Fortune smiles upon Russia at World Cup 2014 draw

The FIFA World Cup 2014 draw took place in Brazil. The Russian national team ended up in Group H alongside Belgium, South Korea and Algeria. The majority of experts believe that luck favored Russians and it has real chances to advance from its group,according to Voice of Russia.

Initially, all the teams were divided into four pots and during the ceremony people famous in the soccer world pulled balls from them. The ball which read Russia happened to be the last in the pot – the 32nd . The second to the last was Portugal – a Russian group opponent. As a result, Portuguese turned out to be in the same group with Germany, Ghana and US. Evgeny Lovchev, a famous soccer analyst, made a joke saying that “they simply forgot about us at the World Cup draw”. Both Lovchev and the majority of soccer analysts believe that luck smiled upon Russians. Alexander Mostovoy, a former Russian national team player who spent many years playing for Spanish and French soccer teams, comments on the outcome of the draw:

“I think we were lucky. Russia seems to be a favorite in our group, in my opinion. Then Belgium, South Korea and Algeria go. On the other hand, we have scores of examples when teams believed to be outsiders defeated favorites. But surely, if Argentina, Brazil or Germany were our opponents it would have been much worse. And now it’s perfect.”

According to many experts, the most difficult groups are Group A (Brazil, Mexico, Cameroon, Croatia), Group B (Spain, the Netherlands, Chile, Australia) and probably the strongest one with three World Champions – Group D (Uruguay, Italy, England, Costa Rica).

France also got lucky as it wound up in Group E with Switzerland, Ecuador and Honduras. The coach staff and players are openly saying they want their capability to be tested in matches with strong teams but these matches would better take place as late as possible – in a quarter-final, semi-final or final. Everyone was willing to get weaker contenders at the group stage. Artyom Dzuba, one of the candidates to the Russian national team and the Russian Premier League’s top scorer, agrees that fortune smiled upon us and is convinced there will be no problems with motivation for Russian players:

“I think there could be problems with anything but motivation because we don’t go to World Cups that often. Besides, for many players this tournament will be the first and for some – last. So we can’t underestimate our contenders as all of them pose a threat. A team doesn’t get to play in such tournaments by chance.”

The Russian national team’s head coach, Fabio Capello, also says there are no weak teams at the World Cup and each one of them, including Russia’s group opponents, is rather strong.

“There are no easy groups here. All of them are playing at the highest level. The Belgian team is very strong, one of the strongest in Europe, I should say. We played with South Korea in Dubai and it also didn’t seem to be weak.”

Group H, where Russia ended up, surprisingly resembles the one in which Russia was at its last World Cup held in Korea and Japan in 2002. Back then, the team headed by Oleg Romantsev played against Belgium, Japan and Tunisia (geographical neighbors of its current opponents – Korea and Algeria). The Russian team failed to advance of its group at that time. We are to find out what is going to happen this time on June 27, after a match between Algeria and Russia.