Russia's Capello recalls Pogrebnyak from Reading

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, May 12, 2014

[WORLD CUP 2014] The World Cup dreams of veterans Andrey Arshavin, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Dinyar Bilyaletdinov are over, but 30-year-old Pavel Pogrebnyak earned a surprise recall to Russia's 30-man short list for the World Cup even though he hasn't played internationally since Euro 2012.

Poor form doomed Arshavin, Pavlyuchenko and Bilyaletdinov, but Pogrebnyak scored 13 goals for English second division Reading this season. He's the lone foreign-based player in Italian coach Fabio Capello's team.

Russia has home friendlies scheduled against Slovakia, Norway and Morocco.

Russia Roster (30 players):
Goalkeepers: Igor Akinfeev (CSKA Moscow), Yury Lodygin (Zenit St. Petersburg), Sergey Ryzhikov (Rubin Kazan).
Defenders: Alexander Anyukov (Zenit St. Petersburg), Alexey Berezutskiy (CSKA Moscow), Vasili Berezutskiy (CSKA Moscow), Vladimir Granat (Dynamo Moscow), Andrey Eshchenko (Anzhi Makhachkala), Sergey Ignashevich (CSKA Moscow), Alexey Kozlov (Dynamo Moscow), Dmitry Kombarov (Spartak Moscow), Andrey Semenov (Terek Grozny), Georgi Schennikov (CSKA Moscow).
Midfielders: Vladimir Bystrov (Anzhi Makhachkala), Yury Gazinskiy (Krasnodar), Denis Glushakov (Spartak Moscow), Igor Denisov (Dynamo Moscow), Alan Dzagoev (CSKA Moscow), Yury Zhirkov (Dynamo Moscow), Alexey Ionov (Dynamo Moscow), Pavel Mogilevets (Rubin Kazan), Alexander Samedov (Lok. Moscow), Victor Faizulin (Zenit St. Petersburg), Oleg Shatov (Zenit St Petersburg), Roman Shirokov (Krasnodar).
Forwards: Artem Dzyuba (Rostov), Maxim Kanunnikov (Amkar Perm), Alexander Kerzhakov (Zenit St Petersburg), Alexander Kokorin (Dynamo Moscow), Pavel Pogrebnyak (Reading).