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2014 FIFA World Cup

Moscow’s FIFA Fan Fest zones draw over a million and a half fans

Russia is staging its first-ever FIFA World Cup

© Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

MOSCOW, July 12./TASS/. More than 1.66 million fans have visited the fan zone at Moscow’s Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills) in front of Moscow State University during the Russia-hosted FIFA World Cup, Deputy of the Moscow Department for Sports and Tourism, Nikolai Gulyayev, told a news conference on Thursday.

"The Vorobyovy Gory Fan Fest site has been highly popular," he revealed. "More than 1.66 million people have visited the site. The day of the Russia-Croatia match turned out to be a record-setting one, with 167,000 fans packing the location. Counting the two fan zones, more than 230,000 fans visited them all in all," he added.

2018 FIFA WORLD CUP IN RUSSIA

The fan zone at Vorobyovy Gory was unveiled on June 10. Another site was opened near the Spartak Stadium specifically for quarterfinal matches, though closing for the remainder of the World Cup.

Moscow has hosted 11 World Cup matches, shared between Luzhniki and Spartak Stadium. The Croatian team is set to face off against the French squad in the final match of the football championship in Russia at Luzhniki Stadium on July 15 at 6:00 p.m. local time (15:00 GMT).

The match for the third place in the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be played in St. Petersburg on July 14 between Belgium and England. The game kicks off at 5:00 p.m. local time (14:00 GMT).

Russia is staging its first-ever FIFA World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow with a remarkable opening show at Luzhniki Stadium on the evening of June 14.

The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

The national football team of hosts Russia managed to make it to the quarterfinals stage of this world championship, where Croatia edged them out in a 4-2 penalty shootout on July 7 at the Fisht Arena in Sochi.

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