Review Day 1

My Prediction: 2-1 Russia. Result: 5-0 Russia. 😳

The one and only game of the day, the mighty Russia v the woeful Saudi Arabia. There were a lot of question marks pre-kickoff about how strong Russia really is, with no qualifying campaign it becomes tough to judge a team in the lead up and honestly, I was not impressed.

The game turned out how I expected for the most part. You could definitely tell it was the 2 lowest ranked countries at the World Cup doing battle.
Russia were disciplined, kept their formation but were sloppy with their passes and had no real midfield presence.
The Saudi's were just awful in defence and I am extremely surprised to see they had 80% pass completion when it seemed every 3rd pass went astray.

You could see in the first 15 minutes that Saudi were nervous and all over the place defensively. Almost no one in the defence held their shape and it seemed their wingbacks had no clue what their role was on defence. Conceding the goal compounded matters.
Early in the second half the Saudi's had a chance to make the game 2-1 and kick-start the fight back but missed what was frankly a free goal and when they capitulated for a 3rd goal, all fight left them.

Although Saudi dominated possession and passing, there was no penetration. Russia played very deep knowing they had an aging slow backline and although were exposed once or twice remained cool for the majority of the game.

A final score of 5-0 is extremely flattering for Russia, I think 3-0 would have been the "fair" result. Russia didn't impress, but Saudi Arabia sure did disappoint. With Uruguay their next opponents, i fear for what will happen to the Arabians when they play next. Russia get a huge morale boost ahead of a crucial game against Egypt that will in all likelihood decide who finishes 2nd in the group.