Wednesday 20th June 3.30pm (Countryside north of St Petersburg)
After the very early start yesterday, it was nice to have a lie-in to begin Tuesday morning at Ivan’s dacha (summer house). As we are north of St Petersburg, there is even less ‘night-time’ if you can call it that – here. When I got up to use the loo at about 1.30am, the bathroom was still light enough with the natural light from the window to avoid turning on any artificial illumination. Granted, it’s only like this for a couple of months a year (in winter there are only 4-5 hours daylight), but being here right now, it is surreal.

Some minor drama in the morning when I attempted to check in online for my return flight with AirBaltic on Thursday. Basically, my booking didn’t seem to exist. I’d bought a return ticket for less than £300 from mytrip.com just under a year ago. No problems flying out here with KLM, but to return (from St Petersburg to Gatwick, transferring in Riga, Latvia) was not going to be as straightforward. It was eventually sorted after a couple of calls to AirBaltic, but it’s just as well I did not leave it until the night before the flight to check in. I had tried to check in online before I left London, but there is only a five day window before the flight to do so.

That drama averted, we settled down to watch the first game of the day on the box. Colombia v Japan had a dramatic start with the penalty for handball reducing Columbia to ten men after six minutes, and then going behind from the spot kick. They made a fist of it until half time… and then the heavens opened where we were and we lost our TV reception. I was busy doing some stuff online which required a bit of concentration so was not too worried about it. The picture came back a couple of times in the second half but not for long. So we did not see Colombia equalize nor Japan score a second.

We drove into St Petersburg and parked up next to the metro as we did on Friday for the game between Morocco and Iran. We had a bite to eat in the same restaurant we had stopped in that day as well. Only this time they were reluctant to let us in. The place was fully booked from 7pm for the Russia v Egypt game at 9pm, but Ivan managed to persuade them we would be out by 7 so they found us a table and we caught the first half of the game between Poland and Senegal. The African side had Liverpool’s Sadio Mane and a dreadlocked manager, which might just be a first in World Cup history. There have been a fair sprinkling of own goals in this tournament, and Poland provided one for their opponents to give them a 1-0 lead in what was a fairly dull first half. It was absolutely pelting outside by this time. So much so that even the restaurant’s many TVs lost reception.

Ready to make our way to the stadium for us to catch Russia’s second game of the tournament in the flesh, we waited a few minutes at the exit to allow the rain to lighten, and pull on some cheap waterproofs Ivan had brought along. We made the brief walk to the metro, and by the time we surfaced at the stadium station one stop down the line, the rain had pretty much stopped. It was highly noticeable that due to the torrential rain that had gone before, there were hardly any police visible compared to the sunny 6pm game from our previous visit on Friday. Some soggy volunteers – who at least also had waterproof jackets, but their footwear was sodden – had more balls than our friends in uniform.

Earlier in the day, Ivan had told me that a fair number of people had managed to lose their tickets at stadiums before getting in. There was a system to re-unite them with said lost tickets, and let’s face it, without a corresponding Fan ID they are of no use to anybody else. So, lo and behold, on our walk to the stadium, in front of us on the floor, a pair of tickets. We picked them up and Ivan got into a discussion with some fellow Russians presumably about what we should do with them. In the end, we found a volunteer who was able to radio to someone who presumably came and collected them to take the tickets to wherever they could be reclaimed.

The queue to get in was marginally shorter than Friday, possibly because we were much earlier. Ivan tried to film the Fan ID process on the screen on the other side of the turnstile, but the security people told him to stop and get on with his being searched. We were in similar seats to our previous visit, although a little closer to the front of the upper tier, and directly behind the goal Russia were attacking in the first half. There were certainly a large number of Egyptian fans in attendance, which came as something of a surprise. Small Russian flags had been left on a good number of the seats nevertheless. The rain didn't return and there was a lot of focus on Mo Salah on the big screens during the warm up. Ivan noted that Egypt’s pre-match preparations looked far more professional.

The first half was fairly uneventful. Salah looked like he didn’t want to get too involved in physical challenges, which is perfectly understandable. Soon after the interval, and before a good number had returned to their seats Egypt suffered an own goal due to a deflection and the noise in the stadium went up a notch. I have to say that at every game I have been to, the amount of noise coming from the crowds has been something to behold, even during the dullest of matches. This comes across on the television as well – it isn’t artificially increased by the broadcasters as it is for Premier League broadcasts. Frankly if the Arsenal crowd were half as noisy the Emirates would be a far more intimidating place. What is interesting in this respect is that, in terms of income, the ticket prices and cost of travel and accommodation indicate that the attendees must be at least as well to do as those at Arsenal. Maybe it’s a cultural thing linked to a lack of expressiveness in England or maybe the main focus of Gooners at games these days is not the action on the pitch. A social meet up with their stadium neighbours at which all kinds of subject matter is discussed? And of course the interaction on mobile phones, although in fairness there is an element of that here too.

Anyway, more noise was to follow as two more goals came before the midway point of the second half. It was party time, although Egypt at least forced a penalty which gave Salah the chance to get on the scoresheet, after Mohammed Elneny had been sacrificed with the need to be more attacking. Generally though, it looked like Egypt were pretty average with Salah getting hardly any joy.

To avoid getting penned in at full time, Ivan suggested we leave during injury time. It was close to 11pm after all. Although it was light outside – a strange feeling departing an evening match – there was enough of what’s called the ‘gloaming’ (darker evening light) to allow for a nice changing colour scheme produced by the lighting onto the exterior of the stadium. On exiting the metro where the car was parked, I spotted a gaggle of volunteers and felt they had the short end of the straw, manning a metro exit and more to the point, presumably having to stay there for the duration of the game. And it was very wet earlier, remember. The volunteers work around the city and outside the stadium itself, but not many actually work inside. Fair play to these guys, but I honestly struggle to see their motivation. We made the return journey to the summer house and arrived a little after midnight. Wednesday is my final full day here in Russia and we’ll watch the three games on television, before I prepare to return to the UK on Thursday via Latvia. The attendance at games though is over, for this toe in the water World Cup experience.