Spartak – base club

The choice of the goalkeeper line as a whole is obvious. All goalkeepers have played well in recent matches. There is nothing surprising in the invitation of Pomazun. Ilya helped Ural a lot to rise from the bottom of the RPL standings. The only thing that raises questions, given the strategy of the coaching staff, is the challenge of age-old Shunin and Dzhanaev.

The small number of Zenit players is surprising, but this can be explained by the fact that many of the Russians lose the competition to foreign players. Karpin could invite Ivan Sergeev. In terms of potential, he looks no worse than Fedor Chalov.

It is worth paying attention to the number of invited Spartak players. The coaching staff may have an almost ready-made team with simulated connections at their disposal. Abascal helped Russia a lot in this regard. At least take and release Spartak in full force. Now it is the base club of the national team.

[Алексей] Miranchuk and Golovin regularly take the field in Europe and perform well. The coaching staff included them in the expanded list after a pause. The only question is whether they will be able to come to the location of the national team or not.

Perhaps it was worth including Daniil Utkin in the extended list. He has already scored for the national team and looks good in the championship. Alexander Kutitsky should also receive an invitation in the near future if he continues to play at the same level.

Photo: © Denis Bushkovsky / Match TV

Dzyuba is not needed by the national team now

Pisarev said back in November that players no older than 30 would be invited to the team. After such statements, there is nothing surprising in the absence of Artyom Dzyuba on the list even after a hat-trick. The coaching staff can be understood, it is not known when Russia will return to official competitions, and at what level the Lokomotiv forward will play then, and whether it will be at all.

In the team and without him, there will be enough overall attackers. Sobolev, Pisarsky, Komlichenko – they are all players of approximately the same plan. Karpin will have plenty to choose from. It makes no sense to call Dziuba at this stage. The coaching staff invited a lot of newcomers and players with minimal experience of playing in the national team to test their abilities. This solution looks correct.

It will be interesting to look at the level of youth called up in comparison with the Iranian team. In the November meetings against Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the team looked unconvincing: the result was not impressive, and the game, too. Immediately, the Russians will be confronted by rivals who spoke at the last World Cup in Qatar.

The spring part of the season in Russia has just started and it is still difficult to fully judge the shape the players are in now. Surely this list will undergo changes closer to the announcement of the final application for matches with Iran and Iraq. But all the players included in the list deserve it. It cannot be said that someone got a place for no reason.

Watch live broadcasts of matches of the Russian national football team on the Match TV federal channel and the thematic channels of the holding, as well as on matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru websites.