It will be the first meeting between Russian Federation and New Zealand, the champions of Oceania, in the post-Soviet era.
New Zealand is not a frequent guest of the Confederations Cup.
Russian Federation were dominant throughout the game, and they took the lead in the 31st-minute, as Kiwi defender Michael Boxall credited with an own-goal after a blunder by a fellow defender. I wouldn't say in the past years we have been winning a lot of tournaments, but of course we want to achieve more than we have achieved in the past several years in terms of football.
Soccer fans are eagerly awaiting the FIFA Confederations Russia Cup 2017 kicking off this weekend. ― Reuters picST PETERSBURG, June 16 ― With President Vladimir Putin in attendance and 44,000 tickets sold, tomorrow's Confederations Cup opener will give Russian Federation the chance to show off its preparations for next year's World Cup despite concerns over stadium security and infrastructure. They've been a surprisingly fun team of late, though they lost both of their warm-up friendlies leading up this tournament.
A column by sportswriter Kris Shannon in the New Zealand Herald recently claimed that Russian Federation "did not deserve" to host next year's World Cup, due to its fans' history of misbehavior.
"Fans [must] understand that they will be jeopardising the game by refusing systematically to respect fair play", Samoura said.
"We wanted to play in their half".
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Group A rivals Portugal and Mexico meet in Kazan on Sunday.
"We can play much better and perform much more skilled football than we showed today and we made too many mistakes. He is focused on what needs to be done here, and without a doubt he will have a great tournament".
"It is the first step to the English Premier League now", Cherchesov said in English as he looked across to his also-smiling forward at a news conference.
The result left New Zealand needing at least a draw against Central American heavyweights Mexico in Sochi in four days time to keep their now very slim hopes of advancing to the knockout stages alive. New Zealand's Michael Boxall got a touch on the ball and was credited with an own goal.
A chest-high pass to forward Dmitry Poloz was deftly guided into the path of Denis Glushakov who chipped the ball over onrushing goalkeeper Stefan Marinovic.
New Zealand had its first major chances when Ryan Thomas' powerful effort forced an impressive save from Igor Akinfeev and Smith's header from the resulting corner was hacked off the line by Yuri Zhirkov.
The sporting halfway house that is the Confederations Cup begins this weekend, prompting the same question for football fans around the world.
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