Few people will understand: the Russian national team played an indistinct match for the second time in a row

The Russian national football team played a goalless draw with Mali on its own field. This could be considered not the worst result if the African team had played with the main squad, and not as a reserve. Therefore, the final result was a failure and added negativity against the background of a vague victory in the previous game with Nicaragua (3:1).

Trains

Despite not having the highest status, the match in St. Petersburg attracted about 34,000 spectators. Formally, the Africans are not much inferior to Russia in the FIFA ranking. The Malians are on the 54th line, ours — on the 36th.

The match could have turned out to be a very high-quality sparring match, but several players from Mali, competing in the leading European championships, did not come to the game. Tottenham Hotspur defensive midfielder Yves Bissouma, French Lance midfielders Mamadou Sangare and Amadou Aidara, Italian Lecce midfielder Lassana Coulibaly, Fenerbahce Istanbul midfielder Nene Dorgeles, Besiktas Istanbul striker El Bilal Toure — all of them did not come to St. Petersburg.

Nevertheless, this did not prevent the guests from resisting the Russians. The head coach of the Russian national team, Valery Karpin, did not include the goalkeeper of the French PSG, Matvey Safonov, who played the first match in March against Nicaragua. In St. Petersburg, Stanislav Agkatsev, who became the main player in Krasnodar after Safonov left for Paris, turned out to be in the goal against Mali.

Karpin was also unable to use Dynamo Moscow players Daniil Fomin and Konstantin Tyukavin due to injuries. Ilya Vakhania and Viktor Melekhin from Rostov, Alexander Silyanov from Lokomotiv and Danil Krugovoy from CSKA came out defensively from the first minute. The latter's partners formed a trio in the center of midfield — Matvey Kislyak, Dmitry Barinov and Ivan Oblyakov. Maxim Glushenkov from Zenit and Alexander Golovin from Monaco are closer to the attack. Dmitry Vorobyov from Lokomotiv was the only striker.

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The course of the game

At the end of last year, alarming symptoms appeared in the game of the Russian national team. In November, she drew at home with Peru (1-1) and lost to Chile (0-2). Even then, it was noticeable that Karpin's team was having problems with higher-level rivals. But in March, it turned out that she also had problems with teams much lower in level.

At first, the Nicaraguan national team, which is 131st in the FIFA ranking, was barely beaten. Then there were difficulties with the non-core composition of Mali. Oblyakov could have scored twice in the first half, though. At first, he was just unlucky — he shot well into the far corner, but hit the post. And then he missed a penalty, shooting above the goal. After that, until the end of the first half, Russia had the advantage, but created nothing in attack.

And in the second half, it turned out that Mali could respond. Although Golovin scored well at first, the visiting goalkeeper saved his team. And then Agkatsev had to join the game several times when African football players hit his goal well. From the middle of the second half, they began to take advantage more and more clearly. However, neither Mali nor Karpin's team managed to score before the end of the match.

The Russian national team will play its next matches in early June.