Last Syria: how the Russian national team played its final match of the year

Russian national team players won at home against Syria. The match in Volgograd ended with a score of 4:0 in favor of Valery Karpin's wards. Thus, our national team has completed the calendar year 2024. The next match it will play no earlier than the end of March.

High excitement

For the second year in a row, the Russian Football Union (RFU) brings the Russian national team to Volgograd. In November 2023, it played there against one of its weakest rivals, Cuba, which it defeated 8-0. This time, the local crowd saw a much stronger team.

In January, Syria managed to perform well at the Asian Cup in Qatar, where they got out of the group, and in the 1/8 finals after a 1-1 draw in regulation and extra time only in a penalty shootout lost 3:5 to Iran, one of the strongest teams in the Asian Football Confederation. It was obvious that the match would be more intriguing than the meeting with Brunei four days earlier.

In Krasnodar, Russia defeated Brunei 11-0 for the biggest win in their history. Many criticized the RFU for even negotiating the match with the local federation. The soccer community throughout the fall in a harsh form questioned the expediency of matches with such rivals as Vietnam (4:0), Brunei, as well as picking up sparring in the face of Thailand and Pakistan, which even broke down for various reasons.

Most players and head coach Valery Karpin noted that the Russian national team should play against other countries' national teams, if there is such an opportunity.

"The national team has to play with the national team."

Defender Danil Krugovoy - about the defeat of Brunei, expediency of matches with weak national teams and wishes for next year's opponents

Due to the fact that this fall most of the national teams are playing in the UEFA Nations League, as in the case of the Europeans, or already in full swing qualifying for the World Cup - 2026, as in the case of the Americas, Africa and Asia, it was initially clear that the choice of sparring for this period in the RFU is small.

Only in Asia, some national teams have already been released, as their format of several group stages implies the departure of some teams already by the fall of 2024. But these are very weak national teams like Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and Brunei. Given these circumstances, Syria's arrival in Volgograd was a great success for Russia.

This team is located in the top 100 of the FIFA rankings - in 93rd place. In fact, it was the strongest of all the teams Russia faced this fall or could have faced. Therefore, the excitement in the stands was expected. Moreover, Volgograd is famous for its high attendance: a year ago the game with Cuba was attended by more than 42 thousand spectators.

And the local soccer club Rotor is one of the most attended in the country, despite the fact that since the opening of the Volgograd Arena for the 2018 World Cup, it has played only one season in the RPL - 2020/2021. The rest of the time, Rotor only played in the first and second leagues. At the same time, in 2023, the club's home matches in Volgograd were attended by an average of 14 thousand people. In the current season of the first league, according to data as of September, the average attendance was 19 thousand spectators.

Not surprisingly, the Russian national team's match against Syria was attended by about 38-39 thousand people. In this sense, the RFU could be pleased with the excitement around the November matches - even the much-criticized game against Brunei in Krasnodar was attended by more than 26 thousand people.

New defeat

The match was held on November 19, the 82nd anniversary of the beginning of the Red Army counteroffensive at Stalingrad. In honor of those events in 1942, the stadium was renamed "Stalingrad Arena" for one day.

The fans' banner in the stands during the match was particularly memorable, demanding the return to the national team of Akron striker Artem Dzyuba, who has been in conflict with Valeri Karpin for many years and was left out of the national team after his refusal to be called up in the fall of 2021 during the qualifying for the World Cup - 2022. After the suspension of the national team from official competitions, Karpin proclaimed that no field players over the age of 30 would be called up.

Even so, the coach is often asked whether Dzyuba, 36, can be called up, especially as he is close to the record for goals for the national team: he and Aleksandr Kerzhakov have 30 goals each. While Karpin explains that he is not called up to the national team to set records.

In the match itself played almost all the players who had no practice in the game with Brunei. If there Ilya Lantratov and Stanislav Agkatsev spent a half in goal, then against Syria the whole meeting was defended by Alexander Maksimenko. David Volk, the debutant of the national team, goalkeeper of Dynamo Makhachkala, stayed in the reserve and did not take the field.

Almost the entire first half Russia had a total advantage - both in terms of ball possession and chances. But for a long time the ball did not go into the visitors' goal. In the 9th minute, Daniil Fomin successfully crossed to the far post, but Ilya Samoshnikov, who was there all alone, missed the ball. 10 minutes later, he hit the bar, and after Konstantin Tyukavin's shot, the ball flew over the goal.

But in the end Samoshnikov was rewarded for his activity. In the 33rd minute Ilya started a goal combination, in his trademark style far throwing the ball out of touch. After the rebound it ended up with Fomin, who gave a pass to Maxim Osipenko, who accurately hit into the corner of the Syrian goal.

"The Brunei match has to be treated as responsibly as the others"

Vitaly Kafanov, goalkeepers coach of the Russian national team, talks about the biggest victory of the national team, the meeting with one of the weakest opponents and the performance of the goalkeepers

Sergei Pinyaev went one-on-one with the opposing goalkeeper, but the visitors' goalkeeper managed to deflect the shot. And towards the end of the half Alexey Batrakov and the same Pinyaev once repeated the unfortunate episode of the beginning of the match with Samoshnikov, when in excellent positions could shoot at the Syrian goal, but did not hit the ball.

At the beginning of the second half, the intrigue died completely when after Alexei Miranchuk's pass Samoshnikov tried to make a cross from the right flank, but the ball sliced off his foot and hit the Syrian goalkeeper who had not expected such a development. After 15 minutes, Miranchuk himself brought the game to a rout. The guests could close the gap in the score in the 75th minute, but hit the bar. And in the 81st minute our team were awarded a penalty. It was realized by Osipenko, who made a double in this match.

- The whole team played well," Russian midfielder Andrei Mostovoi told Izvestia. - Personally, it's hard for me to evaluate my game, because I played a little, I came out only for the last 15 minutes, which were not the best in our performance, if you take the whole game. But we are satisfied with the way we finished this training camp. The main thing is that everyone went through it without injuries. We won both matches, especially pleased that we won so dramatically in the game with such a strong opponent as Syria. We scored four goals and created a lot of chances. I think that we performed well in front of the fans, who were very much in the stands. Thank them very much for their support.

The Russian national team finished the year 2024. It played six matches and won all of them without conceding a single goal. In addition to the three fall successes, there were also two 4-0 defeats - Serbia in Moscow in March and Belarus in Minsk in June. The total score of those matches was 26-0 in Russia's favor. In addition to disrupting matches against Thailand and Pakistan, also in March Russia had to cancel its Moscow match against Paraguay because of a terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall three days before the match.

Those victories help Russia maintain its high place in the FIFA rankings. As of October, it was ranked 34th; it will be updated at the end of the month based on the results of the November matches. In the event that such positions are maintained by the time the Russian national team is unseeded, it will be able to participate in high baskets in the draw for selection for the World Cup or European Championship.

However, the day before the game with Syria it became known that Russia will not be included in the December draw for the World Cup-2026, so its return to the international arena is again postponed.

The Russian youth national team has also completed the year for itself. Our team of players under 21 years old (U-21) went on tour to Brazil, where they beat the youth teams of Fluminense (U-21), Botafogo (U-23) and adult team São Cristovan.