Day -18
WorldCup2018
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-gover
nment
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.
