the tempo in the closing stage of the game in Moscow. Thus Kek can make a special stake on the second half of the match.

Expected formation and line up
Slovenia (4-4-2)

Handanovic
Brecko, Suler, Cesar, Jokic
Birsa, Radoslavlevic, Koren , Kirm
Dedic, Novakovic

Russia

Russian squad probably played one of their best games of the WC10 campaign, if to exclude the 1-5 and 80-90 time periods. Hiddink’s men showed great commitment to press Slovenians in almost every corner of the pitch. Diniyar Bilyaletdinov’s scored both goals, notably, with his right foot, which many considered he needed only in order not to fall down.

Hiddink introduced a somewhat unexpected formation and starting line-up. Yury Zhirkov took the left-back position despite not being completely fit, “Tottenham bench-polisher” Roman Pavlyuchenko was appointed as lone striker and preferred to both in-form competitors Kerzhakov and Sychev.

Vladimyr Bystrov started at the bench, hence the formation took the EURO’08 variant and looked as 4-4-1-1 with Arshavin working as the connector between the lines.

I don’t think Hiddink will make any visible adjustments to the starting line-up in Maribor. Sergey Semak was the only player who visibly dropped out so he could be replaced by Zyrianov, while Bystrov starts on the right flank of midfield.

Russians will seek for more pace, that’s where explosive Zenit’ winger could be a worthy addition.

Expected formation and line up
Russia (4-4-1-1)

Akinfeev
Anyukov, V. Berezutskiy, Ignashevich, Zhirkov
Bilyaletdinov, Ziryanov, Denisov, Bystrov
Arshavin
Pavlyuchenko or Kerzhakov

Betting advice

The first match left few questions about who is the better team in this tie.

Regardless of the conceded late goal and physical strain since the 70th minute.

If Russian manage to keep up the same quality display as in Moscow - Slovenian's win would be a major surprise for me.

HANDICAP BETTING :

Take Russia(0) @ 1.62 with Bet365