The World Cup opened earlier today in Russia.
In the opening match, Russia kept up with the tradition of the host country not losing the opener. Usually, the host nation wins their match, although in the 21 previous World Cups, the host team has won 16 times, and there have been 6 draws (remember that Japan and South Korea shared the World Cup 2002, making for two games apiece). Russia kept that tradition alive today, and boy, they made sure that there was hardly any suspense in the matter, at that, cruising to a convincing, and seemingly all too easy 5-0 thrashing of Saudi Arabia!
It marked the second most lopsided opening match to a World Cup in history, behind Italy's 7-1 destruction of the United States back in the 1934 World Cup.
Russia's Yury Gazinsky opened the scoring in the 12th minute, giving Russia an early lead.
Denis Cheryshev scored in the 43rd minute, giving Russia a convincing 2-0 lead for halftime.
Artem Dzyuba scored in the 71st minute, and then Russia scored yet two more goals in extra time, with Cheryshev scoring in the first minute of extra time, and then Aleksandr Golovin scoring in the 4th minute of extra time to close out the scoring, for the final margin of 5-0.
A huge win for Russia, who I believe are on their way to at least the second round, and quite possibly could make some real noise in this tournament. They looked damn good today, better than I thought they would look.
Not sure that they are going to contend with the top contenders for the title, but what a win for Russia today! It was the best start that the host country could imagine!
This will be a welcome break for the next month or so. I tend to gravitate towards writing about politics, and obviously, that has been dominated by Donald Trump ever since he won the 2016 election. Of course, I will surely write about him again, and cannot promise not to write about him at all during this World Cup, although I will welcome it as a source of much needed relief from the grim political realities of this age.
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