Chilly start for Ronaldo and Portugal at World Cup training
MOSCOW: Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal held their first World Cup training session yesterday at the team’s base in Kratovo, southeast of Moscow, five days ahead of their heavyweight opening clash against Spain.
All 23 players in Fernando Santos’s squad took part in a 90-minute open training session held in light drizzle and chilly temperatures hovering just above 10 Celsius.
The European champions were put through a series of possession-based exercises before working on their finishing, with Valencia winger Goncalo Guedes, on loan from Paris SaintGermain, looking particularly sharp in front of goal.
The squad was then divided into two teams for a game on a half-sized pitch, with Ronaldo at one point thumping a ball over the training complex’s fence and into the trees in a fit of frustration.
The Real Madrid star’s presence had earlier elicited cheers from the 100 or so fans in attendance, with a similar number of media present along the touchline.
Portugal kick off their Group B campaign against 2010 world champions Spain in Sochi on Friday, before facing Morocco on June 20 and Iran five days later.
They are playing their fifth straight World Cup — the country’s seventh appearance in total — and will be hopeful of a much more successful tournament than in 2014, when they crashed out in the group stage.
Their best result saw them finish third in 1966.
Upon their arrival at their team base camp in Kratovo on Saturday, Ronaldo and his compatriots received a traditional Russian welcome during a bread and salt ceremony.
The Real Madrid star was the last player off the team bus escorted by police to the team’s tournament headquarters after touching down at Zhukosvky Airport on the outskirts of Moscow.
The winners on June 15 at Sochi’s Fisht Stadium will be in pole position to come out on top in a Group B that also includes Morocco and Iran.
The top two teams from each group qualify for the last 16.
SALAH ARRIVES IN GROZNY
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah turned up for Egypt training in Cairo on Saturday ahead of the Pharaohs’ departure for the World Cup in Russia but didn’t take part, AFP witnessed.
Thousands of supporters turned up to watch Egypt’s final, late night training
session before taking flight for Russia, cheering wildly.
Although dressed in kit, Salah stood around in the middle of the pitch chatting to backroom staff while his teammates trained.
The record seven-time African champions have qualified for the World Cup for only the third time and first since 1990.
Salah, who hit a stunning 44 goals for Liverpool last season following his move from Roma, arrived at the Grozny International Airport in Russia with the team yesterday.
They begin their Group A campaign on Friday against twice former winners Uruguay.
Salah has been picked in the Egypt squad despite suffering a shoulder injury during Liverpool’s 3-1 Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid that many fans feared would keep him out of the global football showpiece.
The national team’s doctor, Mohamed Abou al-Ela told ON Sport TV that they would soon know when Salah will be fit to play and to what extent he’ll be available in Russia. “We won’t be able to tell until after two days,” he said, declining to give any more details.
MACRON TO GO TO RUSSIA
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a television interview broadcast yesterday that he would go to Russia “when France reached the quarter-finals”.
“I will go to support them,” Macron told the Telefoot weekly programme, without allowing for the possibility that France might be knocked out before then.
Macron also envisioned himself alongside manager Didier Deschamps in the French dressing room in Moscow before the final on July 15. “I have confidence in them,” he said. “I sensed a team that wanted to succeed and bring back the cup.”