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STEPHEN BRUNT
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June 21, 2008 at 8:12 PM EDT
BASEL, Switzerland — And so a star is born.
On a steamy night at St Jakob-Park, a tournament that has already taken many a brilliant twist and turn since it opened in this same space two weeks ago has added a new name to the football firmament.
Remember it: Andrei Arshavin, diminutive, short-legged, ruddy-cheeked, looking like he might be fifteen years old. Right now, he belongs to UEFA Cup champions Zenit St Petersburg (and they have no plans to surrender him) but soon enough he's going to belong to the world.
Arshavin, and the brilliant coaching mind of Guus Hiddink, were the catalyst behind the biggest upset of the tournament so far, a 3-1 extra time victory for Russia over Holland, propelling the Russians to the semi-finals, and the Dutch to a soul-crushing defeat.
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Consider how this tournament started for these sides — with Holland humiliating Italy 3-0, looking like the Oranje side of their supporters' dreams, and the Russians getting carved up by Spain, 4-1, looking like boys playing against men.
What changed in the interim was the return of Arshavin from suspension, and perhaps an unhealthy sense of manifest destiny growing among the men from the Netherlands. They arrived here last night looking like a side that had been reading their own press clippings — nine goals in three games, winners of the Group of Death, true practitioners of the Total Football aesthetic.
Basel was packed with their acolytes, not just the 30,000 or so who surrounded a rump of Russian supporters, but at least another 100,000 who descended on the city anticipating the first Oranje championship in a major tournament since Euro 1988.
But from the outset, it was clear that the Russians hadn't read the script. Hiddink, the world's greatest coach for hire, said on Friday that he rightly feared the representatives of his homeland — and that the only appropriate response to that fear was to attack. That's not necessarily conventional wisdom for coaches of underdogs, but then Hiddink is hardly a conventional thinker.
His team had found its form in a brilliant 2-0 win over Sweden in the final group match to qualify for the quarter finals. They began against the Netherlands as though it was the 91st minute of that game, pushing forward, bedeviling the Dutch defenders, forcing the play, looking fitter and more determined, and creating the best of the chances.
Though there wasn't any scoring in the first half, by the break Russia had already more than established that it belonged on the same pitch. Defending, they were far more organized than the team that had been cut to shreds by Spain, bottling up the Dutch in the midfield, and on the attack it all began with Arshavin. He is lightning quick, low to the ground, and running at any defender, he has the potential to create an edge.
Arshavin initiated the play that led to the first Russian goal, setting off a bit of panic among the Dutch defenders before dishing off to Sergei Semak whose cross was knocked in by Roman Pavlyuchenko in the 55th minute.
It looked like that would be enough. But very late, with their supporters sitting in stunned silence, the Dutch were awarded a free kick on a hand ball against the run of play, and Wesley Sneijder bent one in beautifully from 30 yards out that was tapped home by Ruud Van Nistelrooy in the 86th minute, doing what he does best for the umpteenth time.
'You get the goal just before the end of the game and a team normally is hurt mentally," Hiddink said afterwards. "But I demanded. I challenged the players."
The thirty minutes plus of extra time provided several thrills- including Pavlyuchenko beating Edwin van der Sar from distance but knocking it off the crossbar — before Arshavin again worked his magic. He befuddled Andre Ooijer (who had an awful night) along the touchline to van der Sar's right, and then sent a brilliant ball across the goal to substitute Dmitri Torbinski, who ran by two oblivious defenders and neatly tucked it inside the far post in the 112th minute.
At that point, the Dutch looked spent, and what happened four minutes later was merely the coup de grace. Arshavin took a quick throw-in from Alexander Anyukov, ran straight at the Dutch goal, and put one right through van der Sar before a defender could mount a challenge.
"The better Dutchman, our coach, won today," Arshavin said.
The better Dutchman. And maybe, for all of the talk of Ronaldo and Deco and Villa and Torres and Ballack, the best player here, as well.
With one, or two games left to play, Andrei Arshavin has the chance to claim this magnificent tournament as his own.