Spain v Russia

UEFA EURO 2008 GROUP D
Date: Tue 10 June Kick-off: 1700 BST Venue: Stadion Tivoli Neu, Innsbruck


Spain have minor concerns over David Villa (thigh), Sergio Garcia and Andres Iniesta (food poisoning) for their Euro 2008 opener against Russia.

Coach Luis Aragones is expecting all his players to be fit but he could leave Cesc Fabregas on bench.

Russia boss Guus Hiddink is without key playmaker Andrei Arshavin and striker Pavel Pogrebnyak.

Arshavin is suspended while Pogrebnyak has been ruled out of the tournament with a knee injury.

The Zenit St Petersburg forward, who finished this season's UEFA Cup campaign as joint top scorer alongside Italy's Luca Toni with 10 goals, will be replaced by Samara midfielder Oleg Ivanov.

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Pogrebnyak twisted his left knee in a warm-up match against Serbia in late May and his loss is a big blow for a side already another Zenit striker in Arshavin

"I've known about Arshavin for many months and Pogrebnyak in recent days," said Hiddink.

"That's a setback. I can't complain and start crying, and anyway I have confidence that the rest of the team can cover for those two losses."

The goalscoring duties are set to fall on Roman Pavlyuchenko, who netted twice in the 2-1 win over England in October 2007 that paved the way for qualification.

Pavlyuchenko has struggled for form at club level and was dropped to the Spartak Moscow reserves in April after being sent off dissent.

But he appeared back in form during Russia's Euro 2008 warm-up matches, scoring against Serbia and Lithuania.

Aragones, meanwhile, is likely to choose between Brazilian-born Marcos Senna or Liverpool's Xabi Alonso for the holding midfield role in place of Fabregas.

"You can't dispute his quality but the problem is that he has gone 30 days without a game," said Aragones.

Of Iniesta, the 69-year-old added: "Iniesta is weaker than the others because of his stomach bug, or whatever it was, but that's logical."


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Head-to-heads

Spain and Russia/Soviet Union have met each other on eight previous occasions with Spain winning four times and losing just once.

The sole defeat for Spain came in a European Championship qualifier in 1971 with the Soviets winning 2-1.

Spain have won both encounters at the European Championship - 2-1 in 1964 and 1-0 in 2004.

Head to head records and significant meetings

Team facts - Spain

The five members of the Spanish squad playing their club football abroad are all doing so in England - four at Liverpool and one at Arsenal.

Spain have one of the most inexperienced squads at Euro 2008 - only Austria and Russia have fewer caps in the squad than the Spanish.

The next card shown to a Spain player will be their 50th at the European Championship. Spain's players have been shown a total of 48 yellow cards and one red in previous European Championships.

Won all four of their friendly matches in 2008.

Unbeaten in their last 16 matches and their last nine competitive matches.

Never won a European Championship match by more than one goal.

Team facts - Russia

Russia's coach Guus Hiddink is in charge at his fifth European Championship or World Cup. Only West Germany head coach Helmut Schon was present at more European Championships and World Cups.

Most European Championship and World Cups combined - by coach

Hiddink also becomes the first head coach to lead two different countries at the European Championship. He was the head coach of the Netherlands in 1996.

Player facts - Spain

Fernando Torres will win his 50th cap if he plays in this match. He made his international debut for Spain in a 3-0 friendly win in Portugal in September 2003.

David Villa was Spain's top scorer in qualification with six goals.

Player facts - Russia

Andrei Arshavin is suspended for this match after being sent off in Russia's final qualification match, a 1-0 win against Andorra. Arshavin will also miss Russia's second match at Euro 2008, against Greece on 14 June. Arshavin was the only ever-present in qualification.

Alexander Kerzhakov was Russia's top scorer in qualification with six goals but was not included in the Euro 2008 squad.

Russia have only one player in their squad who plays outside the country's domestic league - 1. FC Nurnberg striker Ivan Saenko. No other country at Euro 2008 has so many players from their own domestic competition.

The current Russian league leaders Rubin Kazan provide just one player for the squad - midfielder Sergei Semak.

The Berezutsky twins (Vasily and Aleksey) are the only twins present at Euro 2008. The Altintop twins (Turkey) and Degen twins (Switzerland) were in the preliminary squads for their respective countries but one of each failed to make the final line-up.