Russia's new soccer coach said Friday he would invite all rebel players to rejoin the Russian squad after replacing Pavel Sadyrin, the embattled coach who resigned after Russia fared badly in this summer's World Cup.


"I will invite all the players to a training session and pick a team from there," Oleg Romantsev said in a telephone interview one day after Sadyrin resigned. Romantsev said he would not favor or discriminate against any players, an apparent reference to the six players who refused to play for Sadyrin on the Cup team.


Russian soccer has been bitterly divided for the past seven months following a rebellion against Sadyrin that severely disrupted the team and played a role in Russia's poor performance in the World Cup finals last month where it crashed out in the first round.


"I sincerely hope that the new trainer does not have to go through the sufferings that I endured as coach," Sadyrin was quoted by Friday's Sport Express newspaper as telling a session of the State Sports Committee.


Sadyrin tendered his resignation Thursday to the committee which met to carry out a post-mortem on the World Cup. Romantsev was voted in unanimously as Russia's new coach at the same session.


Despite the amnesty Romantsev offered the dissident players, it is by no means assured that they will return to the squad.


The new coach told Sport Express that the core of the new squad would be based around his own successful Spartak team that has won the Russian championship twice in a row and currently enjoys a four-point lead at the top of the Russian league.


Sadyrin seemingly lost the confidence of his players following a disappointing defeat against Greece last November, after which 14 Russian players sent a letter to President Boris Yeltsin's adviser on sports, Shamil Tarpishchev, demanding the coach's resignation. The players said Sadyrin was unprofessional and unsuited to the rigors of international soccer.


A protracted skirmish ensued, with Sadyrin winning some of the dissidents over. But six rebels, including stars Andrei Kanchelskis of Manchester United, Igor Shalimov of Inter Milan, maintained their boycott.


Romantsev played down the significance of his predecessor's resignation Friday, insisting that Sadyrin's decision to quit was motivated by soccer, and not political, considerations.


"It was quite clearly a logical step," he said. "There can be no question of Sadyrin being considered a scapegoat" for Russia's poor showing in the World Cup. National team players were not available for comment.