Rio Ferdinand is determined to make up for lost time when he
steps out for England's crunch Euro 2008 qualifier in Russia on
Wednesday night.
Steve McClaren's men can book their place in next summer's
tournament with victory over the Russians in Moscow.
Ferdinand missed out on the last European Championships in Portugal
in 2004 after his much publicised eight-month ban for missing a
drugs test.
The United defender is still haunted at being unable to play and is
on a mission to make it to the finals this time round.
"It's a painful memory not being able to play in that campaign,"
admitted Ferdinand. "Of course it hurt and now I'd really like to
get to a Euro finals. I've been to three World Cups now but I've
not been to a European Championship.
"It's something I'd like to tick off on my 'to-do' list, but with
this one hopefully I can go one better than the World Cups and win
it. It's important to me."
Much has been made about the artificial pitch at the Luzhniki
Stadium and the difficulties it may pose. But Ferdinand insists the
players are not thinking about such factors and are instead
focusing on securing the victory they need.
"We have to take all the negatives out of the environment over
there with the pitch and what not and completely wipe that out
of our minds," he declared. "If we dwell on that, we've lost before
we even go out. We've got the result in these kind of games before
and why not now?
"We're scoring goals and not conceding, so confidence couldn't be
any better. The consistency is creeping back but we've still got
much to do.
"The game in Russia is going to be very important and to win we've
got to apply ourselves right. We beat them 3-0 and quite
convincingly last time, we're in a good vein of form so we couldn't
go into the game in any better shape."