Russia close to FIFA World Cup playoff; Poland and Colombia defeated in Round 1
The Russian national football squad enjoyed a confident 3-1 win over Egypt during their second Group A match held on Tuesday night in the country's second largest city of St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg Stadium saw an attendance of over 64,460 spectators, which is the stadium's new record, TASS reports.
The score was opened two minutes into the second half, when a ball cannoned by Russia's Roman Zobnin ricocheted off Egypt's Ahmed Fathi into the right corner of the Egyptian net. Egypt's own goal put Russia in a 1-0 lead.
Several minutes later a referee handed out a yellow card to Egypt's Trezeguet for his rough collision with a Russian player.
A minute after the yellow card was flashed, the Russians put another ball into the Egyptian net. The goal was scored by Denis Cheryshev from the cross-the-box assist delivered by Mario Fernandes.
The score of 2-0 remained flashing on the scoreboard for about two minutes as Russia's Artyom Dzyuba cannoned another ball past Elshenawy upping the score to 3-0.
Going on the offense against the Russian goal, Egypt's Mohamed Salah was hauled down inside the box on the 71st minute of the match and the referee ordered a penalty shot, which the Egyptian striker flawlessly executed putting the score at 3-1.
Combined with the 5-0 win over Saudi Arabia on June 14, the 2018 FIFA World Cup hosts are currently on the top of its Group A with six points.
However, Russia's participation in the knockout stage is yet under question. In order to make it into the Last 16 stage of the tournament, Russia needs Uruguay to defeat Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. In this case, Russia will under no circumstances drop below the second place in the group, regardless of what the results of Round 3 are. If Saudi Arabia wins, Russia will need a victory or a draw in the game against Uruguay to proceed into the play-off.
This is the first time since 1970 that Russia managed to win two World Cup games in a row.
Russia has managed to score an unprecedented number of goals - eight - in the first two games of the tournament. During the previous two World Cups, in 2002 and 2014, Russia scored only six in total. It is also the biggest number of goals for a host nation since 1934, when Italy also scored eight goals at the domestic tournament.