SPORTS EDGE

Football
UEFA Euro 2008 Austria-Switzerland
Russia going crazy
Afp, Moscow

A German fan in Hamburg enjoys a piggyback ride while celebrating the national team's victory on Wednesday. Germany defeated Turkey 3-2 in a breathtaking first semifinal of the Euro 2008 in Basel, Switzerland. Photo: AFP

Excitement mounted across Russia's 11 time zones on Thursday as supporters of Europe's rising football power readied for an unprecedented semifinal duel against Spain in the Euro 2008 championship.

Giant screens went up in cities in Siberia, fans in the Russian Far East prepared to watch the game in local cinemas and Orthodox priests in the Ural mountains said they would hold church services to pray for victory.

Even passengers on the national carrier Aeroflot flying during the match will receive real-time updates from the pilots, Russian media gushed in reports on the football mania sweeping the world's biggest country.

Expectations are high as the Russian team has never progressed beyond the group stage of any major football tournament and the last time the Soviet Union reached the final of the European Championship was in 1988.

However Moscow City Hall imposed an alcohol ban and traffic restrictions in the city centre in expectation of the drunken crowds seen after Russia's previous Euro 2008 win, as the newspapers overwhelmingly predicted victory.

Spanish bulls featured prominently in the tabloids, with the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily roaring: "We value Russia's honour! We'll break off their horns!"

The front page of Tvoi Den showed striker Andrei Arshavin in a gladiator costume holding up two bull's heads with the faces of Spanish players.

Tvoi Den also carried pictures of an ardent Russia supporter, Ruslan Alekhanov, sacrificing a bull to invoke support from on high, as well as 21-year-old Yulia Konoplyova getting a tattoo of Arshavin on her left breast.

"I'm a passionate fan.... Today I'm slaughtering a bull so that our team will win against Spain. The meat will go to the fans," Alekhanov, from the village of Izberbash in the southern region of Dagestan, was quoted as saying.

Konoplyova said: "I wasn't following the team before the Euro 2008 but the whole of Russia has caught the football bug.... I've become a real fan."

Russia has begun to channel some of its oil billions into developing the sport and observers say it is emerging as a European football power, with Saint Petersburg club Zenit winning the UEFA Cup last month.

Police and medical teams in cities across Russia meanwhile were on alert after crowds of drunken fans reportedly rampaged through the streets of Tomsk and Petrozavodsk following Russia's surprise victory over Holland last week.

Moscow authorities will deploy 4,000 police officers in the streets amid fears of a repeat of the rioting in the city centre that followed Russia's defeat by Japan in the 2002 World Cup in which one person was killed.

Security around Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias, who is set to play a concert just before the match in Yekaterinburg was also to be stepped up, an official from the city's Kosmos arena told Interfax.

In Saint Petersburg a spokesman for the emergency services pleaded for city residents to take extra safety precautions as the city's firemen would be watching the game and did not want to be distracted.

"Spare a thought for the firemen.... If we're called out during the match, whoever stays has to get on the phone and deliver a live commentary to the fire truck," the official was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.

Russian scientists in an Arctic research station on a drifting ice floe will also not be missing out on the action. They will follow the game via a satellite link-up, RIA Novosti reported, quoting the head of the base.

"Of course we'll be listening in," Vladimir Sokolov was quoted as saying.