Russia – Serbia – 4:0
The friendly match that the Russian national team will play against Serbia was very important and was awaited with great interest. This was not the national team’s first match in 2024. Since its suspension from international competitions in the spring of 2022 following the start of a special military operation, the country’s main team has never played against European teams.
Moreover, the Serbs are one of the strongest and most assertive teams on the continent, with strong players playing in serious clubs in Europe, as well as in clubs in Saudi Arabia, where they left the top teams (they replaced Alexander Mitrovic and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic). Italian Serie A with the best Arab club “Al-Hilal”.
The fans welcomed the match with enthusiasm and filled the VTB Arena. While nearly 24 thousand spectators came to the stadium with a capacity of 25 thousand people during football matches, the fan support was quite intense throughout the match.
Before the start of the meeting, a signing ceremony was held at the stadium with the participation of stars and former players of the national team, Evgeniy Aldonin and Dmitry Sychev. Moreover, famous football players started the event earlier than the specified time.
A moment of silence was observed in the entire arena in memory of Vasily Utkin, who passed away the day before. A video containing some parts of the famous commentator’s reports was shown on the scoreboard, and then a minute of silence was observed.
Already on the field, just before the match, Grigory Leps sang a patriotic song, and Pelageya sang the national anthem of Russia.
As for football, the home team entered the match as an official match with the clear aim of winning. In the first minutes, this led to errors in simple passes, but the opponents also made mistakes and the Russian team tried to seize space and control the ball.
At the same time, the Serbians left Milinkovic-Savic, Mitrovic, Filip Kostic and Lazar Samardzic in reserve and played on a field far from the ideal formation. However, there were also stars among those who took to the field. For example, Dusan Tadic, Andrija Zivkovic and Luka Jovic. Milan’s striker had the visitors’ best chance in the first half, but Matvey Safonov made a superb leap to fire home a killer shot.
By this time the Serbs were already behind in scoring and playing in the minority. In the 21st minute, the Russian team’s excellent attack from the left half-wing ended with captain Alexander Golovin’s transfer to the attacking Daniil Khlusevich.
The Spartak defender jumped out one on one with the goalkeeper, and just before the shot, Milan Gayich, who plays for CSKA’s RPL team, grabbed his opponent’s jersey and prevented him from hitting the goal. The Turkish referee immediately decided on a penalty and issued a red card, but changed his decision to offside when he saw the continuation signal. However, VAR intervened and the penalty decision became final.
Gayich went to the locker room and Anton Miranchuk, approaching the point, shot into the top right corner, leaving no chance for the goalkeeper who guessed the direction of the shot.
Ten minutes passed and Alexander Golovin’s free kick led to a discount by Konstantin Tyukavin and an accurate shot by central defender Maxim Osipenko, who entered the opponent’s penalty area.
Both coaches made changes after the break. The Serbs gradually brought onto the field all the leading players who initially remained on the bench, but Valery Karpin also brought into battle Atalanta’s Alexey Miranchuk, Real Sociedad’s Arsen Zakharyan and other strong football players who started the match on the bench.
The Serbs tried to turn things around, but Safonov was unique in the rare scoring chances that arose for them. The field partners did not disappoint.
Yuri Gorshkov moved up the left flank of the defence, completely tormenting the visitors in his own half, and eventually provided an assist to Alexey Miranchuk, who raised the score to a big point with a touch-in shot and had the crowd cheering. names and surnames.
Finally, Zakharyan, who had recently scored his first goal for Sociedad in the Spanish Championship, took the podium. He first hit the target with a spectacular long-range shot, but at the beginning of this attack it turned out that Gorshkov was slightly offside.
However, the young midfielder did not calm down and still gave an effective performance in a short time. After Zakharyan’s cross, Zenit forward Ivan Sergeev, who came on as a substitute, scored the final score by scoring the ball into the net.
4:0 – The Russian team not only won their first match of the year against a strong and high-status opponent, but also took a measure of revenge on the Serbs from their last defeat in the UEFA Nations League. The score is 0:5 in Belgrade.
Now on March 25, another match will be held at the same stadium with an interesting opponent – the Paraguayan team will fly to Moscow from South America.