Russia World Cup Notebook - Day 13
What you need to know:
- Arshavin joined English Premier League giants Arsenal from Zenit St Petersburg in 2009.
- After Uruguay’s 3-0 win over 10-man Russia in their third match of Group ‘A’ on Monday at Samara Stadium, the home fans who have been walking on the streets here with a spring in their steps were left deflated and agonised.
Fans sober up in Russian police truck
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Trust fans to go overboard with their celebrations after winning matches here. After Uruguay beat home team Russia 3-0 in a Group ‘A’ match on Monday at Samara Stadium in South western Russia, to reach the knock-out stage with maximum points, Uruguay fans partied on the streets of the town till wee hours.
The drunk fans made it known to everyone who cared to listen that Russia is the only team to have reached the last 16 with maximum points so far but when five of them became unruly, police officers on patrol swooped down the road, subdued them and locked them inside the back of a waiting truck.
Russia looking for Arshavin’s heir
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Russia is yet to get a successor to the country’s poster boy of football Andrey Arshavin. Arshavin joined English Premier League giants Arsenal from Zenit St Petersburg in 2009.
Arshavin left the Gunners to return to his boyhood club in 2012 from where he joined Krasnodar. Arshavin, now 37, currently plays for Kairat in Kazakhstan’s Premier League.
Russians are still struggling to find a natural leader for its football team after Arshavin’s retirement from the national team.
With the exception of Denis Cheryshev who plays for Villarreal, all of Russia’s squad ply their trade locally in the Russian Premier League.
Russia has many official languages
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Although Russian is the official language in Russia, there are 35 other co-official languages spoken in various regions of the vast country that stretches between Europe and Asia. The Russian alphabet is called Cyrillic script, which comes complete with Russian Braille for the visually impaired.
Russian, which is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
It is the eighth most spoken language in the world. Russian is also the official language in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Loss to Uruguay leaves hosts deflated
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After Uruguay’s 3-0 win over 10-man Russia in their third match of Group ‘A’ on Monday at Samara Stadium, the home fans who have been walking on the streets here with a spring in their steps were left deflated and agonised.
Until Monday, Russia had had a good performance in the tournament, outclassing Saudi Arabia 5-0 in the opening match of the tournament at Luzhniki Stadium.
Russia went on to beat Egypt 3-1 in their next match. But after Monday’s loss to Luis Suarez’s Uruguay, there was no fanfare that greeted the home team’s drubbing of poor Saudi Arabia and the group’s whipping boys Egypt.
