World Cup 2018: Why Russia were too strong for dominant Spain

Spain v Russia: Round of 16 - 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia — Russia has certainly surprised everyone with its performance this year.

You can speculate what is going to happen, but upsets happen in sports all the time. - Mel Engelstad

Yes, upsets are bound to happen in sports but these upsets grab more attention when it comes to the FIFA World Cup. As football fans were recovering from the memories of an early German exit and the loss of Argentina and Portugal on the same day, the football fraternity was surprised by the upset caused by the home nation against the top contenders of the tournament.

Yes, it is the Russian squad which has managed to defeat the Spanish giants on penalties. This happened and the crowd in Moscow witnessed it, as their own country managed to reach the quarter-finals of this World Cup.

Russia, who have played an attacking game right throughout the group stage, changed their style of play to defensive and the robust Russians looked resolute and formidable against the La Roja side which was high on confidence. Although Spain got an early lead due to some bizarre defending of Sergei Ignashevich, which resulted in an own goal, the lead did not last too long and Gerard Pique gave away a penalty in very dramatic fashion, which was later converted by Artem Dzyuba, thus bringing Russia back on level terms.

The match between Russia and Spain is proof that dominance does not win an individual a match, rather it is the rate by which an individual can convert a chance into a goal. Spain enjoyed a good amount of possession and their passing was second to none, for which they even created a record of making 1114 passes in a single match. Sadly, that was not enough. Fernando Hierro’s animated decision of substituting Diego Costa for someone like Iago Aspas clearly did not work for the La Roja side.

As the words of the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson go, "Attack wins you games, defence wins you titles”. Russia followed the same principle against Spain.

Despite the fact that Spain created as many chances as Russia has created in all the matches they have played so far, the Russian net seemed to be pretty far away from the Spanish strikers. Russia came up with a pitch-perfect plan of defending the Spanish in numbers. The Russians maintained their shape, marked their assigned men, barely gave any space to the opponents for penetration and cleared the ball as soon as it reached any dangerous area near the 6-yard box.

The only real chance of the game came in the second half of extra time, when a masterclass from Rodrigo helped him penetrate the opposition line but this time the Russian goalkeeper, Igor Akinfeev denied him as well as Spain a chance to seal a victory.

It will be fair to say, that the Russians owe their victory to their captain and goalkeeper, Akinfeev. He was vigilant of his surroundings and denied Koke and Aspas the chance of scoring their respective penalties in the penalty shoot-out.

Although Spain lacked the finishing they needed to win the game, the biggest blunder they did was relying too much on their back line and not showing the urgency of scoring another goal. They went into a defensive zone despite having a lead and allowed Russia a chance to be back into the game. To add insult to injury, Pique’s animated act of putting his hand in the path of the ball was a chance which was good enough for the Russians to make a comeback into the game.

For a team like Russia, it was a big achievement that they were able to pull the match into the penultimate stage of the game, where they had a 50% chance of winning the match. To add the cherry on top of it, the heroics of Akinfeev in Moscow have allowed the Russians to dream of something big, knowing for a fact that they will be facing Croatia in the quarter-finals.

The recent performances and the crowd support of the Russian fans have certainly helped the Russian team this year and the victory over the La Roja side will also become huge confidence booster for the home nation, but the question that comes in everyone’s mind is will it be an inspiring story of the underdogs in the latter stages or will it be the end of the road for the host nation in the next round?

Edited by Martin King