Sobering setback for host Russia
Fast start brought host’s doping history to the fore. Now, talk is about their team’s shortcomings
MOSCOW— The wild, feverish screams poured out of, well, everywhere and met in the middle of Old Arbat Street.
The grand old thoroughfare of this grand old place has reverberated for 500 years and more. These days, it serves as a pedestrianized pulse of the Russian capital. While the invading hordes who have descended upon Moscow these past few weeks have largely made for Nikolskaya St. near Red Square with its shimmering hanging canopy of fairy lights, Old Arbat keeps on keeping on with a more local feel.
It’s a good place to gauge Russian sentiment about Russia’s World Cup then. On Monday night, as those screams and cheers coursed up the street, things sounded pretty damn good. But the ears can be deceived.
The cacophony was sparked not by the host nation but by Iran who were giving Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo the fight and fright of their lives while Spain and Morocco simultaneously served up an unmissable finish. Group B of this gripping tournament finished in a frenzy that left all observers breathless. Or almost all.
While the eyes of patrons packed into the cafes and restaurants that spill out on to Old Arbat were fixed on screens, those of the pedestrians walking by only briefly glanced up. Events earlier in the day had left Russian supporters downcast — a feeling they had known like a close cousin but one that had evaporated over the past fortnight.
The national team that threatened to be a national embarrassment pre-tournament had instead become a national sensation in the World Cup’s dizzy first few days.
Russia’s 5-0 demolition of Saudi Arabia on opening night, so swashbuckling, stylish and most-of-all fun, had lit a spark in a nation not renowned as being big on any of those things. When it was followed up with an arguably more impressive swatting aside of fancied Egypt in the second game, national passions were aflame.
At one of the most actionpacked games of the group stages — England’s 6-1 shellacking of Panama on Sunday — the arena in Nizhny Novgorod was loudest not in the moments after English players racked up goals but when chants of RuSee-Ahhh from neutral locals boomed around the place. The public had bought in, big time.
Monday’s final group game put the dampers on all of this though. Uruguay dished out a dousing of cold reality to Russia.
The 3-0 drubbing in Saint Petersburg was likely the reason some local eyes and heads nodded downward on Old Arbat St. while Iran were busy scrambling other minds.
The upshot of all the madness in the night’s doubleheader was that Spain topped Group B and will now meet the host nation in the last 16 — an outcome that only served to further cool hearts and minds here.
Russia reverting to the type that had been expected of a team that had arrived at their own party as the lowest-ranked side in the tournament had another consequence however — the prevalence of the D-word in the post-match discussion on Monday and Tuesday dropped significantly.
Doping quite literally comes with the territory when the sports world drops in on Russia.
The vast state-sponsored doping scheme that enveloped the Olympics in Sochi four years ago would likely have hung even heavier over the national team in the buildup to this tournament had they not looked so utterly hapless, listless even, in warm-up matches.
But when Stanislav Cherchesov’s side ran rings around Sau- di Arabia, then Egypt, Russia’s dirty habits quickly came back into the conversation.
The startling statistics that showed Russia had run harder and longer than any side in the World Cup’s first week — in spite of having one of the oldest squads at the tournament — sparked probing questions.
They were questions the manager flat-out refused to broach, Cherchesov’s only offering on the matter made light of it all: “If nobody has noticed anything but the runs and sprints, then we will have to add something else to our game.”
The team’s doctor was more forthcoming, insisting that the squad had taken over 300 doping tests in 2018 alone, more than any other team at the tournament.
“I’m willing to bet that’s at least twice as many tests England players have been given,” Eduard Bezuglov said. “They need to worry about themselves. Players are in good shape because of the coaching staff, their own training and the support of the whole country.”
They didn’t look in such good shape Monday. Uruguay’s demolition job had admittedly come against a much-changed Russian side as Cherchesov shuffled his deck, star playmaker Aleksandr Golovin — the hardest runner of all — among those given a rest.
Nonetheless the ease with which the South Americans carved Russia open would seem to have made the point that no matter how many kilometres they can rack up, the distances covered count for precious little when they’re spent on the back foot against technically superior, smarter footballing sides.
Afterwards, Cherchesov described the defeat as a kind of a slap in the face, but adding that “a slap in the face at a right moment is useful.”
Maybe so. But as they now turn eyes and heads to the prospect of tournament favourites Spain, you sense the Russian public are coming to a slow and cold realization — their national team may well be able to run, but they can’t hide from their shortcomings.