One thing, but: the Russian national team lost to Egypt with a minimum score

The players of the Russian national team were defeated in an away friendly match against Egypt. On the evening of May 28, Valery Karpin's team finished the match in Cairo with a score of 0:1. It was one of the rare chances to test themselves against a participant in the upcoming 2026 World Cup.

Why did Egypt replace the stadium

The Russian Football Union has long been trying to get a sparring match with one of the participants of the World Cup. It was not possible for a long time, as most of them completed their qualifying rounds late, and closer to June, many had to fly overseas in advance in order to adapt to the time zones of the USA, Canada and Mexico, where the World Cup will be held.

That is why Egypt agreed to play Russia at home at the end of May, rather than at the beginning of June, when summer friendly matches usually take place. Shortly before the meeting date, the hosts changed the stadium where the game was to be played. Initially, the teams were supposed to meet at the Misr stadium with a capacity of almost 94 thousand spectators. As a result, the match was moved to the 75,000-seat Cairo International Stadium.

— Three days before the game, the stadium was changed, and this is not a very pleasant situation for us," head coach of the Russian national team Valery Karpin said at a press conference. — Not because we like one and don't like the other, but from a logistical point of view. Because we chose a hotel that was closer to the field where we were supposed to play. It took 15-20 minutes to get there, and it took us 53 minutes to get here. It was changed allegedly because it was not very convenient for fans to get to that stadium.

At the same time, Karpin positively assessed the condition of the lawn in the arena to which the match was postponed. For Egypt, this game was the beginning of preparations for the World Cup. The team will play its first match of the tournament on June 15 in Seattle against Belgium. In the same place, the Egyptians will have the match of the last round of the group stage against Iran on June 26. And between these two games, there will be a meeting with New Zealand in Vancouver on June 21.

One of the intrigues was the situation with Mohamed Salah, the captain of the Egyptian national team and a long-time star of the English Liverpool. He is training with his national team, but he was not included in the application for the match against Russia and was not even in the reserve. As practice has shown, even without him, Egypt is too tough for Russia.

How was the match

Due to injuries, midfielders Alexander Golovin, Lechi Sadulaev, Danil Prutsev and defender Maxim Osipenko could not play, who did not come to the training camp at all. Striker Konstantin Tyukavin, whom the coaching staff expects to use in the June matches, also missed the game in Cairo.

The first half passed with almost no sharpness at the gates of both teams. Goalkeepers rarely entered the game. The goalkeeper of the Egyptians rested almost all the time, and our Stanislav Agkatsev entered the game with standards at his own goal, but they did not pose a direct threat to him.

Against the background of the evening heat, the speeds were also not the highest. Therefore, the 50,000 spectators who came to the game had to hope that they would get a real show after the break.

At the beginning of the second half, everything continued the same way. At the end of the hour, Karpin made a triple substitution, releasing Dmitry Barinov and Ivan Oblyakov in the middle of the field instead of Alexey Miranchuk and Alexey Batrakov, and Viktor Melekhin entered the center of defense instead of Igor Diveev, the captain of the team in this game.

While Russia was rebuilding, Egypt took advantage of the confusion and opened the scoring in the 65th minute - Mostafa Abdelraouf headed the ball into the goal after a cross from the right flank. Our guys tried to pick up the pace and ran to recoup. Karpin made a few more substitutions, but it didn't help.

Egypt was closer to another goal — in the last minutes of the game, the guests were saved twice by Agkatsev, who first deflected a dangerous free kick, and then prevented him from hitting the goal from finishing. The score remained 1-0.

Now, at this training camp, we have two more matches at home. On June 5, they will play against Burkina Faso in Volgograd. On June 9, they will meet with Trinidad and Tobago in Kaliningrad.