Berlin - The tallest player at the Russia World Cup comes from
Croatia, the most expensive from Brazil, and the youngest from
Australia.
Following are these records and four more:
THE TALLEST PLAYER: Only one of 736 World Cup players beats the
2-metre mark, as Croatia goalkeeper Lovre Kalinic from Belgian club
Ghent measures 2.01m. But Danish defender Jannik Vestergaard and
Belgium keeper Thibaut Courtois are close behind on 1.99m each.
THE SHORTEST PLAYER: Don't expect Saudi Arabia midfielder Jahja
Al-Shehri to score many goals from headers at the World Cup as the
Leganes player is the shortest of them all in Russia, at 1.64m.
THE OLDEST PLAYER: Aged 45 with a birth date of January 15, 1973,
Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadari is not only the oldest player in
Russia but also the oldest overall at the World Cup. He is even older
than three World Cup coaches.
Austrialia's Daniel Arzani Picture: Alexey Nasyrov/Reuters
THE YOUNGEST PLAYER: Australian teenager Daniel Arzani is the
youngest player in Russia at age 19. But that is not an all-time
record which still belongs to Nigeria's Femi Opabunmi who took part
in 2002 aged 17 years two months.
THE OLDEST COACH: Uruguay's Oscar Tabrez is 71 years three months old
which makes him the oldest coach in Russia. But he is some eight
months short of the all-time mark which belongs to Otto Rehhagel, the
German coach of Greece in 2010.
THE YOUNGEST COACH: Senegal's Aliou Cisse is the youngest helmsman in
Russia aged 42 and three months. But that still makes him almost 15
years older than the youngest coach of all-time as that honour
remains with Argentina's Juan Jose Tramutola who was a mere 27 years
eight months at the maiden World Cup in 1930.
THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLAYER: Paris Saint-Germain had to splash out 222
million euros (261 million dollars) as they met Barcelona's release
fee for Brazil captain Neymar.