FIFA World Cup 2018: 3 Reasons why Russia lost 3-0 to Uruguay

#2 Poor set-pieces and crosses

Artem Dzyuba cut a lonely, frustrated figure for most of the game

Even before going down to ten men, and in the absence of Golovin, Artem Dzyuba's power and aerial ability were always going to be Russia's big weapons in this game.

But they barely fed him well enough, as they fluffed crosses from both wings. Aleksandr Samedov was the chief culprit, as he had several opportunities from set-pieces to test an Uruguayan defence sans Jose Maria Gimenez, but every single one of his set-pieces was overhit, and even a man as big as Dzyuba had no chance to attack those.

Diego Godin is generally a defender who wouldn't let his kids score in a backyard kick-about, so he was never going to be in the mood to back down today.

The physical battle between him and Dzyuba was absorbing for the most part of the contest, but in the end, the Russians just couldn't find Dzyuba often enough, for him to pose any kind of a threat to Fernando Muslera, who won his 100th cap in goal for Uruguay.