Capello keeps faith in Arshavin for friendly

Russia’s newly-appointed manager Fabio Capello has named controversial Arsenal forward Andrei Arshavin in his 36-man provisional squad to play a friendly with Ivory Coast. Arshavin found himself on the receiving end of a huge wave of criticism after he had dismissed the team’s poor Euro 2012 performance as a problem only for the fans. Problems for the 31-year-old began shortly after Russia lost 1-0 in their final Group A match against Greece and failed to make it out of a group in which they were favorites going into the championships. Mobile phone footage of Arshavin telling a group of Russian lawmakers after the match that “if we did not fulfil your expectations, then honestly, these are your problems” created a furor in Moscow. Calls then mounted for the forward to be stripped of the captaincy. But Italian Capello, who has signed a two-year contract with the Russian Football Union, has held true to his word, after saying last week that he would speak to the player. The 66-year-old also brought in a set of rookies for the match in Moscow on Aug. 15, including Lokomotiv players Taras Burlak, Andrei Yeshchenko and Magomed Ozdoyev as well as Anzhi Makhachkala trio Arseny Logashov, Oleg Shatov and Fedor Smolov. Squad: Goalkeepers: Igor Akinfeyev (CSKA Moscow), Vyacheslav Malafeyev (Zenit St. Petersburg), Anton Shunin (Dynamo Moscow) Defenders: Alexander Anyukov (Zenit St. Petersburg), Alexei Berezutsky, Vasily Berezutsky, Sergei Ignashevich, Georgy Shchennikov (all CSKA Moscow), Taras Burlak, Andrei Yeshchenko, Roman Shishkin (all Lokomotiv Moscow), Vladimir Granat (Dynamo Moscow), Yyury Zhirkov, Arseny Logashov (both Anzhi Makhachkala), Roman Sharonov (Rubin Kazan) Midfielders: Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Dmitry Kombarov (both Spartak Moscow), Vladimir Bystrov, Igor Denisov, Viktor Faizulin, Roman Shirokov (all Zenit St. Petersburg), Alan Dzagoev (CSKA Moscow), Denis Glushakov, Magomed Ozdoyev, Alexander Samedov (all Lokomotiv Moscow), Marat Izmailov (Sporting/POR), Alexei Ionov (Kuban Krasnodar), Alexander Ryazantsev (Rubin Kazan), Oleg Shatov (Anzhi Makhachkala) Forwards: Andrei Arshavin (Arsenal/ENG), Artem Dzyuba (Spartak Moscow), Vladimir Dyadyun (Rubin Kazan), Alexander Kerzhakov (Zenit St. Petersburg), Alexander Kokorin (Dynamo Moscow), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Lokomotiv Moscow), Fedor Smolov (Anzhi Makhachkala)