Position: Striker
Date of Birth: November 27, 1982
Club: Zenit
International Debut: v Estonia (March 27, 2002)
World Cup Appearances: 1
World Cup Goals: 0
Aleksandr Kerzhakov will aim to cast aside past disappointments when he leads the line for Russia at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
The Zenit striker's experiences of major international tournaments have been largely frustrating to date.
However, the 31-year-old will hope to build on a strong qualifying campaign as he seeks to make an impression on football's greatest stage.
Kerzhakov started all 10 of his country's matches and scored five goals in helping Russia to top Group F by one point ahead of Portugal.
Under coach Fabio Capello, Kerzhakov has forged a productive partnership with Dinamo Moscow's Aleksandr Kokorin.
The latter chipped in with four qualifying goals as Russia reached their first World Cup in 12 years, after failing to make the previous two tournaments in South Africa and Germany.
Drawn in Group H alongside Belgium, Algeria and South Korea, Russia will be strongly fancied to progress to the last 16 and are likely to rely on Kerzhakov to score the goals to propel them into the knockout stages.
He was part of the last national squad to reach the finals in 2002, selected as a 19-year-old by then-coach Oleg Romantsev, three months after making his international debut in a friendly against Estonia.
Yet Kerzhakov played just eight minutes as a substitute in a 3-2 defeat to Belgium that saw Russia knocked out in the group stage.
At the UEFA European Championships in 2004, Kerzhakov was once again restricted to a bit-part role, only featuring in the final group match against Greece as Russia bowed out early in another unsatisfactory campaign.
Further disappointment was to come for Kerzhakov when Russia failed to reach the World Cup in 2006, and there was more heartbreak two years later.
Despite scoring five goals in qualifying for Euro 2008, he was left out of the squad for the finals by Guus Hiddink and had to watch on as Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andrei Arshavin fired the team to the semi-finals, where they were defeated by eventual champions Spain.
Kerzhakov's international tournament nightmare continued as Russia missed out on World Cup qualification yet again in 2010.
Although they reached Euro 2012, the striker was unable to make his mark on the finals, failing to score in three starts as his performances were overshadowed by those of young starlet Alan Dzagoev.
A Russian Premier League winner with Zenit in 2010 and 2012, Kerzhakov has failed to recapture the prolific form he showed two seasons ago, when 23 league goals in 32 appearances fired his side to the title.
The season just gone saw him play second fiddle to Brazilian frontman Hulk, but Russian fans will be hoping Kerzhakov can follow up his productive qualifying campaign and put 12 years of international disappointment behind him.