THE Russians have always cherished the element of surprise.
It is an attribute that may serve them well at these European Championships. In an era fixated with the English Premier League and Spain's La Liga (and the German Bundesliga and Italy's Serie A to a lesser extent), the fact that only three of the Russian squad play outside of their homeland makes them something of an unknown quantity to the vast majority tuning in to the action from Poland and Ukraine.
Please enable cookies in your browser to display the rest of this article.