The defeat against Egypt in the first match of the main round made it very difficult for the Russian national team to fight for the playoffs of the World Cup.
Velimir Petkovic's wards have lost the right to make a mistake in a couple of the remaining matches.
In the first of them, the Russians were awaited by the team of North Macedonia.
The Macedonians got to the world championship only because of the setback that befell the Czech national team - they stayed at home due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Although the Balkans were ready for this and held a training camp before the tournament, they almost dropped out of the fight immediately after the first group stage.
Only a victory over the main outsiders - the Chileans - allowed the European team to continue their performances.
However, she then lost to Slovenia and lost her chances of reaching the playoffs.
The match between Russia and North Macedonia began with a penalty kick, which was earned by Alexander Ermakov, and implemented by Sergey Mark Kosorotov.
Soon, the 21-year-old athlete himself doubled the score, and Daniil Shishkarev brought to mind a quick attack after losing his rivals.
Those for a long time could not print out the gate of Igor Kireev - the goalkeeper acted incredibly reliably and reflected three goals in a row, before the Balkans still scored the first goal in the seventh minute.
Igor Soroka showed himself excellently among the Russians on the left.
Of the next four goals of the national team, he scored half, taking advantage of unexpected passes to the corner.
Kosorotov helped to earn the other two goals.
The first one turned out to be funny - the ball crashed into the Macedonian block, but still planned towards the goal, where the goalkeeper, even in such a situation, did not help the team.
Note that the Russians were in the minority at that time.
In the next attack, Kosorotov brought the ball to Shishkarev so that he would throw, standing with his back to the goal.
The second goal of the Macedonians occurred in the 14th minute - the situation on the court was already dragging on the definition of "defeat".
Opponents could not break through Kireev in any way, and sometimes they were simply unlucky - the ball flew into the post.
To give credit to the protection of the Russians: with a well-coordinated work they covered even very large linemen of the Macedonian national team.
In addition, the Balkans sometimes themselves lost the ball in the attack, which Soroka took full advantage of.
In the middle of the first half, he scored twice in a row after rapid jerks to the goal of others.
In the 18th minute, the Macedonians had to take a time-out - they had only three goals in their assets.
After a pause, the Balkans gradually began to catch up with the Russians, but some attacks ended in Kireev's spectacular saves, and not goals against him.
In the last ten minutes, Soroka scored once - after a quick pass and from the left corner of the site.
And then the gap was brought to ten goals by substitute Azat Valiulin, who, being 207 cm tall, was supposed to help in defense, but instead scored the first two goals in the World Cup.
The first half remained for the Russian national team - 19: 9.
Kireev reflected seven of 16 shots in half an hour.
After the break, the teams seemed to have changed places.
Now for the Russians the ball did not go on target for a long time.
Kosorotov did not even convert the penalty: hitting Martin Tomovski in the face, he received a red card instead of a goal.
Fortunately, the Macedonians did not actively use the confusion of the Russians.
Dmitry Pavlenko, who replaced Kireev, managed to reflect the ball both after the seven-meter throw and from the game.
By the eighth minute, when Dmitry Kiselev still scored the 20th goal for Petkovic's guys, the Macedonians scored only three times.
The Balkans continued to play successful attacks, despite the fact that at some point, due to two deletions, they fought in a significant numerical minority.
However, at the equator of the half, the Russians again seized the initiative.
Fast attacks performed by Roman Ostaschenko and Dmitry Kornev returned the double-digit difference in the score.
For a long time, Alexander Kotov tried to distinguish himself, but only on the sixth attempt he scored the first goal.
Towards the end of the meeting, there was another change in the Russian national team in the goalkeeper position - Pavlenko gave way to Stanislav Tretynko.
He entered the game superbly, making three saves in a row and conceding only from the penalty spot.
The Russians have scored three times during this time.
The final siren recorded the score 32:20 - the victory was the largest for the team at the Egyptian World Championship.
Now Petkovic's wards need to succeed in Sunday's match with Sweden.
Only such a result will allow the team to reach the quarterfinals and for the first time since 2013 break into the top eight teams in the world.