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Russian team gets slapped in the face at 2018 World Cup; says coach
MOSCOW, June 26, 2018 (BSS/TASS)- The Day 12 of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia opened the decisive round of group stage games as teams of Russia, Spain, Uruguay and Portugal reached the Round of 16 qualifying for the knockout stage.
Team Uruguay finished the group stage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in the top spot of Group A after defeating hosts Russia 3-0 on Monday night. The match at the 45,000-seat capacity Samara Arena saw an attendance of 41,970.
The score was opened by Uruguay on the 10th minute after Russian midfielder Yury Gazinsky was slapped with a yellow card for a tackle on Matias Vecino near the box of his goal. Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez confidently executed a free-kick curving the ball into the bottom right corner of the Russian net putting his team in a 1-0 lead over the hosts.
Fourteen minutes later the Uruguayans upped the score to 2-0, when a ball, kicked by midfielder Diego Laxalt, bounced off Denis Cheryshev’s leg straight into his own net.
Shortly after receiving his first yellow card Russia’s Smolnikov received another one for chopping down Laxalt and subsequently left his team and the field with the red card.
The score of 2-0 seemed to remain unaltered until the end of the game, but Uruguay’s Edinson Cavani was quick to react to the ball in the Russian box and nailed it into the net after it ricocheted off Akenfeyev’s hands on the very last minute of the match.
Russian team’s chief coach Stanislav Cherchesov said after the match that the defeat was a kind of a slap in the face, adding that “a slap in the face at a right moment is useful.”
“Whether we want it or not, but team Uruguay is a team of other level and I will repeat it once again that this match will help us get prepared for the next game,” he noted.
“The team is strong enough, in psychological terms, to live through this defeat. It will be better to say, to sift it through and draw the right conclusions,” Cherchesov said.
Both Russia and Uruguay already secured places in the next Round of Last 16 of the global football championship, each enjoying wins over opponents in their two previous group stage matches. Monday’s match was a decider on the winner of their Group A, which also enrolled the teams from Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Saudi Arabia won 2-1 in the match vs Egypt on Monday in the last game of the FIFA World Cup 2018 group stage.
The game in Volgograd drew 36,823 spectators to the Volgograd Arena stadium that has 43,713 seats. On the Saudi side, the goals were scored by Salman al-Faraj [45, penalty goal] and Salem al-Dawsari [90+5].
Mohammed Salah scored a goal for Egypt [22]. Al-Faraj failed to convert a penalty kick at the 41st minute. It was rebuffed by Essam El-Hadary the Egyptian goalkeeper, who became the oldest footballer in the history of World Cup championships, as he had turned 45 years old.
The Saudi team scored its first victory in World Cup championships since 1994, when it won 1-0 vs Belgium.
Finally, Spain drew a match vs Morocco 2-2 and took the first place in Group B. Russia will take on Spain at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium on July 1, while Uruguay and Portugal will play its first knockout stage game in Sochi on June 30.
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