Long trips leave players weary and coaches short-tempered
What you need to know:
- Egypt, who were based in Grozny, one of the furthest match venues in Southern Russia, travelled the furthest, covering some 11,774km by plane.
- Most of Pharaoh’s fixtures took place further north.
- First, Egypt travelled to Ekaterinburg, the furthest east city in the tournament, to play Uruguay in Group ‘A’ on June 15, a match the team lost 1-0.
IN MOSCOW, RUSSIA
Fifa’s policy at the 2018 World Cup here is simple: You win your knock-out matches and you stay. You lose your match, and you leave the team’s training base immediately.
By the end of the round of 16 matches on Tuesday, a total of 24 teams have so far been sent packing from the tournament, with some eight still remaining in the competition.
Fifty-six matches have been played here so far, leaving another eight to go before the tournament ends. Teams have had to endure travelling over long distances for matches, sometimes leaving players weary and coaches short-tempered.
Iran, which was the first team to arrive in Russia for the Fifa World Cup, was also among the first teams to leave.
Three-time Asian champions Iran, ranked 30th globally, arrived in Russia on June 5 and were based at the training facilities of the Russian Premier League club Lokomotiv Moscow, on the Russian capital city's south-western outskirts.
For their first match in Group ‘B’ against Morocco, Iran took a one-and-a-half hour flight to Nihzny Novgorod, some 419 kilometres to the west of Moscow, and it turns out that would be coach Carlos Quiroz’s shortest trip to honour group matches.
It takes just under four hours to travel the same distance by high-speed train. Next, the team endured a 1,650km-long non-stop flight to Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi located to the south of Moscow for its next group match against 2010 champions Spain which lasted two and a half hours.
Iranian fans following their team to Sochi endured a train trip lasting some 23 hours and 30 minutes, just to watch the match. Spain won the match 1-0, and Spain captain Sergio Ramos criticised Iran’s time-wasting tactics, incurring the wrath of a weary Quiroz.
“It’s part of football. If they go out to waste time, that’s their problem. We like to win a different way. It is true that the referee allowed everything one way – for them – and blew almost all of our (challenges) as fouls,” Ramos said.
Quiroz responded in style: “That’s not true. There were two teams fighting hard, strong contact, and our players needed (medical) attention. If you come to the clinic tomorrow you will see that we have lost two players – and there was not even a yellow card given.”
Egypt, who were based in Grozny, one of the furthest match venues in Southern Russia, travelled the furthest, covering some 11,774km by plane.
Most of Pharaoh’s fixtures took place further north.
First, Egypt travelled to Ekaterinburg, the furthest east city in the tournament, to play Uruguay in Group ‘A’ on June 15, a match the team lost 1-0.
Egypt then travelled to Saint Petersburg, the northernmost host city, to play Russia on June 19.
