The Saudi principle: how the Russian youth team played against the Arabian team
The players of the Russian youth national team completed their September training camp with a 3-1 victory over the Saudi youth team, recovering from a 0-2 defeat by the same team at the end of last week. In these two matches, which took place in Khimki, the coaching staff of the Russians checked a wide range of young players, some of whom are already playing in the main teams of the RPL clubs, and some of whom have made themselves known to the general public only as part of the youth national team.
Personnel structure
This year, a number of players who had recently played for the youth team made their debut for the Russian national team. First of all, we are talking about three CSKA players. 20-year-old midfielder Matvey Kislyak has been consistently playing in the main squad of the army and the main national team. He already won the Russian Cup with the club last season, being one of the leaders of the team, and scored the first goal for the national team in a recent match with Qatar (4-1).
Kirill Glebov, another red-blue midfielder, became a solid CSKA player last summer. And he played his first match for the national team last week against Jordan (0-0). And for the third soldier, defender Matvey Lukin, the match against Qatar became his debut in the national team.
All these players regularly played for the youth national team in 2023-2024. Most of their teammates on that team still make up its current backbone. Many of them are already gradually gaining a foothold at the RPL level. Defender Ilya Rozhkov has been playing at the base of Rubin Kazan for the third season. Midfielder Igor Dmitriev is gradually making his way to the base of Spartak Moscow, and last season he performed well on loan at Krylia Sovetov Samara. There, a year earlier, midfielder Nikita Saltykov made his debut in the Premier League, who has not yet been able to break into the main squad of Moscow's Lokomotiv, but few doubt his talent.
Striker Vadim Rakov, leased by Krylia from Loko, became the main star of Samara at the beginning of this season, whose goals and assists have already brought a lot of points to the team. Another midfielder, Danila Kozlov, was one of the leaders of the Kaliningrad Baltic in the RPL the season before last. A year ago, his transfer to Krasnodar became one of the main transfers of the summer. Kozlov has not yet managed to gain a foothold in the southern club, but he has already become the champion of Russia with the team and is expected to become a key player in the event of Eduard Spertsyan's departure to Europe.
Midfielder Dmitry Vasiliev gradually began to approach Zenit's base, and as a result of his loan to Sochi for the current season, he constantly has playing time. Defender Maxim Shnaptsev has started playing regularly in the starting line-up of Pari Nizhny Novgorod this season. The rest of the guys are either in the immediate reserve of the RPL teams, or in leading positions in the first league clubs.
"We have a good team, many guys have constant practice at a high level, so we show good football in many games," Ilya Kirsh, defender of Novorossiysk Chernomorets, which plays in the first league, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — In general, we have achieved a positive result in the sum of two matches against Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, we lost the first game, in which a lot of things didn't work out in terms of realizing our moments. As a result, we ended up with a crumpled game. In the second match, we relaxed, showed our best football, and played more decisively in attack. And it brought victory.
Matches
Over the past two years, the Russian youth national team (U-21), which includes players under the age of 21, has played many friendly matches with bright rivals. Due to the suspension from official competitions, the RFU organized four trips to South America for our team. Twice (in the fall of 2023 and 2024), Ivan Shabarov's wards toured Brazil with teams from academies of local clubs. In the spring of 2024, there was a series of matches in Uruguay with teams from club academies, as well as the country's youth national team, which had won the World Cup at its age a year earlier. Finally, in the spring of this year, there were away matches with Colombian teams.
Now we have played twice against Saudi Arabia, which has brought a U-23 team — no older than 23 years old. Both matches were held in Khimki at the old Rodina stadium. This facility with a capacity of 5,000 spectators once hosted the home matches of the local club of the same name.
In the first match, which took place on Friday, Daniil Motorin, who plays in the first league for KAMAZ from Naberezhnye Chelny, scored a quick goal against the guests. But after half an hour, the Saudis equalized, and towards the end of the meeting they came out ahead and won.
On Monday, in the second match, our team looked more confident. Konstantin Dorofeev and Matvey Bordachev scored goals in the first half. After the break, Igor Dmitriev brought the matter to a rout, but in the remaining time the opponent was able to win back one goal.
"It's a shame that we lost in the first match to a team that played hit-and-run and didn't really show anything special, but beat us,— Maxim Shnaptsev told Izvestia. — That's why I wanted to take revenge in the second meeting. She was very determined not to give her opponent a single chance. We came out charged and motivated. It's good that we won two matches on aggregate. We would have been stronger in some Champions League play-off.
The next friendly matches of the Russian national team are scheduled to take place in October.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
