Russia "demobilized" | Stuff.co.nz

SKY SPORT

The Russians danced, drank and celebrated their national football team for three delirious and dreamlike weeks.

Now it's time to get back to reality.

Russia entered the World Cup without having won a match in the tournament since 2002 and with the lowest ranking of the 32 teams, but suddenly the host nation could not stop winning.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt were swept in group stage. Spain, the 2010 champion, was stopped and beaten on penalties in the round of 16. Only Croatia, after another penalty shoot-out in the quarter-finals on Saturday, managed to get the Russians out of their own tournament.

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Since the opening match, nearly a month ago, Moscow was passing almost without sleep as fans danced all at night in the streets near the Kremlin, where police normally dispersed unauthorized gatherings by force. They drank while they were celebrating by singing songs and taking pictures with fans from other countries.

After being eliminated from the tournament, Russia coach Stanislav Cherchesov summed up the success of his team with military metaphors.

"We feel like soldiers enlisted in the army," he said.

"Today, we have been demobilized but I would have liked to continue to serve and fight, as is the case when the demobilization will disappoint you. We would have liked to serve our homeland on July 15, 19459098 but we did not manage to do it. "

Russian striker Artyom Dzyuba often spoke of "fairy tale", and fans responded with a giant banner for the game of Spain inviting them to "make the fairy tale".

It ended on Saturday (Sunday NZT), barely, when Russia lost the shootout in Croatia 4-3.

Many of the team members were impressive during the tournament, however, and could now claim significantly improved salaries, including Dzyuba, creative midfielder Alexander Golovin and alternate Mario Fernandes.

Russia is a country with a huge potential in football, with a national network of academies and big budget clubs fueled by the government's money. But this rarely translates into success on the ground and opportunities have been missed.

The last time Russia made such a good tournament at a major tournament, that is when it reached the semi-finals of the 2008 European Championship. The team has not gone beyond the group stage of any tournament for the next decade.

Players like Andrei Arshavin and Roman Pavlyuchenko have struggled to apply their obvious talent in the biggest leagues of Europe.

Denis Cheryshev was Russia's biggest star at this year's World Cup with four goals in five games. The winger of Villarreal warned against complacency.

"With what we have achieved now, we can not take a step back," Cheryshev said.

"We must go forward and I believe that we believed in our strength and in ourselves: the country believed in us and as a whole united we achieved good results but we can not stop here and we have to keep going over. "

Eventually, Russia beat Spain by playing an ultra-defensive football more suited to a small European country like Iceland. Against Croatia, a country of 144 million inhabitants was the outsider of a country of 4 million inhabitants.

If this will change, Russian football may need to be reformed – maybe more players have signed up with foreign clubs like Cheryshev, sharing their knowledge and experience from abroad.

"Today, we lost but it happened, nothing terrible," Cheryshev said. "The team gave everything it had to the cause and we can sleep soundly tonight."

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly watched the match with a Kremlin report later saying he was "proud" of the team.
[19659994] "[Putin] watched, he was rooted for the team, we lost in a fair and fantastic game, they are still great guys for us, they are heroes, they died on the ground, We are proud of them, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly said.

  

    

– AP

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