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#3 Russia
Russia were one of the surprise packages at the World Cup. Everyone, including the nation’s media, expected them to go out in the group stage. However, they made it all the way to the quarter finals, beating Spain on penalties along the way. The test for them now is to build on this impressive World Cup performance, and take it into the Nations League and European Championships in 2020.
They only played one Nations League game, and that came against Turkey last week. They won that 2-1, with goals coming from Artem Dzyuba and Denis Cheryshev. Their second game was a 5-1 hammering of the Czech Republic in a friendly. Aleksei Ionov scored twice, with the other goals coming from Anton Zabolotny, Aleksandr Yerokhin and Dmitry Poloz. They will hope to continue this form when the next international break comes around in October.
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