World Cup 2018: teams arrive in Russia for final preparations – live!

I trust and expect that on Thursday we will all be able to enjoy Robbie Williams playing the spoons of victory. Perhaps he could rework the lyrics to Road to Mandalay to make it entirely spoons of victory-based. Just an idea, Robbie.

I have just learned something new and important about the World Cup! What I have just learned is that this World Cup has an “official instrument” and this instrument is ... the “spoons of victory”. Yes, “spoons of victory”. They look like this:

And you can hear them in this video. To me they sound less like spoons of victory than spoons of abject humiliation, but each to their own.

It’s about time you learned a bit more about Zabivaka, the tournament mascot. There is a lot more where this came from. I’m still not sure why any of it exists.

ZABIVAKA™ lives and breathes football. Most of his family can’t remember a time when they’ve seen him without a ball. His mum sometimes has to tell him off for playing keepy-uppy under the dinner table while they are eating, but even she knows she’s fighting a losing battle. When we tell you that he sleeps with a football, you can get an idea of just how obsessed he is with the game.

From as far back as he can remember ZABIVAKA™ has dreamed of being a football superstar, and his parents are happy to support him as much as they can so he can achieve his goal but, in the meantime, they are going to make sure he doesn’t fall behind in his schoolwork. Luckily, as well as having the best football skills in Tyumen, he is also a grade A schoolboy, but you better believe the moment his homework is done he will be back outside practising ball skills or watching his favourite players on the television.

I don’t believe I’ve pointed you in the direction of Louise Taylor’s piece on Jordan Pickford. So, here it is:

Hello again! So, further adventures in Russian airports. Here’s something that caught my eye. I have never heard of a “water salute”, though Wikipedia tells me it is a thing. It sounds like something Donald Trump might enjoy.

It’s time to relive a classic moment of World Cup filth, when Benjamin Massing finished off a series of Cameroonian hacks at Argentina players at Italia 90 by scything down Claudo Caniggia like a farmer cutting down grass. And it was just the first of many shocking moments in Italy.

I’ll hand back to Simon now. Bye.

And now to Iran who, in the past week, were informed by Nike that they would not be supplied with boots because of ongoing US sanctions against the country. Carlos Queiroz, Team Melli’s manager, responded thus: “Players get used to their sports equipment, and it’s not right to change them a week before such important matches.” I would have thought players could still wear whatever boots they took with them or nip to the shops in Russia to buy a pair of Nike boots if they really, really want to wear them. Surely, it’s the perfect excuse to wear Puma King or Adidas Copa Mundial to win over a few neutrals. Anyway, I’m sure they won’t be playing barefoot when they face Morocco in their opener.

Hello. Gregg here. While Simon’s digesting Zabivaka’s extraordinary backstory I’ll be keeping you company and pointing you towards other digestible items, one of which is our Tunisia player profile on Wahbi Khazri, a man who was last seen in Britain being booed out of Sunderland after failing to impress David Moyes but is now carrying the hopes of a nation as a makeshift striker after impressing in that position with Rennes.

More, then, about Zabivaka, the World Cup mascot, and his extraordinary backstory. The more information it includes, the more startlingly bonkers it appears.

ZABIVAKA™ is from Tyumen in Siberia, which is about 2500km east of Moscow. He is very proud of his Siberian heritage and has learned all about the history of his region at school. Tyumen was the first Russian settlement in Siberia, and his family can be traced all the way back to its earliest days.

Being a wolf he is happy to play football in all conditions, but the ground can get a bit hard in January when the temperatures can drop as low as -50℃.

Along with all of his friends at school, the environment has become a subject ZABIVAKA™ is very keen to talk about. Part of his job as the Official Mascot for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™ will be to promote environmental projects happening in Russia.

He may be a cheeky little wolf but he also cares deeply about the world. He can’t wait to raise awareness about his family’s habitat when travelling around Russia and throughout the world in the build up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup™.

I’m going to hand over to Gregg Bakowski for a short while, to give me a few moments to digest these latest revelations. Back in a bit!

The Swiss have landed!

Here’s news of a former World Cup winner, Patrick Vieira, who has got himself a new job:

In the last few minutes Tunisia have arrived in Russia. There has been a desperate and disappointing lack of thumbs-aloft action today, but I remain eagle-eyed and optimistic.

Our series of World Cup team guides continues with England:

It’s been a while since we enjoyed some of the World Cup mascot’s dramatic backstory. So here’s more of the official, I-didn’t-make-it-up tale:

ZABIVAKA™ is sociable and clicks with people easily, this is how he gathered a great collection of postcards from around the world: countless relatives and friends helped him with this. As the youngest in a family he is the most loved grandson. He helps his grandparents, who live close by, to clear the snow from their driveway in winter and to take care of their garden in the summer. When he was a little wolf, his mother read him many bedtime stories. ZABIVAKA™ is a big fan of stories by the famous Russian writer Pavel Bazhov*.

* Pavel Bazhov was a Russian writer of fairy stories and a proud possessor of a magnificent beard, which in old age flowed in pure white from his chin towards his navel with reckless abandon, like Russian money to offshore bank accounts.

New-somebody news! It’s perhaps a small step down from being a new Maradona, although we’ve had loads of those, but Nikola Milenkovic is currently being talked about as a new Nemanja Vidic, and for Serbian defenders praise hardly gets any higher. Here’s Reuters:

Serbia defender Nikola Milenkovic knows he has a huge pair of boots to fill if he is to live up to expectations of emulating the accomplishments of compatriot Nemanja Vidic.

Coach Mladen Krstajic said he saw “a new Vidic,” while fans and pundits also heaped praise on Milenkovic after a pair of rock-solid performances in Serbia’s warm-up games ahead of the World Cup in Russia.

The centre back, who broke into Fiorentina’s first team in the second half of the Serie A season after his 2017 move from Partizan Belgrade, impressed in a 1-0 defeat by Chile followed by a 5-1 rout of Bolivia.

“It is magnificent to be compared to the likes of Vidic and I have to stay humble with both feet firmly on the ground ,” Milenkovic told reporters at Belgrade airport prior to the team’s departure for Russia.

“Vidic was one hell of a player while I am in the fledgling stage of my career and hence I have to keep working hard in order to climb that mountain. Krstajic’s praise means so much because it’s an impetus to keep improving.”

The former Serbia and Manchester United captain Vidic made 56 international appearances, having won five Premier League titles and the 2008 Champions League during his eight-year stint at Old Trafford. He retired in 2016 after an injury-plagued two-year spell at Inter Milan.

Milenkovic, who displayed composure, tenacity and sound ball control in the two friendlies, is likely to be picked in the starting line up for Serbia’s opening Group E match against Costa Rica on Sunday.

Important information alert!

The Croatian plane has landed at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo International Airport! No sign of any thumbs, but here are some footballers pretending to be in Reservoir Dogs:

While you’re on your lunch break, or whatever excuse to stop working for a bit is nearest in your part of the world, you could play with our all-time best-ever teamometers!

There are many more to be found here!

“If Brazil are arriving in Russia today, get your photographers ready,” writes Steve Wingrove. “Here in Brazil the thumbs up is pretty much an all encompassing verb ranging from ‘everything’s fine’ to ‘how are you?’ to ‘I’ll take the cheque please’ to ‘we’re a cert to lift the trophy this year as long as Neymar doesn’t get injured in the quarters again’, with masses more in between. This is all finely accompanied by various subtle movements of the eyebrows, forehead wrinkles and mouth. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Brazil had a thumbs-up interpreter travelling with the squad. Anyway, getting to the point, I’m sure your ‘Footballers-at-airports-giving the thums-up’ series will receive a massive boost when the Seleção touches down!”

They have already touched down (see Neymar’s thumbs-sideways, below). Here, though, is a picture of an entire squad’s worth of fully numbered sun loungers at their training base, the Yug Sport Stadium.

The Labour MP Stephen Kinnock has suggested that the England team should wear black armbands during the World Cup in protest at the policies of the Vladimir Putin regime. This, it strikes me, is unlikely. Here’s what he told the Press Association:

The World Cup is a massive propaganda coup for the Kremlin and it should never have gone there in the first place. We are using the beautiful game to launder the reputation of a dangerous authoritarian regime and that poses some major questions. We should think creatively about what we might be able to do to send a message.

The FA pulling out would have been wrong because it would have made it look like a bilateral issue between Russia and the UK. But there are universal human rights norms, universal ways in which countries behave towards each other and Russia is in violation of those norms.

Maybe we should seriously consider wearing a black armband in our first match, or in all our matches, to mark the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the attack on Mr Skripal and his daughter on British territory and the vicious injury to a member of our police force.

It would need to be supported by the FA and they would probably be sanctioned by Fifa, who don’t like any symbolism, but at some point we’ve got to make a decision about the role and responsibility of football in the world.

I suspect every single member of the English football team has more Twitter followers than any politician we have so they can send a really big political signal. They are role models to our young people and I do think this is an issue of our morals, our values and our ethics.

It would great if they were able to say ‘We’re here in Russia now, but what’s happened on the streets of the United Kingdom raises concerns for all of us. An attack on one is an attack on all.’

Bong! It’s World Cup Fiver o’Clock!

And here it is! The latest instalment in our occasional series Footballers in Airports Giving Thumbs-up Signs, starring Nemanja Matic.

Serbia have landed! So far just one photograph has been sent over of the team on the ground in Russia, and as nobody was giving a thumbs up sign I’ll wait for something a little bit more gesticulative.

News just in from the BBC, who seem rather excited to have just added Cesc Fabregas to their team of World Cup analysts. This is copy-and-pasted from their press release:

Fàbregas formed part of the irrepressible Spain team that won the Euros in 2008 and 2012, and is the perfect addition to a stellar line-up of international experts. With 355 caps and 120 goals scored in major tournaments between them, Cesc joins the previously announced World Cup winner Jurgen Klinsmann, twice African player of the year Didier Drogba and 2014 World Cup finalist Pablo Zabaleta.

Philip Bernie, Head of TV Sport said: “We are delighted to welcome Cesc, as he joins our star-studded team of experts in Russia. As a World Cup winner, he knows what it takes to lift the biggest prize in the sport, and we are greatly looking forward to the world class football knowledge and insight he will add to our coverage.”

Time, then, for the second instalment of the official, I-didn’t-make-this-up Zabivaka story!

ZABIVAKA™ practices his skills everyday with his big brother - what he lacks in skill he makes up for in enthusiasm - and best friend from school. Sometimes, when they’re not busy with their other interests, ZABIVAKA™’s brothers and sisters join him for a 5-a-side match. None of them can keep up with him but they all love playing with him and supporting him. It was ZABIVAKA™’s science mad sister who designed his special glasses that help him target the goal with pin-point accuracy. ZABIVAKA™ has relatives in other parts of Russia, and in the summer he travels with the pack to visit his cousins in the Caucasus.

The Ukrainian artist Andriy Yermolenko has created some rather eye-catching alternative posters for this World Cup. I’m not sure any of them are likely to get the thumbs-up from Moscow, but you can still see them here.

This, from Sid Lowe, is excellent:

On the day Amílcar Henríquez was killed he had been playing dominoes in Nuevo Colón, Panama. The assassins waited, using the house opposite his as a base where they planned to gun him down. Witnesses heard 23 shots and police found the stolen red Nissan Versa they drove, an AK47 assault rifle, a 9mm revolver and more than a hundred rounds of ammunition. Henríquez, hit a dozen times, was rushed to hospital, where he died. A second man, Delano Wilson, was also killed. Josimar Gómez was wounded. It was 15 April 2017.

Henríquez was 33, a father of three small children, and his only fear, he had said, was leaving them. He was also a professional footballer for Árabe Unido and the national team, which he represented 85 times. His penalty gave Panama the only title in their history – the 2009 Copa Naciones – and in his last interview, three weeks earlier, he expressed his hopes of reaching a first World Cup.

Read more here:

Here’s a good read from last week that you might have missed, about the only man to play in two World Cup finals for two different countries.

Here’s the Croatia team, boarding a plane earlier today. I’m already excited about the next instalment of our Footballers in Airports Giving Thumbs Up Signs series, it’s going to be a cracker.

That Ronaldo photo has something of the Here’s Johnny! about it, I think.

I’ve had this picture for a while but didn’t know what to do about it. It is, I think, absolutely terrifying.

“Serbia are also on their way,” writes DM on Twitter. “For once it seems like a pretty happy camp!”

In fact, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Mexico, Nigeria, Serbia, Switzerland and Tunisia were all due to arrive in Russia today. Costa Rica, Germany, England, South Korea, Senegal and Sweden will follow tomorrow, with Belgium, Japan and Poland dragging their heels and not expected to turn up until the 13th. Iran were the keenest team, arriving nearly a week ago on 5 June.

Conor Clark emails about Shaqiri. “Well,” he writes, “he needs the leg room.”

Newsflash! Switzerland’s team is on their way to Russia. These pictures show them strapping themselves in at Zurich Airport. It appears that nobody wants to sit next to Xherdan Shaqiri.

Just browsing through Fifa’s ticketing website, and it looks like there’s not a lot left. Most matches have no availability at all, and the only ones which have tickets in all three categories are Japan v Poland and Panama v Tunisia, both on 28 June. Perhaps there’s something good on telly that day?

Panama v Tunisia was always going to be a tough sell, mind. It’s being played at the Mordovia Arena in Saransk, which has an official capacity of 44,442. This is always going to annoy me. Couldn’t they have squeezed just two more seats in?

The first in our occasional series, “footballers in airports giving thumbs up signs”. This is Neymar, whose Brazil team landed in Sochi overnight. It is more of a thumbs sideways than a thumbs up, though that might be an accident.

Here’s an article about Gareth Southgate, as remembered by a couple of old Crystal Palace team-mates:

We all know he’s a ‘nice guy’ but people seem to think that means he’s soft, which is nonsense. He’s not afraid to make difficult decisions. We saw a toughness in him. He was that close to getting the boot at Palace, right on the cusp when it came to turning pro. He had to fight to get where he is now. The reason they kept him on was he was so dedicated, so professional and always thinking.

Want a comprehensive guide? Of course you do.

How will Americans be watching this World Cup?

This is good.

Introducing our new World Cup columnist, Marcel Desailly.

The Zabivaka story, part one!

The following is taken verbatim from Version 6 (the latest iteration) of the official Zabivaka background story. I wasn’t aware that we needed to know how many siblings mascots have. I thought they were just supposed to look cute, to excite children and to sell merchandise. It seems I was wrong. Anyway, here goes!

ZABIVAKA™ is the youngest in a big family of Siberian grey wolves. He lives with his 4 brothers, 5 sisters, mum, dad, aunts, uncles and cousins. All together there are 19 wolves in his pack. His dad is the leader of the pack and the reason why ZABIVAKA™ is so crazy about football. He used to play when he was a youngster, but hung up his boots many years ago; now he’s just a huge fan of the local team, along with his own brothers and sisters and ZABIVAKA of course. It’s safe to say this is one football crazy wolf pack.

To be continued...

Our latest World Cup team guide, launched this very morning, covers England’s first opponents, Tunisia:

By which, just to clarify, I mean: look extremely jubilant, not launch yourself towards me fist-first.

Also today, you can look forward to some of the highlights of the Official Fifa World Cup 2018 portrait session. If you’re not sure how to react to this news, just copy Panama’s Luis Tejada.

Also today, I plan to bring you - in instalments - the full and official story of Zabivaka, “the coolest little grey wolf in Russia”, whose “journey from humble beginnings to 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia Official Mascot” will surprise and enthral. It is nearly 1,400 words long. Here his the once-humble wolf, hanging out with Cafu.

This morning we’ve been given further information on Thursday’s opening ceremony. Here’s what the Press Association is telling us:

Robbie Williams and Russian soprano Aida Garifullina will entertain the crowd at the opening ceremony of the World Cup at the Luzhniki Stadium.

They will be joined by Brazil’s two-time World Cup winner Ronaldo at Thursday’s show, which will be held just 30 minutes before the kick-off to the first match between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“I’m so happy and excited to be going back to Russia for such a unique performance,” Williams said.

“I’ve done a lot in my career, and opening the FIFA World Cup to 80,000 football fans in the stadium and many millions all over the world is a boyhood dream.”

The underlying theme of celebrating not only football but also the host country will be represented by a performance from Garifullina.

“I never imagined I would be part of this huge celebration, the World Cup, happening in my own country,” the soloist from the Vienna State Opera said.

“The image that I will be presenting to the whole world will be very symbolic and associated with a dream coming to life.

“And, on 15 July, we will find out for whom this precious dream will come true, back on the same stage, after a month-long festival of football in Russia.”

Ronaldo was part of the triumphant Brazil squad at the 1994 World Cup, albeit he did not feature, and then claimed the Golden Boot with eight goals as he led his nation to the trophy eight years later.

The 41-year-old looks back fondly on past World Cup curtain-raisers and is relishing being involved at Russia 2018.

“The opening match is always a very symbolic one - it is that instant when you realise that the big moment you, as a player or fan, have been waiting for for four years has finally arrived,” he said.

“Of course it is also an emotional one for the hosts. After so much hard work, suddenly the whole world is gathered in your backyard to celebrate their love for football.

“I felt that in Brazil four years ago and I am now happy to share this excitement with the Russians as well.”

Here, as promised, is Grödig’s coat of arms. It appears to be a monkey vomiting blue lasers out of its mouth.