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Russia, Mali football teams play to scoreless draw in St. Petersburg

A failed penalty by Russia’s Ivan Oblyakov was the highlight of the match

Fode Doucoure (Mali) and Alexander Golovin (Russia) Pyotr Kovalyov/TASS

Fode Doucoure (Mali) and Alexander Golovin (Russia)

© Pyotr Kovalyov/TASS

ST. PETERSBURG, March 31. /TASS/. Russia played against Mali in a friendly football match on Tuesday night, ending in a 0-0 draw.

The match took place at the Gazprom Arena stadium in Russia’s second-largest city - St. Petersburg. The reported attendance was 34,830.

The only highlight moment of the match was a failed penalty shot by Russia’s Ivan Oblyakov as he shot it above the high bar in the 28th minute of the match.

Mali is currently ranked 54th in the FIFA Rankings, while Russia is 36th.

Mali notably finished second at the Africa Cup of Nations in 1972, its best result ever. The only Malian player in the Russian Premier League is midfielder Mamadou Maiga, who plays for the Pari Nizhny Novgorod club.

Russia’s football ban

The world’s governing football body, FIFA, announced on February 28, 2022, that the Russian national team and all professional clubs representing the country were barred from participating in FIFA tournaments.

In turn, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) made a similar decision regarding 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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