Andrei Arshavin was, as he himself admitted, left lost for words by his country's 3-1 win over the Netherlands. However, as the realities of Russia's breathtaking extra-time victory sunk in, the 27-year-old summoned the composure to share his reaction with euro2008.com and commend his coach, Guus Hiddink, for masterminding an against-the-odds success.
"This is brilliant for me, for Russia, for my family. To be honest, I don't know what to say – all I can say is that we won," the Carlsberg Man of the Match said. "At times, it was a difficult game, physically, but no one should worry about that. The main thing is that we won. To be quite honest, I expected more from them [the Netherlands]. I thought they would play more aggressively. But it looked like they lost a lot of their energy before us and one brilliant coach beat eleven excellent players. When you play under such a great manager, we play a totally different game."
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