2018 World Cup: 45 things we learned in Russia – from Lenin to Leo Messi

After more than a month in Russia, the Independent Sport team is ready to return from the World Cup.

It was a journey of discovery for our brave boys traveling to different host cities and everything in between.

So we asked them to send some things that they had picked up along the way – observations, thoughts and learnings.

It should be noted that they are light and are not necessarily considered academic conclusions: [19659005] 1) The World Cup: in fact, very good

The best pictures of the Coupe du World

Before the tournament, I always wondered the pinnacle of the game. In terms of standard, I maintain that the best games in the Champions League still prevail. At times of last season, Manchester City played a more complex and sophisticated football style than anything we saw in Russia. But in terms of size, scale, scope and drama, its ability to unite nations and build bridges, its ability to thrill hearts and focus billions of eyes on an event , the World Cup is still unrivaled

We have rediscovered – certainly in England – how big tournaments can change the way a nation sees itself. The world cups are so important these days that it's not an exaggeration to describe them as potential turning points in the history and psyche of a country. The triumph of Brazil between 1958 and 1970 marked their passage into the era of world power. The hosting of the tournament by Germany in 2006 allowed him to recover a submerged patriotism that had remained latent since the Second World War. And the butterfly effects of the amazing triumph of Croatia / race to the finals [DELETE AS APPROPRIATE] on a small country of only four million dollars can not be guessed. Jonathan Liew

2) International football: agree, you can stay

Meanwhile, the international game emerges from this wild success of a tournament with some rejuvenation. Naturally, the club game will resume its primacy in due course. But the Uefa Nations League, despite its ridiculously Byzantine format, is at least better than two years of unguarded friendly matches and dismal qualifying campaigns.

Next summer will see the Africa Cup of Nations, the Copa America and the Concacaf Gold Cup

After two decades when international football seemed to stagnate, in recession, maybe even in danger he finally seems to be in the right direction. JL

3) Teamwork is still a largely underestimated concept in football

Great players go well, but if you try to pick winners, give us a good team every day of the week. Spain, Argentina and Germany were all outclassed despite strong domestic recruits who ultimately derailed their campaign.

England produced its best performance despite a team considered the weakest in a generation. Teamwork has helped Belgium, Croatia, Sweden and Japan to surpass both their size and the pedigree of previous tournaments. The team spirit is the great intangible: you can not measure it or map it, and it does not always appear until the most important moments. And that's why these tournaments will always be an absolute pain to predict. JL

4) No matter where you are, some things stay the same

Eat at Red Square McDonalds is unfortunately a bit like eating at any other McDonalds.

Mark Critchley

5) The Russians love dill. I love, really like dill

At first, it's a vague memory – what is it that that this flavor?

You already have it, you do not know where. Oh yeah, dill, the kind of thing they do on salmon once in a while or whatever but not really a staple. It's not up there with your obvious and everyday herbs; your parsley, your corianders, your mints, your chives.

Except in Russia where it is used on any dish without any foresight or concern. Dill dill dill dill absolutely absolutely any dill dill dill dill dill please some one get me a good curry i can not take more of that stuff.

Ed Malyon

6) The Russian tap water tastes like blood

You're not supposed to drink it, but occasionally when you shower or you're Brush your teeth, take a sip, and it tastes extremely sinister. And you complain about the hard water you get in Balham. JL

7) Russian sparkling water has a sewer taste

Yessentuki alkaline saline waters – bottled and available in all good Russian mini-marcs – are a taste acquired.

You can buy it thinking it will be like Perrier but very mineralized and while they are very proud of it, it tastes … special. That said, it's possible to end up loving the bouquet that comes with such a high concentration of boric acid. MC, EM

8) Do not define a people by its politicians.

They really love Vladimir Putin in Russia: you can buy T-shirts with his face at each subway station. But without wanting to go to Collymore – and you never have to "go full" to Collymore – there is a big difference between the obnoxious, delinquent, judo-grappling, horse, Paul Whitehouse in the Kremlin, and the people that He presides

Almost everywhere you go, the Russians are cordial, hospitable, generous and funny. Maybe it was just the forced kindness of the World Cup, but I do not think so.

The couple we had apartment in Volgograd who offered to drive us to the airport and would not hear of payment – at five in the morning! – did not do it for the greater benefit of Mother Russia. They were really very nice. It was the month when Russia and the world collided head-on and decided that they were not so bad after all. JL

9) The smiles are sincere, obviously

Upon his arrival in Russia, it became clear that the general population – especially those in Moscow – was very aware of the perceptions abroad and eager to put on the best face possible. Literally

There were smiles everywhere, and people often went out of their way to help you. MD

10) The language barrier is real …

I have traveled to countries with alternative character systems like Japan, India, and Thailand, but in all these countries there was much more basic English.

Of all the places where I have been, Russia has the biggest language barrier I have ever known. At the end of my stay, I became familiar with the alphabet, so I knew what the words would look like, but even the most basic conversations were embarrassing and it's still a painful and embarrassing experience to work in a situation like that in another country where you feel so stupid and / or ignorant.

Fortunately, most Russians were very understanding and could deal with people who were pointing at menus and wincing slightly, while Google Translate could have had a bigger tournament than any other app on the planet but it was difficult to overcome. Difficult not to imagine that the language barrier prevents you from digging more than superficially into Russian culture. EM

11) … but a little effort goes a long way

No matter how frustrating or difficult the conversation is, the Russians will always laugh if you do the same. effort to finish with this word that you know definitely: "spasiba" – "thank you". MD

12) The menus of Russian restaurants show the weight of the food next to the price

I am still working on this point.

Maybe you'll get a better idea over time, but does anyone really have any idea of ​​the amount of 180g beef tartare? While we are eating, the main course portions are of an unacceptable size. That has not stopped me from putting a stone since I came out here, of course. JL

13) You will have to take your food when it comes

Many Russian restaurants have menus in the usual configuration, but if you have "starters" as input, or their food at the same time is often the luck of the pot.

The service industry of Russia is … different.

Just ride with her. MD

14) Russia has too many big stadiums now

Good luck at FC Baltika Kaliningrad but they will have a difficult future to try to complete the impressive Kaliningrad stadium, where the l? England and Belgium played their strange reserve team at the end of the group stage.

Baltika is only a second division team, but they will now settle in the isolated white elephant, a stadium that seems already displaced in this unusual port city. , and will be even more so now that the World Cup has unfolded out of the city. The oligarch who built the stadium, Ziyavudin Magomedov, has already been arrested for embezzlement, which only adds to the strange sensation around the new pitch.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

15) Basically, most people do not trust what they see. Basically, most people do not care

Has the 2018 World Cup been repaired? There have certainly been some upward performances during the group stage. The Independent's legal department reads this with a good comb, so we'll leave it there. Was the draw rigged, as Michel Platini finally admitted to France 98? Was there doping? FIFA has declared the World Cup totally clean, so we should probably just believe it, even though there were many teams, players and officials with a well-documented doping history or convictions in their lockers

. all this ruin your pleasure? Of course not. JL

16) No price for style in group stage

The easiest way in international football is to park the bus.

Managers do not have a lot of time with their players why not just teach them how to dig, be patient and wait for breaks? It works for Iran, Portugal and Sweden. That's why it's so admirable – but also so difficult – that teams like Peru and Morocco are trying to throw everything on their opponents from the better organized group stage.

Both teams played exciting things. None of them came out of their groups. JPB

17) Latin Americans make the World Cup what they are

The best thing I could live outside of the World Cup was the sight from Nikolskaya Ulitsa, a pedestrian-only main street in Moscow, on the opening weekend of the tournament.

Hundreds of thousands of fans from all walks of life had come down to the capital before going further to support their team, and that meant a carnival of colors and songs that I'd never had really planned in Russia. These first two days may have been even better than Copacabana during the 2014 tournament because, exceptionally for Russia, the police stood firm and let the fans do what they wanted while the Brazilians were much more restrictive.

And the incredible atmosphere in Russia was 99% for Latin Americans, who traveled in remarkable numbers when Europeans were fleeing a World Cup on their doorstep. Argentinian fans are always outstanding, Peru came in droves, Panama has pioneered the outings of the happiest groups, Brazil and Colombia have filled the streets with canary yellow and l '. Uruguay went further than the others. For them, it's the pinnacle, and while Europe dominates the field, the off-field winner is Conmebol and its constituent nations, without which it would have been a quiet month. EM

18) Russian crowds look at football a little differently from us

The Russians formed a significant part of the crowd at virtually every match, punctuating the atmosphere of their songs "ROSS -I-YA! " invariably knock around the mark for 10 minutes. But it was only during the Russian games that you really appreciated their design of the game. They applauded every time Russia had the ball, even though it was by its own flag, and yet resterait étrangement subjugué chaque fois qu'Igor Akinfeev faisait un bon arrêt ou qu'un de ses défenseurs faisait un bon bloc.

Il y eut un silence quasi total lorsqu'une décision litigieuse fut prise contre eux, à l'opposé du crachat et du crissement qui en résulte normalement. Dans l'ensemble, c'était agréablement étrange. Là encore, les fans anglais font leur noix quand ils gagnent un corner, alors peut-être que tout le monde a ses faiblesses. JL

18b) Beaucoup de supporters russes semblaient être des joueurs à temps partiel

La foule des matches russes ne semblait pas toujours la plus étudiée dans le football, l'esprit.

des occasions où leurs réactions ne correspondraient pas à ce qui se passait sur le terrain, lorsqu'une passe inoccupée à 50 verges du but serait traitée comme une balle dévastatrice. Plus que tout, c'était ennuyant quand vous écriviez et soudainement pensé que vous alliez manquer quelque chose de grand passe – non, juste une longue balle qui est sorti pour un lancer. MD

19) Les commentateurs russes sont aussi très excités d'une façon très mignonne à propos de très petites choses.

Je ne comprends pas beaucoup le russe, mais pour la plupart les commentateurs , bon à reconnaître les joueurs, et bien documenté ("Phil Jones, quelque chose de quelque chose, Blackburn Rovers" a été un point culminant particulier pendant le match de l'Angleterre contre la Belgique). Il y avait juste une chose vraiment curieuse à leur sujet. Chaque fois que le ballon allait à proximité de la surface de réparation, généralement par le biais d'une croix, il devenait mental. "Udacha!" Criaient-ils, signifiant "Chance!", À un volume frénétique qui dépasserait souvent tout coup de feu.

Pour les Russes, le potentiel d'une chance l'emporte sur le coup émotionnel de la chance elle-même. Peut-être y a-t-il un parallèle plus large à y faire, avec la Russie en tant que nation, un peuple résigné à des résultats décevants, et donc lié au désir de ce qui pourrait être. Mais c'est probablement un non-sens. JL

19b) Les commentateurs russes ne comprennent pas le football

Si tu regardes assez de foot à la télévision, tu sauras que l'intonation des commentateurs devrait être proportionnelle à l'objectif-menace d'un moment donné

Regarder des parties en Russie, cependant, et vous obtenez des jappements d'excitation chaque fois que la balle passe à mi-chemin. Même quand il y a cinq hommes de retour et peu de chance d'un tir au but. Si vous regardez à moitié un jeu en faisant autre chose, les appels constants à l'attention prennent un peu de temps pour s'y habituer. JPB

20) Les taxis à Moscou ont deux vitesses; trafic et 100mph

Moscou a étonnamment mauvaise circulation, probablement le pire que j'ai jamais vu en dehors de Sao Paulo. Cela conduit à deux choses: 1) beaucoup de temps passé dans les embouteillages alors que le métro aurait été beaucoup plus rapide, 2) quand ils ne sont pas coincés dans la circulation, les taxis tentent de compenser ce temps en conduisant aussi vite que possible malgré l'absence de ceintures de sécurité ou l'utilisation des rétroviseurs.

Il était également fréquent que votre chauffeur de taxi s'assure qu'il ne s'ennuierait pas en regardant la télévision en conduisant, en envoyant des textos ou en chantant du karaoké. Des trucs normaux. EM

21) La conduite est toujours une chevauchée sauvage

Les instructeurs de conduite russes disent sans doute à leurs étudiants: «Miroir, signal – ouais vas-y, regarde ce qui se passe dans le groupe de discussion, ne vous inquiétez pas, nous essayons seulement de dépasser en faisant 80 mph sur l'autoroute – OK, maintenant vous pouvez manoeuvrer. "

trucs létaux. MC

22) Sunrise and sunset are virtually the same thing

It's fairly obvious stuff but when you get this far north and it's the height of summer, the sun goes down at around midnight and is back up by 2am. It means that getting a proper sleep is almost impossible if, for example, you have see-through curtains that don't fully close.

Of all the things purchased in Russia, an eye-mask might have been the one that most improved my time there! I have no idea how Jack coped as far north as Repino. EM

23) They still really like Lenin here

Normally when a regime is overthrown, all its iconography goes with it.

In Russia, however, the glorification of the Communist era has remained largely intact. Moscow toppled a few statues in the early 1990s, but many have since been re-erected, and thousands of giant Lenins still stand proudly all over the country: a sign of Russia’s growing detente with its Soviet past, verging almost on romanticisation. Even Stalin is being rehabilitated: in Volgograd, where England played their opening group game, there is a significant body of public opinion agitating to restore the city’s former name of Stalingrad.

As for big Vlad himself, he remains pickled in a mausoleum in Red Square, where he’s spent the last month lying inert for the delectation of tourists in the shadow of adverts for Budweiser, Visa and Hyundai. It’s… what he would have wanted? JL

24) Lenin's brush with Coca-Cola joy

Outside the Luzhniki Stadium, but within the FIFA FanFest, there is one of Moscow’s many impressive statues of Vladimir Lenin, gazing hopefully into the distance. He rises about the ‘Official Fan Shop’, sponsored by Adidas. To his left are huge advertising stands for Hyundai, Gazprom, Coca Cola, Budweiser and the rest of the World Cup’s official partners.

101 years on from the revolution, it is probably not what he expected. JPB

25) Do not have a nosebleed in a World Cup mixed zone

Unless you want to repulse members of the international media, the helpful but very distressed local volunteers and talkSPORT’s ‘Moose’. MC

26) Russia could make football hooliganism go away if it wanted to. Maybe they don’t want to

If they managed it for a month, why not forever?

Months in advance of the World Cup, the country’s various football hooligan firms all received a terse warning from the security services, promising severe consequences if they turned up and spoiled everyone’s fun. Banning orders and curfews were issued; pre-emptive arrests were made; they’re a little less dainty about civil liberties here, you may have noticed. But it worked: there wasn’t a lick of football-related violence at any of the 12 venues.

What happens now, of course, is anybody’s guess. The ultras haven’t gone away. They’re just waiting it out. JL

27) Europe’s dominance is no longer a blip

All four semi-finalists; a fourth consecutive European winner; a combined record of 21 wins and eight defeats against non-European sides: as the game’s centre of gravity shifts ever more inexorably towards its birthplace, Europe’s dominance is becoming a big problem.

It’s not that the rest of the world aren’t improving; it’s just that the European sides are improving so much faster, with their industrial talent production lines, their greater resources, their concentration of coaching expertise and sports science, the best players coming up against the best players every fortnight. And yet when the World Cup increases to 48 teams, Europe’s representation by percentage will drop further.

It’s a problem with no easy fix, no short-term solution, one that requires both massive and sustained investment in the developing world and a sea change in attitudes. You may as well try to re-melt the polar ice. JL

28) Yuri Gagarin is ubiquitous

The first time I saw Yuri Gagarin’s face on a t-shirt selling football souvenirs or club merchandise, I wondered if he was a fan of the team in the question.

But when he is on football t-shirts and scarves across the whole country, I belatedly realised the symbolic power he still has all over Russia.

Gagarin was first cosmonaut, the first man into space in 1961, just before the Americans. He still represents Russian innovation and superiority better than anyone else has done since. No wonder sport and wider society are still so keen to co-opt him. JPB

29) Nizhny Novgorod: your next city break!

There was something to love in each of the host cities I visited: Volgograd with its giant military boner and its incredible Second World War museum, Kazan with its majestic mosque overlooking the imposing Volga River, Samara with its Irish pub and easy access to the airport (I wasn’t there long). But by far the most surprising of the lot was Nizhny Novgorod, right in the centre of European Russia. With its winding streets, expansive piazzas and unspoilt architecture, it’s got a vaguely Adriatic feel. There’s a lovely river beach, a thriving craft beer scene and the metro stations have chandeliers in them. Go, go, go. JL

30) Kazan: the place you never thought you'd go but loved nonetheless

As you career through the streets of Kazan you realise that this is a place you never, ever thought you'd visit but you're glad you did.

It is a culturally distinct place to the rest of Russia, a predominantly Muslim city that serves as the capital of Tatarstan. Putin has done a good job of keeping the Tatars from pushing for independence by pumping money into the region and allowing them to have their local culture on show, and 'the cooking pot' is a roasting city of fascinating architecture and a belting new stadium.

It is also a city that will go down as the graveyard of champions; with Brazil, Germany and Argentina – winners of 11 World Cups between them – all being eliminated at the Kazan Arena. EM

31)  Zenit (and St Petersburg's) European feel

Spend any time in St Petersburg and you get a sense of the huge potential of Zenit St Petersburg, who should be one of Europe’s top clubs.

Owned by Gazprom, who have built the Gazprom Tower, Europe’s tallest building, they will inherit the futuristic St Petersburg stadium, which is as good as any in Europe. Those resources, and their location, make them the most European-facing of Russia’s clubs, and they have been able to attract top European players and coaches, in the same way that St Petersburg itself was largely built by French and Italian architects.

They should be the club of the future. And yet, the constraints of the struggling Russian league mean they are not as good as they should be. JPB

32) Russian – a beautiful and complex language that takes years to truly master – could really use an indefinite article

“Bottle water, please.”

“One?”

“Yes, one. Do you guys do this all the time?” JL

33) Wi-fi and mobile networks put UK's backwards infrastructure to shame

Russia’s public Wi-Fi/4G coverage is absolutely great and at least a few thousand lightyears ahead of the creaking network in our own country. MC

34) Moscow's metro is outstanding

The stations are vast and impressive, the carriages are largely new and spacious, the wi-fi is free, the plugs and USB charging points are plentiful, the air conditioning actually works, the trains are early and frequent.

I mean, it might not always be like that but Moscow's metro ran like clockwork during the World Cup and put many of its international rivals (I'm looking at you, New York) to shame. EM

35) All Russian Uber drivers seem to have a rating of 4.2 stars

I don’t know if this is because Russian Uber drivers are particularly haphazard, or Russian Uber users are particularly demanding. But apart from the odd driver trying to watch videos on his phone while hurtling down the motorway at 90kph, no complaints. JL

36) Russian airport process is a little different

Russian airport security doesn't really care so much for the liquid allowance, or whether you'll take your Kindle out.

You will, however, almost certainly be asked to turn on laptops and phones to demonstrate that they are, in fact, laptops and phones. That applies to security checks everywhere, including stadiums. MD

37) You can shop with more… variety

You can buy air rifles in the supermarkets in Russia. And why wouldn’t you? Also add knives, axes and any manner of slightly alarming-looking items behind the glass. MC

38) Turns out, Lionel Messi didn’t need an international trophy after all

You hear really learned, respectable people saying that Messi needs to win something at international level in order to… well, what? Why? How would Messi winning the World Cup with Argentina tell us anything that we didn’t already know? Would it make him retrospectively better at football? And by the same token, would Messi be a worse footballer if for some reason he ended his career without the World Cup? It’s nonsense.

Football is a team game, sometimes your team-mates are idiots, sometimes your coach is a buffoon, and sometimes the bounce of the ball just goes against you.

It was a mixture of all three here, as a collective loss of identity, conviction and composure saw Argentina scrape into the second round and then drubbed by France. It happens. It’s football. That so many people seemingly need Messi to win a World Cup says more about our need for narrative completism than it ever said about his gifts as a footballer. JL

39) Argentina face the unknown without Messi

Who knows what now for Argentina.

There's a chance that, shorn of the need to feature Messi, they could become a better team in the mould of a post-Zlatan Sweden.

There's also a chance their utterly inept federation and broken youth system sees a drying up of talent presided over by sub-standard coaches and devoid of organisation or planning. 

All we know for now is that the future will not involve Jorge Sampaoli , who for all his horrors during this tournament might actually have been the best coach to take this team forward. EM

40) Maradona will never change

Diego Maradona was the LOLZ ROFL LMAO star of the opening few games, his wild celebrations and remonstrations becoming viral catnip for social media's mindless aggregators. 

But then it was the racially-insensitive gestures, the collapse that was caused by too much of the white stuff (wine, that is) and the angry criticism of the refereeing in England vs Colombia. As someone who now has an official Fifa role, that was a bit of a no-no and we soon discovered that much of this craziness may even have been put-on (perish the thought!) for an upcoming biopic. 

Those who know El Diez well have said that few people can control him and the few who can most often are those who control his access to cash. Those included Adam Lewis of Bwin, who recently tamed Maradona for an advertising campaign centred around the tournament, and Gianni Infantino was considered among that number until Maradona's ref rant – which is also why Diego eventually apologised for those comments. EM

41) Neymar's enigma remains

Watching Neymar play for Brazil, he looks like a man trapped on an emotional rollercoaster. But it is a rollercoaster he has built for himself.

It is not enough for him for Brazil to win, he must be the man to win the game himself. Hence him breaking down in tears after the 2-0 win over Costa Rica, when he was denied the chance to score the opening goal when a penalty decision was overturned by VAR. Then he had to suffer the indignity of seeing Philippe Coutinho open the scoring instead, his own added-time goal meaning nothing to the broader context. It speaks of a similar attitude to leaving Barcelona two years after winning the Champions League to join a Paris Saint Germain side who have never come close.

It makes you wonder how much the team aspect of the game matters to the most gifted player of his generation. JPB

42) We live in the era of the big No9

You weren’t anybody at this World Cup unless you had one.

Olivier Giroud, Mario Mandzukic, Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku, Artem Dzyuba and Edinson Cavani all made their mark on the tournament in various ways, and proved their worth not simply in weight of goals but in their defensive work and the space they created for team-mates. At this slightly less sophisticated level of the game, there’s nothing like a strapping No9 to snuffle you a goal when you most need it, and teams like Germany and (to a lesser extent) Brazil suffered from their lack of a firing No9.

Germany’s lack of cutting edge was particularly noteworthy, to the extent that it cast their previous success in a subtly new light. Maybe the key to their golden era wasn’t Philipp Lahm or Manuel Neuer or Bastian Schweinsteiger all along. Maybe it was Miroslav Klose. JL

43) VAR may actually not be a total disaster

There were controversies and there were human errors, but no glaring foul-ups, and best of all it was pretty quick.

Still plenty of kinks to be ironed out – most notably making sure people actually have some idea what’s going on – but the VAR-inspired meltdown many foresaw overshadowing the tournament failed, mercifully, to come to pass. JL

44) Russia is bigger even than you think

This shouldn't be something that's obvious, but doesn't become obvious until, well… the obviousness is made apparent.

It's the vastness of the landscape. It's not something you properly notice until you're flying out of somewhere like Rostov, and just see expanses of fields for as far as the horizon goes.

Little wonder cities of around 1m people stretch out so much. MD

45) Anybody who tells you that you need two days to see the Hermitage Museum is having you on

The St Petersburg landmark is a terrific museum, for sure, but it could use some curation.

First of all: you can’t see everything. It’s just too impossibly vast for that. But here’s the other thing: you actually don’t want to see everything. You don’t even want to see most of it.

There’s too much stuff, and most of it is all the same stuff you see in galleries all over the world, but ten times more of it.

So triage: head straight for the Italian Renaissance stuff, then the Dutch section – Rubens, van Dyck, Bosch – give the Rembrandt room a bit of time, then the Spanish bits, and then that’s pretty much all you need in terms of paintings.

Things to swerve: the whole of Antiquities, anything German, anything French (it’s all pre-Revolution and therefore exceptionally dull), anything British and in fact most of everything else.

But make sure you do check out the Peacock Clock, the last surviving automaton from the 18th century, a wonderfully elaborate mechanical masterpiece that they wind up every Wednesday evening. I ended up missing the entire second half of Germany v South Korea in order to queue up for it. But it was the right decision. JL.

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