Russia meets Algeria Thursday in a key Group H matchup action at Arena Da Baixada in Curitiba, Brazil. This game should be a barn burner as both team are technically alive for a shot at moving into the knockout round of sixteen. Algeria can earn a ticket with a victory or tie with Russia. Russia simply needs a victory over Algeria and they are in to the round of 16.
Russia has not seen a trip to the knockout round since 1986 and should Algeria qualify, it would be Algeria’s first trip into the next round of play in its countries history.
Algeria is coming into the match riding high after a 4-2 thumping of South Korea which was certainly the result they needed after their opening loss 2-1 to Belgium.
Algeria is led by Forward Islam Skimani who played well in the South Korea match scoring one and goal and assisting on another.
Russia on the other hand is probably better than their record indicates as the team has shown is has the fire power to win. In this match, Russian Head Coach Fabian Capello may opt to utilize forward Alexander Kerzhakov who has been underutilized in the tourney getting approximately 20 minutes of total playtime as starting Forward Aleksandr Kokorin has not impressed thus far.
The game is set to kick off at 4:00 PM EST at the Arena da Baixada in Curitiba. It can be seen on ESPN 2 and Univision. For those of you who will be at work and won’t be able to get to a TV, WatchESPN will be streaming all live games directly from here and if you prefer to live stream the game in Spanish, you can enjoy that broadcast here. Enjoy the final Group H match.
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