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GAME TIMELINE
Russia 
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MATCH DETAILS:
Such an event as the opening of the World Cup, necessarily causes a huge stir – the attention of the entire football community will be riveted to a duel between Russia and Saudi Arabia. A lot of attention may well affect the players negatively – the players will be under serious pressure.
To the Russian national team, as hostess of the world championship, fans will have special, inflated demands – in no case to fail the country. And all this could break almost any team, if it was not the Russian team, every match of which is accompanied by a flurry of criticism, even in cases when the team performed well.
Saudi Arabia in the selection for the World Cup performed at the level of expectations – the team won a direct ticket to the “World”, skipping ahead in the table only the national team of Japan. The gap with the Japanese was only one point, besides, Saudi Arabia beat the opponent in the last round, so the second place can be considered quite natural.
After completing the qualification, the “Eagles of the Desert” took part in one more official tournament – the Gulf Nations Cup. There, Saudi Arabia frankly disappointed, taking the third place in the group with Oman, the UAE and Kuwait.
LIVE TEXT STREAM
Match ended, final score 5:0 Russia win!
GOOOAL! Aleksandr Golovin scores with a free kick, fantastic!
Goal! Denis Cheryshev scored! The score is 4:0.
Aleksandr Golovin yellow card!
The attendance is 78011.
Goal! Artem Dzyuba makes the score 3:0
Roman Zobnin produces a good strike that sails to the middle of the goal, but his low effort ends up in the goalkeeper’s gloves.
37:63 – the ratio of ball possession.
Taisir Al Jassim pulls the jersey of one of the opposition players and Nestor Pitana blows his whistle for a foul.
Aleksandr Golovin launches into a thunderous tackle on his opponent and the referee blows his whistle for a foul.
Second half started now!
First half ended, halftime!
GOOOOAAAL! Denis Cheryshev scored fantastic goal!
The ball is cleared after Aleksandr Golovin attempted to dribble past an opposing player.
Salman Al Faraj takes the corner but fails to find any of his teammates. The ball is easily cleared out of danger.
Mohammed Al Burayk requires medical treatment, so the referee stops play and signals for the physio to come onto the pitch.
Yury Gazinskiy scored first goal in World Cup!
Yuri Zhirkov puts a cross into the box from the corner but there is no panic from the opposition and they easily clear.
Match started now!
Opening will start soon!
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