MOSCOW (Sporting Alert) — There was no place in Russia’s provisional 30-man 2014 FIFA World Cup squad for Lokomotiv Moscow forward Roman Pavlyuchenko, as head coach Fabio Capello announced the squad on Monday.
Pavlyuchenko, a former English Premier League player at Tottenham and fellow Lokomotiv Moscow team-mate Dmitry Tarasov were both omitted, with Capello opting to call up veteran striker Pavel Pogrebnyak, despite the 30-year-old playing in the English Championship with Reading.
Tarasov, it is believed, was left-out because he will not recover fully from a cruciate ligament injury in time for the start of the World Cup next month.
Russia squad
Goalkeepers: Igor Akinfeev (CSKA Moscow), Yury Lodygin (Zenit St Petersburg), Sergei Ryzhikov (Rubin Kazan)
Defenders: Alexander Anyukov (Zenit St Petersburg), Alexei Berezutsky, Vasily Berezutsky, Sergei Ignashevich, Georgy Shchennikov (all CSKA Moscow), Vladimir Granat, Alexei Kozlov (both Dynamo Moscow), Andrei Yeshchenko (Anzhi Makhachkala), Dmitry Kombarov (Spartak Moscow), Andrei Semenov (Terek Grozny)
Midfielders: Igor Denisov, Yury Zhirkov (both Dynamo Moscow), Alan Dzagoev (CSKA Moscow), Yury Gazinsky, Roman Shirokov (both FC Krasnodar), Denis Glushakov (Spartak Moscow), Pavel Mogilevets (Rubin Kazan), Viktor Faizulin, Oleg Shatov (both Zenit St Petersburg)
Forwards: Vladimir Bystrov (Anzhi Makhachkala), Alexander Kerzhakov (Zenit St Petersburg), Artem Dzyuba (Rostov), Alexei Ionov, Alexander Kokorin (both Dynamo Moscow), Maxim Kanunnikov (Amkar Perm), Pavel Pogrebnyak (Reading/ENG), Alexander Samedov (Lokomotiv Moscow)
