The Russian national soccer team defeated an Iraq team coached by Spain's Jesus Casas with a 2-0 win in their first home match since the start of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.

The team coached by Valeri Karpin had not played on Russian soil since it crushed Cyprus in November 2021 in the qualifiers for the World Cup in Qatar (6-0), which it did not play in the end because it was excluded by FIFA.

The Russians, who hosted their opponents at the spectacular Gazprom Arena in St. Petersburg, were unable to break down the modest Iraqi team in the first half, in which the Arabs were even better.

The two goals came after the break. First, Anton Miranchuk took advantage of a rebound from the goalkeeper and then Sergey Pinyaev scored the second from a solo move.

The home team's starting 11 featured hardly any big names, with the exception of CSKA's Ivan Obliakov and Spartak Moscow's Aleksandr Sobolev.

Karpin had already announced that he would make changes to the team that drew 1-1 in Iran this week, where he was without his main stars, Aleksandr Golovin (Monaco) and Alexei Miranchuk (Torino), as well as his captain Georgi Dzhikiya.

In view of the poor results, Karpin said he was ready to resign if the Russian Football Union so decided, although he argued that the main reason for the poor performance of his players was mainly psychological.

Faced with international ostracism and a lack of opponents to play against, the Russians played a friendly match in September 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (1-2) and in November they played to a goalless draw in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

For all these reasons, the Russian Football Union (RFU) is considering leaving UEFA and playing in Asia, a proposal that has sparked a heated domestic debate.

The UFR fears that the exclusion of their national team will also prevent him from participating, in addition to the European Championship in Germany, in the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, which will be played in the USA, Mexico and Canada.

Karpin, who recently renewed his contract as head coach until 2024, supported the idea that Zenit's Brazilians Malcom and Claudinho, who recently received Russian passports, could play for the Russian national team.