MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. A friendly football match between the national football teams of Sweden and Russia will be played in the Russian capital of Moscow on October 8, the press service of the Russian national football team announced on Wednesday.
The match was scheduled to be played on October 8 in the Swedish capital of Stockholm at the over 54,300-seat capacity Friends Arena, which is rated as the biggest stadium in Scandinavia. However, Sweden’s borders are currently closed for entry from countries, which are not members of the European Union.
The stadium in Moscow, which will hold the friendly match between Russia and Sweden on October 8, will be announced later, but the match start time is slated for 7:30 p.m. Moscow time (16:30 GMT).
The Russian national football team is now scheduled to play three international fixtures between October 8 and 14. Besides the friendly against Sweden on October 8, the national squad is set to face Turkey on October 11 and Hungary on October 14 as part of the UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations) Nations League.
Playing in the group stage of the UEFA Nations League in September, the Russian team defeated Serbia at home on September 3 (3-1) and then enjoyed an away win against Hungary on September 6 (3-2).
The friendly football match between Russia and Sweden was initially scheduled to kick off on March 28, however, it was postponed indefinitely as a safety measure against the global spread of the novel coronavirus.
Coronavirus pandemic
In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 31,800,200 people have been infected worldwide and more than 975,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 23,410,220 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, 1,122,241 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 923,699 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 19,799 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.
