Russia coasted into the quarter-finals of FIFA Futsal World Cup Colombia 2016, courtesy of a thumping 7-0 win over debutants Vietnam.
The one-way traffic took little time to get into gear, as Robinho had already seen a shot ping off the bar after 18 seconds, before the power and movement of Russia proved too much to handle for the Vietnamese.
It didn’t take long for that pressure to turn into points on the board, as Ivan Chishkala opened the scoring. The woodwork had been rattled again before the scoreline doubled, then trebled, both through the exploits of Sergei Abramovich.
Even before his second, goalkeeper Dinh Thuan Ngo had taken pushing on to halfway, trying to stem the Russian pressure and, while they were able to find the geometry of their passing triangles more regularly, Sergey Abramov and Artem Niiazov struck either side of the break.
While Vietnam did force occasional opportunities, the procession was ultimately routine for Russia, with Romulo and Ivan Milovanov added their name to a growing tally, seeing them set to meet either Spain – who beat them earlier this year in the UEFA Futsal EURO 2016 final – or Kazakhstan.
If Abramov's stunning, acrobatic scissor-kick hadn't come back off the post in the final seconds, it would have been the icing on the cake in a fine showing.
