Russia, who knocked out the 2010 World Cup winners Spain from this summer's tournament in the Round of 16, are now playing Croatia in Sochi.

“Our guys already did half of the job. And if they beat Croatia… Of course I am proud of this team! If we played openly against Spain we would’ve ended up with three or four [goals against us]… But the match turned out like a “Four Square” game – the opponents were in possession but couldn’t get to our goal,” Simonyan told journalists.

He also wished the team to achieve good results and to play with “discipline" and "give it all to the game.”