And almost two years on, that's just the way things have worked out – whoever is victorious on Saturday, can almost certainly start booking their plane tickets for South Africa next summer.

But Russia’s head coach, Guus Hiddink, is expecting a very tough match against a good German side.

“The Germans, you know, in the past they always qualified directly. Hopefully, now they’ll qualify through the backdoor in November. But they always qualify. I have respect for this team, but in a beautiful atmosphere we can make a very exciting game,” the Dutchman said.

For the first time in four months, Guus Hiddink has a full-strength squad at his disposal, with the likes of Yury Zhirkov and Andrey Arshavin recently returning to first team action after injury.

And the Dutchman is pleased with how preparations are going.

“It’s nice to have the boys back. It’s always a joy for me to have them back after a good period in the qualification and we hope to finalize it also in this very exiting and difficult game,” Russia’s boss said.

Russia's squad has a familiar feel to it, with the same core of players being together since the start of Hiddink's reign.

There is one new face, Spartak Moscow's goalkeeper Soslan Dzhanev, though he will probably have to wait a little longer for his international debut – being behind Igor Akinfeev and Vyacheslav Malafeev in the pecking order.

Meanwhile, midfielder Sergey Semak believes the Germans are likely to be a threat from set pieces and will be hard to break down – but the Rubin captain says he feels his side can exploit some of Germany’s weaknesses.

“All teams have weaknesses, and I believe our ability to break quickly, and that we have some very pacey players could cause the Germans some problems,” Sergey Semak said.

With the players returning from club duties over the weekend, it was a relatively light session for Russia's players. But as the match gets ever closer, the intensity of Hiddink's side's preparations will certainly step up a notch.

Plastic pitch won’t excuse German loss

The Germans are doing their best to get used to the artificial pitch at Luzhniki stadium. They're training on a similar surface before they head to Moscow.

A win for the Germans would send them to South Africa, but if they lose, they say they wont be using the artificial surface as an excuse.

“The important thing is that the players get used to it in the next two or three days during the training session and test their boots. Now we must be ready on Saturday and there won’t be any excuses,” Joachim Loew, German coach, said.