http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786 shot-stopper to shine at Euro 2012 despite suffering a humiliating 4-1 defeat against the Russian national team
Vyacheslav Malafeev has shared his views after winning the opening group stage match at Euro 2012 over Czech Republic 4-1 at Stadion Miejski.
The 33-year-old goalkeeper has backed http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Petr-Cech-c29837 to shine in the European tournament despite his failure to help the Narodaks in the opening game against Russia.
There is little arguing that Cech had a poor start to the game as the former Sparta Prague player failed to stop the Russian players from scoring four goals. The UEFA Champions League winner looked helpless as he was not helped
by the Narodak’s defence throughout the game.
“I have exchanged shirt with Cech. I wanted to play against him for a long time. I still consider him one of the best goalkeepers in Europe.” Malafeev said.
The shot-stopper has conceded that the Russian national team was expecting a serious game, with hard confrontations. He added that they acted well in defence and managed to score with the help of counter attacks.
d**k Advocaat made a late decision to include Malafeev into the starting line-up as CSKA Moscow’s http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Igor-Akinfeev-c16676 failed to pass his fitness test ahead of the game. Though, Malafeev had to deal with only seven shots on target, the
UEFA Cup winner let one in.
Petr Jiracek rounded Malafeev to score the only goal for the Czech after Zenit St. Petersburg’s goalkeeper mistimed his run towards the ball.
“It was a difficult moment, when we conceded the only goal of the match early in the second half. I was running to insure after the player skipped Aleksei Ignashevich. I tried to run forward but soon realized that I can concede
a penalty if I failed to get the ball. It was a difficult situation.” The Russian Cup winner was quoted as saying.
The Russian player went on to concede that he would have recieved a straight red card, had he tried to get closer to the player. Malafeev has conceded that he avoided the penalty that could have increased the opponent’s confidence.
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