MOSCOW, May 30 -- Manchester United's Andrei Kanchelskis and Karlsruhe's Sergei Kiryakov remained refuseniks to the end when controversial Russian coach Pavel Sadyrin named his World Cup squad Monday.
Neither player responded to Sadyrin's promise to keep places in the 22-man squad for them in case they backed down on decisions not to play under his supervision.
'Now these players don't exist for me,' Sadyrin said after he announced his squad. 'Let them play for their clubs, earn money, have a good time -- I have already forgotten about them.'
But as Russia's Saturday friendly against Slovakia showed, the team may face a hard time in its opener against World Cup favorite Brazil without the pair. Even Sadyrin admits none of the team's strikers are in good shape at the moment.
'Many players still lack freshness in their play,' Sadyrin said. 'I only hope we have enough time to improve the quality of our game.'
Sadyrin said that he had a hard time choosing between two young strikers -- choosing Spartak's Vladimir Beschastnykh but leaving out Dynamo Moscow's Igor Simutenkov, who currently leads with 11 goals in the Russian league.
'It was hard for me to make that choice,' he said. 'We took Vladimir at a very last moment, taking into consideration his international experience in the Champions League and his enormous eagerness to play and to score.'
Sadyrin hasn't made his choice of the No. 1 goalkeeper yet, saying he equally values Chelsea's Dmitri Kharin and Dynamo Dresden's Stanislav Cherchesov.
'Kharin is probably a bit better on crosses,' he said. 'Anyway, I'm sure the goalkeepers won't let us down.'
But surprisingly, Sadyrin failed to choose a third goalkeeper in the squad to cover possible injuries to his two selections.
The coach announced that in case of winning the World Cup each player will get about $150,000 -- more than the sum promised to the Brazilians -- but he refused to specify what the team would get for a more modest achievement.
The Russian squad will fly to Austria on Tuesday to play two friendlies there and on June, 8 it will take a trans-Atlantic flight to Santa Cruz, California where it will prepare for its first match against Brazil on June, 20 in San Francisco.
Goalkeepers: Dmitri Kharin, Chelsea of England, Stanislav Cherchesov, Dynamo Dresden of Germany
Defenders: Yuri Nikiforov, Spartak Moscow, Dmitri Khlestov, Spartak Moscow, Dmitry Galyamin, Espanol of Spain, Sergei Gorlukovich, Bayer Leverkusen of Germany, Viktor Onopko, Spartak Moscow, Vladislav Ternavsky, Spartak Moscow.
Midfielders: Igor Ledyakhov, Spartak Moscow, Andrei Pyatnitsky, Spartak Moscow, Ilya Tsymbalar, Spartak Moscow, Omari Tetradze, Dynamo Moscow, Dmitri Kuznetsov, Espanol of Spain, Igor Korneev, Espanol of Spain, Dmitri Popov, Racing Santander of Spain, Alexandr Borodyuk, Freiburg of Germany.
Forwards: Dmitri Radchenko, Racing Santander of Spain, Sergei Yuran, Benfica of Portugal, Alexandr Mostovoi, Caen of France, Vladimir Beschastnykh, Spartak Moscow, Oleg Salenko, Logrones of Spain, Valeri Karpin, Spartak Moscow.
