Russia closes in on Round of 16
Two wins, eight goals and almost certainly a place in the knockout stage for first time since the Soviet era.
Russia is enjoying quite the party at its own World Cup and not even the highly anticipated return of Mohamed Salah could slow it down on Tuesday.
Confounding grim pretournament predictions, the host nation earned a second straight emphatic victory to start the group stage by beating Egypt 3-1. Having already routed Saudi Arabia 5-0, Russia is likely to be celebrating a spot in the round of 16 by Wednesday evening and few could have seen that happening so soon.
“It’s a group of solidarity and cohesion,” said Russia coach Stanislav Cherchesov, who whipped up the crowd by waving his arms in delight on the field after the final whistle. “You mention difficulties, problems. We don’t like these words. We don’t have this in our vocabulary. We had some issues and we dealt with it.”
Like a string of pre-tournament injuries that ravaged the defense. Like a run of seven winless games heading
into the tournament.
The Russians started the World Cup as the lowestranked team at the tournament at No. 70, but they aren’t playing like it.
Three goals in a 15-minute span early in the second half did the damage against Egypt, with Ahmed Fathi poking the ball into his own net the fifth own-goal of the tournament to put Russia ahead in the 47th minute. SENEGAL 2, POLAND 1 >> Senegal midfielder Mbaye Niang outsprinted goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny to reach the ball about 40 yards
from the net, knocked it forward and tapped it in for Senegal’s second fluky goal of the night.
Senegal became the first African team to win at this year’s World Cup after Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia were outscored 6-1 in losses. NOTES >> Neymar limped out of Brazil’s training session at the World Cup on Tuesday because of pain in his right ankle. The Brazilian soccer confederation said the injury was not serious, adding Neymar left as a precaution and would be back in training on Wednesday, two days before the team’s match against Costa Rica in St. Petersburg. … Russian police say that $800,000 worth of valuables have been stolen from Colombian singer Maluma’s hotel room in Moscow while he’s visiting Russia to support the Colombia team at the World Cup. Russian news reports quoted local police as saying that the stolen items included a variety of luxury watches, numerous pieces of jewelry and other belongings.