Russia’s coach Guus Hiddink has chosen the 23-man squad that will represent Russia at the upcoming European Football Championships.

Of the 25 players in Hiddink’s preliminary list only midfielders Oleg Ivanov and Aleksandr Pavlenko will not take part at June’s Euro-2008.

Guus Hiddink made the announcement in Germany, where the Russian team are preparing for a friendly match against Serbia, which will be played on Wednesday.

“We talked to the players that are not on the list, of course. These players came in rather late and for us and it was important to see how they would keep up with the rest of the team,” Hiddink commented.

Hiddink also said he’d asked both Spartak Moscow’s 22-year-old Pavlenko and Krylya Sovetov’s 27-year-old Ivanov to stay with the national side till the end of the tournament.

“Their reaction was very positive. They’d love to stay with the team. Hopefully, they can stay with the national team for a very long time ahead,” he added.

Russia’s final squad consists of:

Goalkeepers – Igor Akinfeev (CSKA), Vladimir Gabulov (Amkar), Vyacheslav Malafeev (Zenit);

Defenders – Aleksandr Anyukov, Roman Shirokov (both Zenit), Aleksei Berezutsky, Vasili Berezutsky, Sergei Ignashevich (all CSKA), Denis Kolodin (Dynamo), Renat Yanbaev (Lokomotiv);

Midfielders – Sergei Semak (Rubin), Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Dmitri Torbinskiy (both Lokomotiv), Vladimir Bystrov (Spartak), Igor Semshov (Dynamo), Yuri Zhirkov (CSKA), Konstantin Zyrianov (Zenit);

Forwards – Roman Adamov (FC Moscow), Ivan Saenko (1.FC Nuremberg, Germany), Andrei Arshavin, Pavel Pogrebnyak (both Zenit), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak), Dmitri Sychev, (Lokomotiv).