Russia defeated the Netherlands 12-1 in a pool A match on Wednesday in the Paralympic Football 7-a-side tournament.
Russian Mamuka Dzimistarishvili came in as a substitute to score one goal in Russia's debut against China. Today, in his return to the starting lineup for Russia, he was the one in charge of opening the scoring with a powerful header in the seventh minute.
Russia proved to be extremely dangerous on set pieces. The first two corner kicks they had ended in goals. After Dzimistarishvili's goal, Pavel Borisov found a loose ball in the area and punished the Dutch with a low shot to make it 2-0 in 12 minutes.
With 15 minutes played, Alexey Chesmin sent a perfect pass to Andrey Kuvaev for Russia's third goal.
Captain Borisov soon added his second goal of the game with an unstoppable rocket from outside the area. It was 4-0 to Russia in only 20 minutes.
Dzimistarishvili made it 5-0 in 24 minutes with a lovely strike to the far post.
Cheered by a noisy crowd, Marijn van de Ven lobbed Russia's goalkeeper, Oleg Smirnov, to put the Netherlands on the scoresheet at the 27th minute. The first half ended 5-1 in Russia's favor.
It only took two minutes for Russia to score after the break. Andrey Kuvaev sent a low shot that found its way under goalkeeper Rudy van Breemen to increase Russia's lead, before Alexey Chesmin made it 7-1.
Substitute Ivan Potekhin, who captained Russia in their match against China, further increased his team's dominance when he made it 8-1 in 42 minutes.
The goals kept coming in for Russia. A perfect pass by Chesmin set Andrey Kuvaev free through the middle for an easy score.
Borisov got his third of the game with a left-footed bullet that was impossible for van Breemen.
Georgy Nadzharyan made it 11-1 and Borisov, with his fourth goal of the match, scored the last goal of this uneven contest.
The CPISRA (Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association) rule 19.3.4 (known as "the 10-goal rule") is in full effect for the Football 7-a-side competition at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games. Therefore, as the rule makes clear: "A maximum number of 10 goals scored will be allowed to be counted for goals scored in any single match."
In this case, the actual score is 12-1 and the match result will be 12-1, but in the competition summary table and pool standings, the result of 10-1 and a goal difference of +9 will be used for the pool and tournament standings calculation.
The spirit of rule 19.3.4 is that of avoiding strong teams to qualify to the latter rounds of the tournament by virtue of goal-difference against a weaker team from the same pool.
Russia, with one foot in the semifinals, will play Brazil in their last preliminary round pool A match on Friday, September 12. Meanwhile, the Netherlands will be the favorites to beat China on that same day.
In the other pool A match, Brazil had no trouble defeating host China 8-0.
The South Americans started off brightly and got their opening goal through Jose Guimaraes at the fifth minute.
Brazil continued to control the ball for the entire first half and a goal from Fabiano Bruzzi made it 2-0 before the break.
The second half was more of the same and Brazil seemed to save energies for upcoming matches.
Marcos Silva, the player who gave Brazil three points against the Netherlands with his goal, added his second of the tournament in 35 minutes.
Wanderson Oliveira got fouled inside the area and he got his reward after all his hard work when he took the penalty kick himself and made it 4-0 in 45 minutes. Immediately after his goal, he was replaced by Irineu Ferreira, who usually plays as a goalkeeper but had his opportunity to act as a forward.
Then Silva scored his second of the match and his third of the tournament, while there was time for Ferreira to score with a header and add a second to his personal account. Bruzzi's second goal of the match sealed the result 8-0 for Brazil.
With this result, Brazil joins Russia in the semifinals. They will play each other on Friday, September 12, to decide the final winner of pool A. China will now face the Netherlands in their last round of preliminary matches. Both teams have no chance to win medals and they will now be hoping to finish as high as possible in the classification playoffs to determine the placing from 5th to 8th positions.
(BOCOG September 10, 2008)