FIFA WORLD CUP 2018 – Russia vs Saudi Arabia PREVIEW
ITS FINALLY AROUND THE CORNER! THE 21st EDITION OF THE FIFA WORLD CUP! The opening game will be between the hosts Russia and the lowest ranked nation Saudi Arabia. It may not be an opener many people would be excited, but nevertheless it’s the world cup and it will be quite an interesting game trying to see how the hosts handle the pressure, and how Saudi Arabia will attempt to cause a shock to the home crowd. Let’s get into this preview!
RUSSIA
Let’s begin with the host nation. Russia have high hopes at this tournament, struggling as a footballing nation to do anything over the years, this is a perfect chance for them to cause some surprises and knock off a big boy team in their home tournament. I have no doubt the Russian support will be great, however at the same time the pressure on Russia is immense to perform, especially when their president himself has high expectations of this tournament. Russia have a few ageing players like Igor Akinfeev, Sergei Ignasevich, Yuri Zhrkov who are still going strong at their mid/late 30s being able to start for their country, however it could a very exposable aspect of their game because someone like Ignasevich whose 38 years old, will have to deal with world class players like Salah, Suarez, Cavani at the world cup who are still in their primes, even the same Saudi Arabia could expose that weakness with their pacey players.
Russia’s main men at the world cup have to be Aleksandr Golovin, Alan Dzagoev and Fedor Smolov, two creative midfielders, especially Golovin who looks a like top prospect in world football at young age of 22. Golovin was impressive in the confederations cup last year and hopefully he builds on to it. Dzagoev hasn’t really lived up to expectations after an impressive euros in 2012 as a 21 year old, now hes in his prime still stuck playing for CSKA Moscow, but regardless of that he’s still one of Russia’s best players which shows that Russia are not in a very good hands right now. And finally Smolov their main striker. A very good striker if you ask me, scored 14 goals in 22 games this season, had managed to score a goal against France and Spain in friendlies too. A very decent striker, got to see him play and was quite impressed to be fair.
Russia as a whole did not have a promising run up to the world cup. They played two games just recently, they were dominated by Austria ant 1-0 away and drew Turkey 1-1 at home, another lackluster performance by Russia, could’ve easily lost, probably should’ve which is concerning because they are being thrown under so much pressure right now and they are not entering the world cup in good form in any way. If you look as a whole over the past 12 months Russia have not had success. They got bounced in the Confederations Cup group stages, then lost to Argentina, got battered by Brazil and France by the scores of 0-3 and 1-3, failed to beat Iran at home, now one impressive result they got was a draw against Spain drawing 3-3 after being down 0-2 but other than that Russia don’t have much to show that would tell people they are going to do anything special here.
SAUDI ARABIA
Saudi Arabia are coming into this game as heavy underdogs and will be looking to spoilt the host party. Saudi Arabia’s players mostly play for the clubs up in Saudi arabia and there are many unknown players that most football fans don’t really know about and will get to show the world that they can play football too. Saudi Arabia’s main man would have to be Al Sahlawi who seems like a top striker. He scored an incredible 16 goals in 14 qualifying games for Saudi Arabia which is truly incredible, he seems like a good goal scorer on club level too. Saudi Arabia will most likely sit back in all of their games and hit teams on the counter and I’ve personally got to see them play and they can definitely get out and attack with their pace and could cause danger in this game for sure.
Saudi Arabia had to go through two different group stages to get to the world cup. They entered the qualifiers at the second stage advancing through the group topping it comfortably. Then in the 3rd stage Saudi Arabia had a much tougher road to qualify. They were put in a group together with two other decent teams in Japan and Australia and managed to get 2nd place in that group which meant they avoided qualification and advanced automatically. It went all the way to the end for Saudi Arabia and only a win against Japan on the last day got them qualified for the main tournament which is pretty impressive because Japan are no joke and are a decent team. Saudi Arabia managing to compete evenly with Japan and Australia clearly shows that they are a capable nation because the other two are recognised as decent nations themselves and it’s great to Saudi Arabia get through that. This is Saudi Arabia’s 5th world cup.
Saudi Arabia played quite a lot of friendlies just before to prepare themselves. They played five friendlies from May to June beating Greece and Algeria 2-0 each, then losing 3 straight to Italy 2-1, Peru 0-3 and Germany 2-1. I’d say other than the Peru game, Saudi Arabia did themselves good. Scoring against Italy and Germany shows that they can be dangerous on a counter attack. I personally got to see them play against Germany and if you watched that game you could say they deserved to actually get a draw or even a win out of that game because they really exposed weaknesses in Germany’s defence which is pace and created quite a few chances and should’ve scored more and if you’re Russia watching Saudi Arabia rip Germany’s defence apart with their pace, you’re surely slightly nervous especially with some ageing players there.
What to Expect From The Game
I think we can expect Russia to be on the front foot for the most of the game and Saudi Arabia to try and hit them on the counter attacks. Russia will really have to work hard to break down the oppositions defence and this is where players like Golovin, Dzagoev and Cheryshev have to come through. We can probably expect some long balls put in the box for Smolov to attack too. Russia will probably have about 65-70% of possession, but they’ll have to find a way to do something with that. Saudi Arabia will likely try to counter attack and expose Russia’s lack of pace in defence. Ignasevich could be a massive liability at his age of 38 and Saudi Arabia’s pacey players could expose that weakness and if that happens I wouldn’t be surprised if they score a goal or two. The pressure will be immense on Russia to deliver here which could really affect them in a bad way, but at the same time having the home crowd cheering them on could help out massively. It’s going to be an intense game, it wont be as straight forward as people think for Russia, they’ll have to be wary of counter attacks and make sure they don’t throw too many bodies forward. Saudi Arabia just need to stay calm and composed and do the best they can when they get the ball, they may just catch Russia off guard. We will most likely either see a one goal margin win by Russia, or a draw.
ODDS – Decimal (WilliamHill)
Russia to Win – 1.40
Draw – 4.20
Saudi Arabia to Win – 9.00
KICK OFF – 4pm UK TIME
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