Russia not scared of anyone after outwitting Dutch

Russia have steamrollered their way past the Netherlands into the Euro 2008 semi-finals with an exciting brand of football and an ever-growing self belief.

Their Dutch coach Guus Hiddink plotted the destruction of his homeland's much fancied team on Saturday, beating them at their own game of attack-minded play to run out deserved 3-1 winners after extra-time.

After early teething problems in their first Group D match against Spain in which their defensive immaturity was exposed in a 4-1 rout, Russia have rapidly learnt how to deal with danger at the back.

They tightened up defensively in the 1-0 win over Greece, added attacking sparkle to the mix to beat Sweden 2-0 before stepping up their performance another couple of notches to tactically outwit the Dutch.

Russia are not worried who they face next in the tournament.

"We are not scared of anyone," midfielder Diniyar Bilyaletdinov said. Russia will face Spain in Thursday's semi-final.

Their increased confidence comes from their improved results and is also down to Hiddink's magic quality of being able to get the most out of often ordinary players, enabling him to take yet another unfancied team to the later stages of a finals.

He has, of course, been helped by the extraordinary individual talent of playmaker Andrei Arshavin and a resurgent Roman Pavlyuchenko but none of Hiddink's team play at top clubs yet they have got the better of some of Europe's best players.

"He is our great coach," said Bilyaletdinov. "He knows how we must play, he knows about us technically and physically, he knows what we must do. He is a top coach."

Hiddink had previously led Netherlands to the last four of the 1998 World Cup, South Korea to an unlikely 2002 World Cup semi-final and Australia to the knockout stages of the 2006 edition where they were unlucky to lose to winners Italy.