MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. Italian head coach of the Russian football team Fabio Capello jointly with Deputy Sports Minister Yury Nagornykh worked out a program for the preparation of the national squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said.

“Fabio (Capello), jointly with (Yury) Nagornykh, prepared a vast program for the preparation for the (2018) world championship,” Mutko said. “The program is already being implemented.”

The Russian national squad experienced a string of setbacks over the past decade,failing to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and 2010 championship in South Africa to the great dismay of the Russian football fans.

Things changed, however, when Italian phenomenon Capello took over the team as the head coach and managed to help the Russian national squad qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The team, however, failed to clear the first stage of the much-anticipated global tournament, putting their coach in the center of stern criticism and raising serious concerns in the country about the team’s performance in the next World Cup, which would be hosted by Russia in 2018.

The country won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup almost four years ago in a tight race against the joint bid from England, Portugal and Spain and the joint bid on behalf of Belgium and the Netherlands.

Russia 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 matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held at 12 stadiums located in the 11 abovementioned cities across Russia. Two of the stadiums are located in the Russian capital.