As far as warm-ups go, the Confederations Cup has been a case of good and bad news for Russia.
The good news is that the tournament — a trial run for the 2018 World Cup, showcasing four of Russia’s host cities — has gone off pretty much without a hitch.
No hooliganism or inappropriate fan gestures during games have been reported, and the matches themselves have been exciting enough to pique viewers’ interest, not least because of world governing body FIFA’s testing of video assistant referee (VAR) technology
The bad news is that the Russian football team didn’t set the world on fire before getting knocked out at the group stage.
The Russians started out with a promising 2-0 victory over New Zealand — with prolific striker Fyodor Smolov netting once — before losing 1-0 to Portugal and 2-1 to Mexico.
Russia’s less than stellar peformance at the Confederations Cup follows the team’s underwhelming impact at last year’s Euros, when it failed to win a match and sustained a 3-0 loss to Wales.
‘We’ll support anybody else’
The losses haven’t hindered the local enthusiasm for football or the tournament says Dimitry Zanin, a reporter for public Russian sports channel Match TV. Locals tend to simply hop on board the bandwagon of the most enthusiastic visiting supporters.
“We were absolutely ready for the Russian team to lose,” Zanin told CNN Sport’s Amanda Davies. “We say it’s OK for us, because it (has been) like this five or six tournaments (in a row).
“We lose in the group stage, and we say ‘OK, we’ll support anybody else.'”
Zanin was in Kazan on Wednesday to watch the thrilling semifinal between Chile and Portugal.
The match went to penalties, with Chilean keeper Claudio Bravo saving all three Portuguese attempts from the spot to lift his team to the final. The second semifinal will be played Thursday between Mexico and 2014 World Cup winners Germany.
“The Chilean people come to Kazan, and they have a really great party every day in the center of the city,” says Zanin.
“A lot of people from the boarder of the city came to the center, and they are (having) fun together; it’s like a family.”
