“The RFU will prepare for this match even better than for Cameroon”: the Russian team will meet the Serbian team in March

The Telegram channel of the Russian national football team officially confirmed the holding of a friendly match with the Serbian national team, which was announced at the end of December. “We are looking forward to a friendly meeting with the brothers,” the message says. The sparring will take place in exactly 50 days, on March 21 at the Dynamo Moscow stadium.

As reported by the RFU, the appropriate permission to hold the match was received from UEFA. “It was the fastest approval in my memory. We sent an application on the morning of December 20, and before the start of the RFU executive committee it was approved for us,” RB Sport quoted the organization’s general secretary Maxim Mitrofanov as saying.

In addition, recently in an interview with The Guardian, UEFA head Aleksander Čeferin also spoke about the friendly match between Russia and Serbia. According to him, there is no problem that young people want to play football, and it is not in the jurisdiction of his organization to prohibit anything.

Moreover, it is planned to invite not only the Serbian national team, but also former players of the national team, as well as the first racket of the world, Novak Djokovic, to the friendly match in the capital. The head of the FTR, Shamil Tarpishchev, personally promised to invite the tennis player to Moscow.

It should be noted that this is the second attempt of the RFU to hold a control match with a team from Europe. The first was undertaken at the end of 2022. Then Valery Karpin's team was preparing to play in St. Petersburg with Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the meeting, also agreed upon with UEFA, ultimately did not take place, as some football players opposed the trip to Russia. In particular, former Juventus and Barcelona midfielder Miralem Pjanic spoke out actively.

This time a similar story should not happen again, since the Serbs are sympathetic to the current political situation, although almost the entire team consists of football players representing the European championships.

“The way Serbia now supports our country, no other country supports it. And I am sure that if someone does not want to come, it will only be one individual person. But in general, there is nothing to be afraid of,” coach Gadzhi Gadzhiev said in a conversation with RT.

The upcoming meeting will certainly be useful for Karpin’s players. In the FIFA rankings, Dragan Stojkovic's team occupies 34th place. The teams met each other six times. These were mainly test matches. However, the last time in the group stage of the Nations League in November 2020, the Russian national team under the leadership of Stanislav Cherchesov lost to the opponent with a score of 0:5. From that composition, the Miranchuk brothers, Daler Kuzyaev, Igor Diveev, Georgy Dzhikia continue to be called up to the national team. Therefore, we can talk about the desire of a number of football players to take revenge for that offensive defeat.

According to former CSKA midfielder Evgeny Aldonin, the upcoming confrontation should be no less interesting for fans than the match with Cameroon.

“Serbia is an excellent opponent, especially since we already had a good opponent in Cameroon, perhaps without superstars, but still. If the Serbs can bring their strongest squad, it will be a very good match for our team and its fans. I would really like this match to serve as an impetus for a return to the European football arena. But only time will tell how everything will be in the future,” Aldonin said.

Speaking about the March match, coach Valery Nepomniachtchi also remembered the sparring with Cameroon. 

“Undoubtedly, the Serbia national team is a tough opponent for us, its players play in serious clubs and leagues. It seems to me that this game will become a kind of holiday. I immediately remember the match against Cameroon, which was very well organized and I believe that the RFU will prepare even better for this meeting,” said RT’s interlocutor.

Also, according to the coach, holding this meeting will help the RFU in the future successfully negotiate matches with the BRICS countries. Currently, according to media reports, negotiations are underway with teams from Latin America.

“Will this match change the attitude towards our football in the world if it is successful? As you rightly noted, there is a political aspect to this. Unfortunately, we are now having difficulty finding opponents, but on the other hand, this meeting should help us with the BRICS countries, to which we are getting closer and closer, as well as with the states of Africa and Latin America,” explained Nepomniachtchi.

At the same time, there was previously a lot of criticism of the RFU for choosing opponents for the Russian national team. Many believed that it was better not to play at all than to face Asian teams. However, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with whom Karpin’s team drew 0:0 at the end of 2022, have already reached the quarter finals in the current Asian Cup.

“Some of the criticism that came to the Russian team for playing in friendly matches with the teams of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan was from people with excessive ambitions. Indeed, football is developing all over the world, and everyone knows it. Personally, my expectations are related to memories from the past. But today all this does not correspond to reality, and an overestimation of one’s own capabilities is obvious. Look at the performances of our teams in European cups when we played there. There were seasons when there was only one victory, relatively speaking,” said Gadzhiev.

And according to Nepomniachtchi, the Russian team is not yet at the level to look down on any teams. 

“Conventional Tajikistan differs in level from Serbia or Cameroon, but it still represents a certain serious force. I’m not even talking about Uzbekistan; they are always ranked in their region. This is the first time Tajiks have reached this stage, for which I sincerely congratulate them!” - added the coach.