Russians impress as Dubai sees robust opening day

Dubai: Switzerland, Italy, Russia, Solomon Islands and Ivory Coast started their campaign on a winning note on the opening day of the 2009 Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup at the Umm Suqueim Beach in Jumeirah yesterday.

Switzerland made a perfect debut with a fighting 6-5 win against Bahrain, while Italy relied on overtime to sneak past Argentina 3-2 on the main stadium. The side pitch registered identical 7-6 scores with the Solomon Islands and Ivory Coast emerging on top against Uruguay and El Salvador respectively.

Domination

Russia came across as the most impressive team on opening day as they dominated and thrashed a hapless Costa Rica which are also making their World Cup debut, 5-1.

Yury Krasheninnikov opened the scoring midway through the first period to give Russia the lead and Anton Shkarin doubled the lead in the tenth minute for that early comfort.

Skipper Ilya Leonov connected a well-taken corner kick to make it 3-0 and Dmitry Shishin literally sealed the match when he toed in from close. Rustam Shakhmelyan hammered in the fifth early in the third period even as Delbert Cameron got a consolation goal from the penalty spot for the outplayed Costa Ricans.

Russian coach Nikolay Pisarev was pleased with his team's performance.

"We play compact and allow very little mistakes to be made especially in the defence," Pisarev admitted.

"Our strengths lie in our discipline and organisation in the defence and these are qualities that we are looking forward to make it to the next stage of this competition," Pisarev added.

The Russian coach further stated that he is not relying on any big names to take his team through.

"We are a team and we play to our strengths. We do not have any stars, just players who are willing to give off their best on the pitch," the coach added.

Russian player Egor Shaykov admitted he was surprised with such a big win in their opening match. "I knew we would win, but never thought that it would be so huge. Costa Rica is a good team and they will improve as the tournament goes on," Shaykov stated.

Costa Rican skipper Jose Calvo blamed bad luck as for their loss.

"We had the chances, but we did not score from these. The Russians got their chances and they managed to score. They played very close and compact and then when it comes to attacking they just go for the goal and that makes the difference," Calvo said.

Brazil reign against hapless Nigeria

The Brazilians are mighty and they had this of display with a fluent 11-5 victory against a hapless Nigeria in the final match of the opening day at the 2009 Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup being played at the Umm Suqueim Beach in Jumeirah.

The Brazilians, who have won the last three World Cups on the trot, were matched early in the game by the Africans as they stayed tied 2-2. But Brazil stepped up a gear and went on a scoring spree in the second period to show their full potential for a well-deserved result in the end.

Earlier, hosts UAE made a strong start only to falter in the third period and go down 5-7 to mighty Portugal, thanks to a brilliant hattrick from two-time Golden Boot winner Madjer.

The biggest upset of the opening day was Japan’s tie-breaker upset win against European champions Spain.