Why Russia have already won the World Cup this summer

Why Russia have already won the World Cup this summer

It’s fair to say this summer’s World Cup has so far been one of the most entertaining tournaments in footballing history.

From the record-breaking number of own goals and penalties, to all the late drama and upsets we’ve seen along the way, you’d be forgiven for thinking 2018 World Cup was some sort of Hollywood blockbuster.

World Cup’s are always going to be famous for supplying fans with a fairy tail or two, but this summer’s tournament seems to produce unmissable drama with every game that is played, enticing even the most disinterested football fan.


The introduction of VAR has also made for brilliant viewing, and has undoubtedly been a positive step in the right direction in football despite all the controversy surrounding its use.

But whilst we all love watching the best players in the world producing the action on the pitch, it has to be said that Russia have done a brilliant job of showcasing such a fantastic event in such a classy manner and the performances of teams like the hosts themselves, Uruguay, Croatia, France, Belgium and yes even England have been a pleasure to watch.

Russia as an entire nation went into the World Cup this summer with little or no expectation off the back of seven games without a win and being ranked 70th in the world rankings. But it wasn’t just on the field that their international reputation had taken a drubbing though.

President Vladimir Putin clearly set his sights on repairing the world’s perspective of Russia, saying: “People will understand what Russia is when they come here, there are still a lot of stereotypes left over from the past,” before the tournament kicked off two weeks ago. There’s no doubt at all that he has achieved just that.

Football has allowed Russia to showcase eleven of the country’s beautiful cities to the world, demonstrating their colourful architecture as well as their friendly population. Above all, it has been home to a safe and secure tournament which has been relatively incident-free and seen none of the football violence we were all promised.

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Russia’s heroics against Spain last week will go down as one of the highlights of the 2018 World Cup, and it served as a great reminder of how a nation getting behind its team can really make such a huge difference in terms of being the twelfth man – something perhaps the English media should take note of.

As previously mentioned, there was very little excitement for the Russian’s going into the tournament this summer, but regardless of how far they do progress in the World Cup, credit has to be given to them for hosting such a memorable tournament in the fashion in which they have.