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Russian national women’s football team to play two friendlies against Azerbaijan

The Russian and Azerbaijani women played each other twice last year during qualifying for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup with Russia winning both matches by shutout (2-0; 4-0)

MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. The Russian national women’s football team will play two friendly matches against Azerbaijan in the next two weeks, the press office of the Russian Football Union (RFU) announced in a statement on Wednesday.

Both matches will be played at the Fisht Stadium in Russia’s southern Black Sea resort city of Sochi. The first will take place on November 28 and the second on December 2, the statement reads.

The Russian and Azerbaijani women played each other twice last year during qualifying for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup with Russia winning both matches by shutout (2-0; 4-0).

"In September 2021, as part of the 2023 World Cup qualifiers, the Russians won in Moscow with a score of 2:0," the RFU’s statement reads. "In November 2021, the Russian national team defeated their rivals in Baku with a score of 4:0."

According to the current FIFA Women’s World Rankings, Azerbaijan is ranked 75th, while Russia is 25th.

This year the Russian women have played nine international matches - against Botswana (4-0), Ecuador (4-0; 3-2), Kenya (4-0), Haiti (2-1), Uruguay (1-1; 1-2) and North Korea (0-0; 0-3).

Fisht Stadium

The Fisht stadium was built for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. The stadium, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, was later reconstructed to host the matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The over 44,000-seat capacity stadium is located in Sochi Olympic Park and was named after Mount Fisht.

The Fisht Stadium previously hosted multiple international football fixtures including four matches of the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup and six matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

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.

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