Just like the best part of the weekend is Friday night after work so too the best part of the World Cup is the moment before the opening match. It's all still ahead of you to look forward to but it's right there. There's no waiting... the weekend starts now
Sadly the weekend started with Friday night drinks with fat Ronaldo, Robbie Williams and Vladimir Putin. Thankfully they had the good grace to only stay for one drink and the party could finally get started.
For a while I wasn't sure if Russia had overplayed their hand and just shipped the Saudis off to Siberia because the all-green uniform of the Saudis made them blend into the pitch and it looked like there was only one team playing. Which made it a little hard to understand why the Russians took so long to score. But score they did inside 15 minutes to allay the nerves of the Russian players and crowd alike. Both still running on the rush of a rousing performance of the national anthem.
Perhaps the camouflage uniform was a ploy by the Saudis but if it was it wasn't helping them as they went into half time 2 goals down after some defensive indecision was punished by the first half substitute who came in for one of the Russians with a hamstring injury barely 22 minutes into the game.
The second half brought another goal to the home side from Dzyuba who looked a lot like you expect Russians to look and you can't help wondering if this was the same Saudi Arabia that pipped Australia in direct qualification for this world cup. Cheryshev rounded out a hattrick of substitute goals around the 90th minute.
You'd think that would have been it but the dubious ref call in the final seconds of the game that I thought would deliver the win to Russia came anyway and Golovin curled a beautiful free kick to put the cherryshev on top for a 5-0 win.
I don't think anyone thinks either side will go terribly far in the tournament but at least one of them might get out of the group.
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