The 2018 World Cup hosts, Russia kicked off their campaign tournament with a resounding 5-nil victory over a hapless Saudi Arabian team.

Buoyed by over 78,000 vociferous home crowd led by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin at the Luzhniki Stadium, the Russian team started off on the wrong foot, allowing the Saudi team dominate the field of play for the first five minutes of play.

The home side however broke the deadlock as early as the 12th minute when Yuri Gazinskiy made the most of a goal mouth melee after the Saudi defence failed to clear a Yuri Zhirkov corner kick.

Things seemed not to be going the way of the Russians when twelve minutes later, influential striker and CSKA Moscow forward, Alan Dzagoev pulled a hamstring and was substituted by Villareal’s Denis Cheryshev.

Cherychev was to make his impact felt in the encounter and justify his entry when, with three minutes to the end of the first half, he let go of a thunderous left-footed shot into the roof of the opponent’s net to double the lead.

On resumption of the second half, the Saudi team seemed to be comfortable with just knocking the ball around but that proved to be their undoing when Artem Dzyuba who had just come on for a tired Fedor Smolov made it three for the home side, pulling away from the Saudi captain, Osama Hawsawi to head in a well-time cross from Alexandr Golovin.

Provider turned scorer on the dot of full time. Golovin made it four in the ninetieth minute, firing a screamer past goalkeeper Abdullah Al Muaiouf after leaving three Saudi defenders sprawling in his wake.

Just as the celebrations that followed Golovin’s goal were dying down, Golovin put the icing on the cake with his second goal of the match, curling a free kick from just outside the edge 18 yard box after Taisir Al-Jassim had been booked for tripping him.

With the victory, the Russians now stand a chance of making it past Group A. Other countries in the group are Uruguay and Egypt. Their next match is against the Egyptians on June 19.