Five Youngest Sbornaya Squads

Russia has already qualified for Euro 2020 and found their group opponents thanks to their most successful qualifying campaign since 1996 - however, Stani Cherchesov has not only led an on-field revolution of the side but has promoted youth throughout, giving debut starts and call-ups to Fedor Chalov, Vyacheslav Karavaev, Dima Barinov, Rifat Zhemaletdinov, Ilzat Akhmetov, Zelimkhan Bakaev, Ivan Oblyakov, Daniil Fomin, Sergei Chistyakov, Nikolay Komlichenko and Aleksandr Sobolev in 2019 - all of the above were either 23 or younger when receiving their first call-up.

In fact, the average-age of the last two squads for the Cyprus/Scotland and Belgium/San Marino are among the youngest Sbornaya squads in history, dating all the way back to the Soviet Union’s first game as an entity against the Finnish Workers’ Sports Federation in Petrograd, in which they won 4-1.

Here are the five youngest Sbornaya squads of all time:

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USA v CIS, 2nd February 1992. Detroit (indoors). Friendly.
2-1 (Wynalda 4, Balboa 75 (pen.) - Sergeev 26)

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Israel v CIS, 12th February 1992. Jerusalem. Friendly.
1-2 (Driks 36 - Pyatnitsky 16, Kiryakov 50)

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USA v CIS, 25th January 1992. Miami Gardens. Friendly.
0-1 (Tsveiba)

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USSR v Austria, 16th June 1968. Leningrad. Friendly.
3-1 (Vyun 12, Gershkovich 49, Asatiani 65 - Hof 40)

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El Salvador v CIS. 29th January 1992. San Salvador. Friendly.
0-3 (Pyatnitsky 8, Kiryakov 22, Ledyakhov 63)

Author: Alexey ‘Spektrowski’ Zakharov

I’m a Spartak Moscow fan who dabbles in Soviet/Russian football history (mostly numerical and statistical). Contributed some data to the Spartak Moscow museum at Otkrytie Arena.

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