By Andy Campbell

Kerzhakov is likely to pose Dinamo's biggest threat in Glasgow

Dinamo Moscow is a familiar name to Scottish football fans with the Russian club having lost to Rangers in the European Cup-Winners' Cup final in 1972.

But in recent times, the 'White-Blues' have rarely featured in European competition and have never reached the group stages of the Champions League.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1992, Dinamo have yet to win the top-flight league in Russia and have only finished second on one occasion.

Their qualification to this season's Champions League qualifiers came as a result of a third-place finish in the 2008 Russian Premier League, with their last foray into European competition ended by a Uefa Cup aggregate defeat to Rangers in 2001.

The Russian season runs from March to November and Andrey Kobelev's side currently sit joint-fourth at the midway point, four points behind leaders and defending champions Rubin Kazan.

But a recent cup defeat to FC Volgar-Gazprom-2 Astrakhan, a division below Dinamo, has upset their preparations for the third round qualifying clash with Celtic.

Striker Alexander Kerzhakov is joint-top scorer in Russia with eight goals so far and will pose a threat to a Celtic defence minus injured captain Stephen McManus.

Kerzhakov is one of five Russian internationals currently playing for Dinamo, the others being goalkeepers Anton Shunin, Vladimir Gabulov, defender Denis Kolodin and club captain Dmitry Khokhlov, who is suspended for the first leg.

Central defender Leandro Fernández was an Olympic Gold winner with the Argentine national team in 2004, midfielder Adrian Ropotan and forward Tsvetan Genkov have won caps for Romania and Bulgaria respectively.

Twins Kirill and Dmitry Kombarov, both midfielders, may also feature at Celtic Park.

On the whole it is very difficult to find a good player who would agree to transfer and would be willing to play Dinamo coach Andrey Kobelev

The Russian side have among their ranks one player with experience of the British game - Australia international Luke Wilkshire, previously of Middlesbrough and Bristol City.

At 27, right-back Wilkshire is one of the more experienced members of a squad that has an average age of 23.

Speaking at a recent post-match press conference following a 2-1 win over Spartak Nalchik, coach Kobelev described the difficulties of having such a young player pool.

"There are some problems in going from the defence to attack," he said.

"Opponents get used to us, they go back and face us, and therefore we need to begin a positional game.

"The players have to get used to each other. It is also instability when you have youth in the team. Therefore everything doesn't happen straightaway. It is necessary to endure, wait and work."

Dinamo last year sold Portuguese striker Danny to Zenit St Petersburg for €30m - a Russian record - but Kobelev admits it has not been easy to attract players to his club.

"We 'explored' the possibility of moving for Sergei Kornilenko but Zenit offered him twice more than we could and he went there.

"On the whole it is very difficult to find a good player who would agree to transfer and would be willing to play, very difficult.

"Prices for good players start at €10-12m and to buy somebody who is not better than the players we have and put Fyodor Smolov and Aleksandr Kokorin on the bench is wrong.

"But certainly the team must have competition and young Russian players are not guaranteed the place in the starting line-up.

"First we need to find the one who is going to agree to transfer to the Russian club. Unfortunately players don't want it now. And they don't want to join not just our team, but also teams like Zenit."

Against such a backdrop, the bounty of Champions League group stage involvement would no doubt make it easier for Kobelev to improve his squad.

But for now such a reality is still a dream for this famous European name, with Celtic the first hurdle standing in the way.

The quotes attributed to Andrey Kobelev were sourced from Dinamo Moscow's official website.

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