Euro 2012: Alan Dzagoev is finally meeting Russia's expectations

Russia has been waiting since 11 October 2008. It was then that Alan Dzagoev made his international debut, coming off the bench at half-time in a World Cup qualifier away to Germany and hitting the bar. He was aged 18 years and 116 days and so became the youngest outfielder ever to play for Russia.

Comparisons with the Russian forward Eduard Streltsov, who, at 17 years and 340 days, became the youngest outfielder ever to play for the USSR, were inevitable if not entirely fair. Streltsov, after all, is one of the great icons of the Russian game, a forward who scored a hat-trick against Sweden on his international debut, was jailed for a rape he may or may not have committed and returned from five years in the gulag to inspire Torpedo to a league title. Whereas Dzagoev, as Guus Hiddink said, "is a really clever player with the ability to make a killer pass and stretch the play."

Dzagoev will turn 22 next week, but it feels as though the wait for him to catch light has been a long one — made longer perhaps by the number of promising Russian forwards who have gone before him and achieved little. Marat Izmailov, now back in the squad after a six-year hiatus – he came off the bench for Dzagoev on Tuesday – was much hyped when he made his international debut as a 19-year-old, but never progressed as many had hoped, partly because of a knee injury. He's spent most of the last four years sitting on the sidelines at Sporting, griping at a lack of support from the club's directors.

Or there was Dmitry Sychev, 18 years and 222 days when he made his Russia debut in 2002 and one of the very few bright spots for Russia in an otherwise dismal World Cup campaign in Japan and South Korea that year. But he was suspended for six months over an irregularity in his transfer from Lokomotiv Moscow to Marseille and never quite recaptured is early form.

Dzagoev never quite faded in the same way, but there was certainly a feeling that it was about time he developed. There was a sense that he perhaps lacked the hardness to transform himself into a world-class player, while the upheaval at CSKA Moscow, where he regularly was shunted around to make way for Keisuke Honda, seemed to unsettle him.

Over the past few days, though, he has made clear just how much ability he has. It is not just his three goals in two games, although they have helped dispel the fear that he is an inconsistent finisher who tends to muff his lines when the pressure is on; it has been his general movement and interlinking of the play in a highly fluent Russian front line. With Aleksandr Anyukov overlapping, Dzagoev has been able to drift infield from the right flank, becoming at times a playmaker. And he has, of course, got forward to score those goals: a firm strike to thump a loose ball into a largely unguarded net and a brisk strike when one-on-one with Petr Cech in the 4-1 win against the Czech Republic and then a glancing header to turn in Andrey Arshavin's free-kick in the 1-1 draw against Poland.

It wasn't a particularly clean header – in fact it flicked in off his shoulder – but the significant thing was Dzagoev's initiative. "There was nothing special in the first half apart from the goal," he said. "In principal, I generally shouldn't go into the penalty area but stand on the edge. But I noticed that Arshavin often hits it there and decided to go in."

Dzagoev's parents are Ossetians who emigrated from Georgia to Beslan, where he was born. One event, inevitably, dominates any discussion of his childhood. Dzagoev's father, Tariel, was at work when news broke in 2004 that one of the town's seven schools had been taken over by armed rebels demanding an end to the Second Chechen War. In the initial confusion, he was told that it was Alan's school, number four, that had been attacked, and rushed there to discover that it was actually pupils at school number one who had been taken hostage.

Fearing further incidents, he took his son home. Two days later, as Russian security forced attempted to regain control of the school, at least 334 hostages, including 186 children, were killed.

By then, Dzagoev had already spent four years training with Alania Vladikavkaz, apparently encouraged in his football by his mother, who, he claims, can do 10 keepie-ups standing on one leg. When he was 16, he was spotted by Yuri Oskin, a coach at the academy at Primorsky that is now funded by Roman Abramovich. "Dzagoev plays football not for fame and money, but because football is his life," said the academy coach Igor Rodkin. "It is rare today that a victory is more important for a player than the prize money for it, but with Alan, that is exactly the case."

There Dzagoev was part of the side that finished sixth in the Ural-Povolzhye section of the third tier of Russian professional football, scoring five goals and attracting the attention of a host of clubs before signing for CSKA. His first season there was a revelation: he scored 12 goals, provided nine assists and generally played as though born to top-level football. He became famous for taking the bus to training because his dad had banned him from driving; Valeri Gazzaev, his first coach at CSKA, publicly praised his parents for bringing him up to be so conscientious.

"I've followed him since his debut against Khimki [in which he scored]," said the former Russia international Alexander Mostovoi. "It seemed to me even then that Alan stands apart from other players because of his non-standard actions. He is not afraid to get the ball, to dribble, to take responsibility. I always like players like that."

Arshavin recently described Dzagoev as "mature" and it's easy to see what he means. This is a Russia side that's been together a long time: all of the likely first XI apart from Dzagoev either played at Euro 2008 or would have done but for injury or withdrawal. Six of the starting XI, including all the midfield and forward line apart from him, play for Zenit, yet he has adapted and fitted in well.

With Aleksandr Kerzhakov dropping deep from centre-forward to interchange with Arshavin and Dzagoev as they drift in, making room for the overlaps from full-back of Yuri Zhirkov and Anyukov, Russia have been admirably fluent. And in Dzagoev they seem at last to have a young prospect who is delivering on his potential.