Hiddink's Russia leave it late

Russia 1-0 Latvia

Russia kicked off the Guus Hiddink era with a 1-0 friendly victory against Latvia after striker Pavel Pogrebnyak marked his own debut with an injury-time winner.

Emphatic finish
Despite the succession of chances carved out by the Dutch coach's new 3-4-2-1 formation, the Moscow crowd had to wait until the 93rd minute for a goal, when Pogrebnyak, a 22-year-old from FC Tom Tomsk, struck with an emphatic first-time finish after good work by Andrei Arshavin and Roman Pavlyuchenko.

One-way traffic
Arshavin was the key man for Hiddink's team, and squandered the opportunity of a breakthrough goal on 30 minutes after the busy Latvia keeper Aleksandrs Kolinko had saved from Aleksandr Anyukov. After the break, Arshavin's back-heel freed Roman Pavlyuchenko whose shot from the edge of the area was well saved by Kolinko. Russia's only scare came on 69 minutes when goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev denied Maris Verpakovskis in a one-on-one situation, which ended with brothers Aleksei and Vassili Berezutski having to make goalline clearances.