A winning year: what the Russian national team showed following the October meetings

The national football team has completed its second autumn training camp. In October, Valery Karpin's team played two friendly matches, in which they scored two victories: over Iran (2:1) and Bolivia (3:0). The national team has two more matches ahead, in November against representatives of South America: Peru and Chile. The main conclusions based on the results of the last two matches of the Russian national team can be found in the Izvestia article.

Still without defeats

The pleasant tradition called the "win-win series" continues. After defeating Iran and Bolivia, our guys extended their unbeaten streak to 17 matches.

Qatar, Cameroon, Kenya, Cuba, Serbia, Belarus, Vietnam, Brunei, Syria, Grenada, Zambia, Nigeria, Belarus, Jordan, Qatar, Iran and Bolivia again — here it is, the complete list of the national teams that failed to beat the Russian national team after losing to the Egyptian Olympic team (1:2) 11 September 2023. The total score also looks impressive — 62:7. Nevertheless, we will take into account the frankly low level of some of our rivals. But this is not the fault of the Russian national team.

Debutants of the national team

In October, two players made their debut for the Russian national team: Nail Umyarov, a 25-year-old Spartak midfielder, and Mingiyan Beveev, a 29-year-old Baltic outfield defender.

Karpin gave each of them playing time against both Iran and Bolivia. As for Beveyev, he played only three minutes against the Iranians in the end, having to replace Viktor Melekhin due to injury, and was remembered for only one ball removal and participation in one aerial duel for the ball (unsuccessfully). Mingiyan joined the starting line-up for the game against Bolivia and was replaced by Alexander Silyanov after the first half. In 45 minutes, Beveev, as expected, managed to leave more impressions of his game: two successful selections, two takeaways, four positional fights out of seven, one successful martial arts and three fouls.

Umyarov played about the same amount in the October matches as Beveev. But he came on as a substitute both times. In 22 minutes of the game against Iran, Nail made one interception, won one single combat, earned one foul from his opponent, made 78% of accurate passes (7/9) and even shot once on goal. With Bolivia, Umyarov recorded one interception, one return of possession, one foul, as well as 93% of accurate passes (14/15).

Safonov remains the number one goalkeeper.

Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper Matvey Safonov is still the number one option in the national team's goal. It was clear from Matvey's participation in the match with Iran and the captain's armband on his arm.

However, before the game against Bolivia, Karpin announced at a press conference that Safonov had returned to the Paris club. Although I could have played again, given the complete lack of playing practice in France this season. Unfortunately, Safonov's position at the Parisian club has not changed with the departure of Gianluigi Donnarumma to Manchester City and the arrival of Luc Chevalier from Lille. And this season, Matvey has not been given a single chance so far: only Chevalier has played in all the matches so far. So now the national team is, in fact, the only opportunity for Safonov to feel the rhythm of the game.

But if we consider the national team as "the team of the strongest at the moment," then Safonov's challenge does not seem entirely logical in this regard. He doesn't play corny. While three other candidates, Alexander Maksimenko from Spartak, Stanislav Agkatsev from Krasnodar and Denis Adamov from Zenit, play for their clubs on a regular basis and are in good playing condition.

As a result, only Agkatsev played the match against Bolivia in the goal of the Russian national team. But it was quite successful: four saves, two intercepted passes, and most importantly — not a single missed goal and no health problems. Both the national team, Krasnodar, and Stanislav himself can be satisfied.