Hosts Russia managed to reach the quarter-finals for the first time since the end of the Soviet era, producing their best result at a FIFA World Cup so far, but bowed out of the tournament on Saturday after losing to Croatia on penalties.

"As Russia have dropped out of the fight for the world champions title, most viewers [of the Russia-Croatia match] consider France to be the main favorites to win the tournament, as 27 percent said that they were sure of France's victory. Every fifth viewer thinks that England will win, 15 percent think that Belgium will win, and 14 percent believe in Croatia's victory," the pollster said in a statement.

The tournament in Russia is the first World Cup where video assistant referee system (VAR) is being used to help match officials avoid possible mistakes by reviewing video replays of game episodes.

Mediascope reported that 84 percent of the viewers of the quarter-final match between Russia and Croatia said that the introduction of VAR had made the referring more objective, 41 percent said that VAR had contributed to matches' dragging out due to long time taken to review controversial incidents, while 37 percent did not notice any influence that VAR had exerted.

The survey was conducted among respondents aged four and older and living in cities with a population of over 100,000 people.

Russia's first-ever FIFA World Cup will come to an end on Sunday, with the final set to be played at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.