MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/. The Syrian Football Association (SFA) and the Russian Football Union (RFU) have inked an agreement to play a friendly football match between the national teams in Russia’s Volgograd on November 19, the SFA press office announced to TASS on Thursday.

"The agreement has been signed and the match will be in Volgograd on the 19th of next month," the SFA stated.

In early October, the SFA confirmed to TASS that the country’s national team had been training to play a friendly match against the Russian national side. Muwaffaq Fathallah, the head coach of the Syrian national side, told TASS that the contract for the friendly match against Russia was about to be signed.

The Russian national football team is currently 34th in the world’s governing body of football (FIFA) World Ranking and Syria occupies the 93rd position of the ratings list. In their previous encounter, the USSR (the Soviet Union) defeated Syria 2-0 on their home turf in Damascus in 1988.

The 45,000-seat Volgograd-Arena was built for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and hosted four group stage matches of the world football championship.

Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, has a population of over one million people, situated along the Volga River. The city and the surrounding areas were the scene of the fiercest battles of World War II, including the Battle of Stalingrad, which was widely considered to be the turning point in the war.

Russia’s football ban

The International Association Football Federation (FIFA) announced on February 28, 2022 that the Russian national team and all professional clubs representing the country were barred from taking part in FIFA tournaments.

In turn, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) made a similar decision in regard to the Russian national football team’s participation in UEFA tournaments.

Both FIFA and UEFA cited Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as grounds for their respective bans on Russian teams’ participation in competitions.

Since sanctions were introduced, the Russian national football squad has played a host of friendlies against other countries, namely against Kyrgyzstan (2-1), Tajikistan (0-0), Uzbekistan (0-0), Iran (1-1), Iraq (2-0), Cameroon (1-0), Kenya (2-2), Cuba (8-0), Serbia (4-0) Belarus 4-0 and Vietnam (3-0).