Russia national football team enjoys 4-0 win over Syria at home friendly match

VOLGOGRAD, November 19. /TASS/. The Russian national football squad defeated the Syrian national team 4-0 at home in a friendly match on Tuesday at a stadium in the country’s southern city of Volgograd.
The goals in the match, which was attended by over 35,620 spectators at the stadium, were scored by Maxim Osipenko (33rd and 80th minutes), Ilya Samoshnikov (53rd minute) and Alexey Miranchuk (66th minute).
Last Friday, the Russian national team played a friendly match against the team of Brunei at the 35,000-seat capacity Krasnodar Arena securing the win of 11-0.
Late last month, the press office of the Russian Football Union (RFU) reported that the Russian national football team was set to play a friendly match against the team from Brunei on November 15 before the initially scheduled friendly match against the Syrian national side on November 19.
According to the RFU’s previous statements, friendly football matches between the national teams from Russia, Brunei and Syria this month would be officially registered by the world’s governing body of football, FIFA.
The Russian national football team is currently 34th in the FIFA World Rankings and Syria is 93rd. The last time the two countries played each other was in 1988, when the USSR (the Soviet Union) defeated Syria 2-0 in Damascus.
The International Association Football Federation (FIFA) announced on February 28, 2022 that the Russian national team and all professional clubs representing the country were barred from taking part in FIFA tournaments.
In turn, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) made a similar decision in regard to the Russian national football team’s participation in UEFA tournaments.
Both FIFA and UEFA cited Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as grounds for their respective bans on Russian teams’ participation in competitions.
Since sanctions were introduced, the Russian national football squad has played a host of friendlies against other countries, namely against Kyrgyzstan (2-1), Tajikistan (0-0), Uzbekistan (0-0), Iran (1-1), Iraq (2-0), Cameroon (1-0), Kenya (2-2), Cuba (8-0), Serbia (4-0), Belarus (4-0), Vietnam (3-0), Brunei (11-0) and Syria (4-0).