Roman Pavlyuchenko has opened up about his dislike for the nickname “Sleeping Giant,” which was coined by former Russia national team coach Guus Hiddink. The 44-year-old former striker admitted that while he initially accepted it from Hiddink, he grew to resent it when fans and even friends used the term. “It’s bad, very bad. When Guus called me that, I was okay with it, calm. But when fans and even friends did it, it really bothered me. I don’t like that nickname — ‘Sleeping Giant.’ It’s unpleasant. Why ‘sleeping’? Hiddink explained it as me waking up for one game, then being absent for two or three matches — I was ‘sleeping.’ Then I’d wake up again,” Pavlyuchenko said in an interview on the show “100% Myasa Spartak.” Now serving as a forwards coach for Moscow’s Rodina-2, Pavlyuchenko previously played for Spartak Moscow, Tottenham Hotspur, Lokomotiv Moscow, and several other clubs.
