Russia rue missed opportunity

Russia's players departed the National Stadium Warsaw disappointed to have surrendered the lead against Poland and, in the words of goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev, "dropped two points" in their 1-1 draw. Although the result kept them top of Group A, captain Andrey Arshavin was also dissatisfied, claiming they were too open against the tournament co-hosts.

Vyacheslav Malafeev, Russia goalkeeper
I think judging by how the game developed, we dropped two points. We couldn't hold the advantage, as Poland pushed for a goal right after we'd scored, with their home advantage. I don't think they had [such] an impressive game and we could have gone on and won the match. I think it's always difficult to play in such an atmosphere. They counterattacked well, while on many occasions we weren't as quick as we'd like. We played better and faster against the Czechs.

Andrey Arshavin, Russia forward
I think we played a little too openly in the second half, and we allowed Poland to counter, which they love to do and are used to doing. Unfortunately, they got a goal. We also had chances but we could not put enough pressure on their goal.

Roman Shirokov, Russia midfielder
The Poles stepped it up [in the second half]. We fell back and started to make mistakes. We didn't create anything and it was a good goal [by them]. We can score goals, but there were not enough final balls today. We were supposed to play and create chances. We scored one goal, and then we stopped running, chasing the second one, and eventually they succeeded in scoring, and that's it.

Aleksandr Kerzakhov, Russia forward
At half-time the game was ours. I wouldn't say that there wasn't a collapse, they just succeeded in scoring the equaliser and after that nobody wanted to risk too much. Everything was more difficult than in the match against the Czech Republic but we still had our chance to score the second goal. We were lacking something in the final few metres.