Russia beat Saudi Arabia 5-0 in the first match of the tournament at Moscow's 81,000-seater Luzhniki Stadium. They will face Egypt in St. Petersburg on 19 June and Uruguay on 25 June  in their remaining group stage games.

“[We] should not get carried away [because there are] more important matches are ahead of us. I would lie if I said I expected such a high score, but we wanted to win and make our fans happy. We are very glad. We wanted to score quickly and we did it. We are not that kind of a team that loses their concentration after [winning] the first game,” Samedov said.