The opening match of the 2018 World Cup is hardly one that would normally get too many football fans excited. Russia play Saudi Arabia on June 14th. Because it is the World Cup and the opening match it will get a lot more attention then any other time these 2 countries met.
There is a political angle to this match. Russia, Syria and President Assad's ally, is playing against the country that was the first to condemn Assad for his crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011.
Relations between the Russians and Saudis have been practically nonexistent since the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005. The Saudi government accused Syria of being involved in the assassination. As the civil war raged in Syria, the Saudi government were known to be supplying arms to the rebels in Syria.
But that's all politics. This is football. And of course, the two are always kept separate. If you cannot remember any previous matches between these two countries, you are not alone. They have met only once, a friendly in 1993 that Saudi Arabia won 4-2. And , again, that's the beauty of the World Cup: two countries that would normally never play each other coming together for what is a huge match. Nobody wants to start the World Cup with a defeat.
Russia's recent from has not been very impressive. They lost their last two friendlies, 3-1 and 3-0 to France and Brazil respectively. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, won their last two, 2-0 against both Greece and Algeria. But it really is true that previous farm means nothing. It is who is better on the day, or, simply, who can score more goals.
The Saudis were in Marbella, Spain recently for a training camp. According to the Saudi Arabia Football Federation website they had one day where they started with running and then had speed exercises They then moved on to "attacks and head scoring." Clearly they must see a weakness in the Russian's ability at defending crosses.
Whatever the final outcome as soon as the referee blows his whistle to get the match going it will mean that another World Cup is underway.
No comments:
Post a Comment