Cherchesov rues Russia errors, but insists confidence not shaken

Mistakes cost Russia dear against Uruguay, but head coach Stanislav Cherchesov remains optimistic ahead of the second round.

"When you see such errors I believe you give an opportunity to your opponent to do whatever they want," Cherchesov told a media conference.

Stanislav Cherchesov believes that his Russian players will not need much picking up despite the basic errors that contributed to Monday's 3-0 World Cup loss to Uruguay.

The host came into the clash needing just a point to seal its passage to the last 16 as Group A winner, but came unstuck in comprehensive fashion in Samara.

Luis Suarez's free-kick and Denis Cheryshev's own goal, followed by Igor Smolnikov's red card, left with them a mountain to climb at half-time.

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Russia never looked like staging a comeback and its misery was compounded in the final minute when Edinson Cavani smashed home following a corner.

"When you see such errors I believe you give an opportunity to your opponent to do whatever they want," Cherchesov told a media conference.

"Yesterday during training we were playing against set-pieces and while we saw the opposition scored from a set-piece, we wanted to stop them from doing this but actually we did not succeed."

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"The teams we'd been playing before we did not give them a chance, we'd been playing very well, but let's be objective - I believe the level of our opponent today was much higher than in the first two games."

Russia will face either Spain, Portugal or Iran in the second round, but Cherchesov rejected the notion his players would need a confidence boost.

"I believe I'll not have to do much because even when we had 10, they were running and we wanted to attack more and that's why I brought on a sub and we had some chances," he said.

"Psychologically we are well prepared for the games and I believe we will survive... I don't know if that's the right word to choose... to digest it!"

"I believe we'll come to conclusions during training, this is one thing and going out to play the match is a different thing."

"You have to know how to get prepared and from the beginning we were not successful in this sense and then we changed a couple of things and we began to play better but I believe we should not be so relaxed as we were in the beginning."

The charismatic coach raised a smile among the assembled reporters as he got up to leave, saying: "Thank you. That's it? No applause, nothing?", before starting off the clapping himself.