Tom Smithies on the carefree football that has made this World Cup feel special from the start

EVERY World Cup is special in its own way, but TOM SMITHIES says there are signs that Russia is on track to be one of the most memorable tournaments of all time.

CORRECTION - Russia's midfielder Denis Cheryshev celebrates scoring the 2-0 goal during the Russia 2018 World Cup Group A football match between Russia and Egypt at the Saint Petersburg Stadium in Saint Petersburg on June 19, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - NO MOBILE PUSH ALERTS/DOWNLOADS / “The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by GABRIEL BOUYS has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [Russia's midfielder Denis Cheryshev] instead of [ Egypt's defender Ahmed Hegazi]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require.”

NOT since I sat on a street corner as a 17-year-old in Bari in 1990, with a slice of pizza in one hand and a (probably illegal) beer in the other, watching football on a TV screen outside a bar under a southern Italian sunset, have I enjoyed the start of a World Cup so much as the opening days of Russia 2018.

If football fans of a certain age can measure points in their life by reference to particular tournaments, it’s a wonderful feeling to be so immersed in the current one that there is no sense of hankering after the past.

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Russian fans have embraced the tournament as their team started brightly. Pic: AP

Yes, it’s only six days in as I write this. Yes, the first round of games has only just been completed. Yes, it’s very easy to go off too quickly.

But already there is a sense of something different, something captivating, and as I watched Russia shock even themselves with a 3-1 defeat of Egypt that means they will be in the knockout stages, I realised what it was.

From the start, teams are playing like they are already in the knockout stages, where a draw doesn’t cautiously accrue you a point. So far there has been little of the percentage football that can colour the group games so negatively.

Cristiano Ronaldo (R) celebrates after scoring in Portugal’s epic 3-3 draw with Spain. Pic: Getty

Spain and Portugal set the tone with a game for the ages, the sort of 90 minutes that reinforces why you fell in love with football in the first place.

When the drama ebbs and flows so violently it’s draining enough to be a neutral, let alone to carry a torch for either side.

But a similar vein has run through the majority of the games so far. A friend joked that we can call it the A-League World Cup: teams are playing to win, back and forth, as if defensive structure just got outlawed by the guardians of the rules.

It might not last; the temperatures in several of the host cities have been relatively low but are set to warm up, and the cool has helped enormously in terms of up-tempo attacking.

The irony of writing this is that one of the few games to be played in a cautious manner was Australia’s 2-1 loss to France.

Yet that had drama all of its own, at least for the partisans on both sides, and a sophistication even in the moments where the teams were deadlocked. Compare it with the way Senegal whacked the ball upfield at any given opportunity in their defeat of Poland, and you realise the array of football cultures is as wide as ever.

Two things auger well from this point. Surprised, delighted and eventually raucous, Russian fans seem to have set aside their distrust of their national team. Bars up and down the Bauman Street precinct in central Kazan were rocking after the win over Egypt. “Russ-cee-ya!” they chanted, and it was hard not to join in.

But also, a whole bunch of teams who normally ease through the group stages need a win in their second game, from Argentina to Germany to Spain.

They have to go for it. The biggest winners of that are us, watching on the sidelines. Long may it continue.