Advocaat, Arshavin look forward to FIFA decision

Russian national football team head coach Dick Advocaat and the team’s biggest star Andrey Arshavin have expressed their hopes Russia will eventually win the right to host the 2018 World Cup.

"I hope that we will win the right to host the Cup. It will give a significant boost to the development of football in the country. I am sure that such a huge country has a lot of talent," Advocaat told the Sovetsky Sport paper."[Dmitry] Medvedev and [Vladimir] Putin are interested in the development of football… That is why I look forward for Thursday and for FIFA's decision," he added. Meanwhile, Andrey Arshavin, who is also a bid ambassador for Russia 2018, explained on the website goal.com why Russia should be elected. “We have never had a World Cup. Hosting it here would open up new minds and new hearts for the game. It would be a completely new chapter for the FIFA World Cup itself,” he said. “There is a “new Russia” in the making. Twenty years after the former Soviet Union ceased to exist we are in the process of shaping a new country and its new and future generations,” Arshevin explained before adding: “With the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia we are ready to inspire”.England, Portugal and Spain (jointly), Belgium and the Netherlands (jointly) are the other candidates bidding for the right to host the World Cup in 2018.FIFA will choose the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups on December 2 in Switzerland's Zurich.