Russia Delivers A Finals To Remember

As much as possible in a world of human fallibility, a World Cup approached through a dark cloud of derision and suspicion proved a success for the Russian organisers, for embattled FIFA and, above all, for the game itself.

- Keir Radnedge

The World Cup can no longer claim to represent football’s highest standard – the Champions League knockout stage overthrew those pretensions long ago – but the 2018 finals presented entertainment, excitement and drama at a relentless pace, both in the group stage and in the knockout rounds.

Maybe the finals produced no great team and no event-seizing individual but there was a cascading cast of personalities to enliven proceedings, from the emergent Kylian Mbappe to the tormented Neymar and the understated Gareth Southgate.

Then there was Vladimir Putin. The Russian president is not a football fan and after fulfilling diplomatic courtesies at the opening match he was not seen again at any of Russia’s games. And yet his shadow hung over the event through its staging.

Soon after coming into power Putin had recognised the value of sport as a way of “humanising” the international image of a country once described by Winston Churchill as a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

Hence the project created with then-sports minister Vitaly Mutko which meant staging the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, a Formula One Grand Prix and a host of other international championships, with the World Cup set to be the crowning glory. Except it did not work out quite like that.

For a long time Russia escaped scrutiny, but as the finals hove into view so did the issues of critical vulnerability. Some were political, such as the annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, along with support for President Assad in the bloody war in Syria. This provoked international sanctions and a fall in the value of the rouble, which meant cost-cutting and the first reports of stadium construction corruption.