The Russia national football team is an heir of its forerunners who played in honor of the Russian Empire, the USSR and the CIS. Since 1992 the team has achieved prominent success and gained solid reputation in the football world. The greatest result is the 3rd place in Euro 2008 shared with Turkey. That success came during the spell of Guus Hiddink, a Dutch coach, who began working with the team just before the qualification round. In the FIFA ranking the team is at the 13th place.
As the national USSR team it began participating in international competitions in 1958. At that tournament held in Sweden the squad reached the quarterfinals. At 1966 World Cup in England the USSR finished 4th. The national team couldn’t achieve any prominent success at World Championships ever since.
European Cups turned out to be more favorable to the squad as they clinched the title in 1960, made it to the final in 1964, finished fourth in 1968, second in 1972 and lost in a dramatic final of 1988 to the Netherlands.
At Euro 2012 the squad made a fantastic start crushing the Czech Republic 4-1, but tied up with Poland and gave away the quarterfinal ticket to Greece. Another Dutch specialist Dick Advocaat managed the team at that tournament.
The best goal-scorer is Vladimir Beschastnykh with 26 goals and most caps attributed to defender Victor Onopko - 109.
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