Sebastian Coe triumphed there over 1500m, Steve Ovett over 800m, and Daley Thompson jumped, ran and vaulted his way to a gold. Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium should be a resonant enough venue to stir even a generation of English sportsmen a little too young to remember the Olympics of 1980, its boycotts and an atmosphere of East-West suspicion so vivid that when a Soviet javelin landed furthest, the hosts were accused of unfairly altering natural conditions and opening the gates to let in a tail-wind just for that one throw.

The Luzhniki, where England meet Russia on Wednesday for what may be a single berth in the Euro 2008 finals, used to call itself the Central Lenin stadium. Inside, as if remembering a cold war tradition of intrigue, is a trick waiting to be played on visitors. The pivotal fixture of the qualifying group is to be played on an unfamiliar surface, the artificial turf laid at the Luzhniki some years ago so Moscow’s favourite sport would survive very cold winters.

Synthetic football pitches have developed substantially since the lunar bounce and home advantage enjoyed by clubs such as Luton Town and Queens Park Rangers when they experimented with plastic in the 1980s. The bodies that promote the game, notably Fifa and Uefa, are keen to promote the development and find more fields to endure testing weather conditions and heavy use. But the combination of rubber and polyethylene fibres laid at the Luzhniki still behaves differently from grass.

“It will make a big difference for the England team,” said Andrei Tikhonov, the former Russian Footballer of the Year. “Normally one has to train for two weeks on it to get used to how it plays, so Russia have some advantage.” Not much, though. Only one member of the likely starting XI for Wednesday, the Spartak Moscow striker Roman Pavlyuchenko, regularly plays club football at the Luzhniki. Pavlyuchenko was in the Spartak side that played Celtic in Moscow in the preliminary round of the Champions League two months ago, and the choice of surface agitated the Celtic manager, Gordon Strachan. He sensed a double standard, pointing out that his club’s August fixture would be played on the synthetic surface while Uefa ordered the Russian Football Federation to put down a grass pitch at the Luzhniki for the final of the same competition next May. Celtic won over two legs against Spartak, but their players felt uncomfortable with the conditions throughout the 1-1 draw in Moscow and for several days afterwards.

“That pitch,” said John Kennedy, the Celtic defender, “is nothing like grass and there is no way international football should be played on it. You think the ball is going to bounce truly in front of you, and it spins away. At other times you think the ball is spinning and it takes a dead bounce. A lot of the boys came off the field with sore backs and joints. It is a difficult surface to play on and it can make you look daft because bounces are almost impossible to judge.” Strachan also observed problems with the ball at players’ feet, and it shaped his decision to leave out the winger Aiden McGeady.

The surface is not at its peak state of repair, either, with plans to renew the synthetic tiles having been postponed until after England’s visit. The idea of an elaborate Russian conspiracy, though, is exaggerated. True, Russia have not played any other qualifiers at the 84,000-capacity stadium, but the choice of the Luzhniki for England’s trip is based on roubles at the gate. The Russian Federation correctly banked on England guaranteeing a far higher attendance than other visitors in the group – Croatia, Israel, Macedonia, Estonia and Andorra. For security reasons, not every seat will be taken, but for each of the 77,000-odd tickets available, there were almost 10 applicants. Touts have been reported to be quoting £2,000 for resold seats in some sections.

Russia have not lost at the Luzhniki since 1999, but then they have not regarded it as the national team’s natural home stadium, so that record need not overwhelm. On the contrary, the Luzhniki is regarded rather ominously by some Russians. In qualifying for Euro 2000, they were held there in a charged fixture against Ukraine that severely damaged their prospects of reaching those finals. If it sounds noisy when England try out the ersatz turf under their studs on Wednesday, their opponents know Steve McClaren’s team were three goals better than them a month ago in London and they have not had a competitive outing since to rebuild confidence. It takes a special sort of rubber to bounce back from that.