Image Courtesy - twitter.com
Russian footballer Andrey Mostovoy was dropped from the national team for this year’s European Championship on Friday due to testing positive for COVID-19. He is the first player to be dropped from a team at the tournament because of the virus. The team informed on Twitter that Mostovoy has been replaced by defender Roman Evgeniev “in connection with an unfavourable result of PCR testing.”
The Russian team is scheduled to face Belgium in its opening Euro 2020 match on Saturday in St. Petersburg. The Russia winger made his debut for Russia last year and played eight of the team’s last 11 games, mostly as a substitute. His only first XI appearance for the country was in a 5-0 loss to Serbia last year. Along with Russia, Sweden and Spain have also reported positive results from coronavirus tests but haven’t yet opted to replace the affected players.
Andrey will now be replaced by Roman Evgeniev for Euro 2021, as the team informed. The team also informed in its Telegram channel that, “Due to the unfavourable results of Andrey Mostovoy’s PCR test, the coaching staff made the decision to call defender Roman Evgeniev in his place.”
Roman was included in the training squad announced in May by Russian coach Stanislav Cherchesov. The delayed tournament gets underway in Rome later with Turkey against Italy.