Repino rolling out welcome mat ahead of England’s World Cup visit
Residents of Repino, the small town where England will base themselves for World Cup 2018, are ready to welcome players and fans alike.
Repino is an hour’s drive north of St Petersburg and backs on to a long stretch of sandy beach on the Gulf of Finland.
The town is home to fewer than 3,000 inhabitants but has a strong tourism industry, particularly for those looking to enjoy the long evenings and late sunsets of north western Russia.
Elena Efimova, who looks after the local church, was excited to learn that England would be staying in her town.
She told Sky Sports News: „A lot of residents of Repino will take the opportunity to meet the football fans and football team and to share all the best values of our nation.“
Natalya, a friend of Elena who runs a market stall near the train station, was similarly welcoming, but seemingly unaware that Russia was hosting the world’s biggest sporting competition in just six months’ time.
„The football World Cup? I didn’t know there was a World Cup next year,“ she said.
„England are very welcome and we are glad that they will be staying here.“
The Football Association has chosen the Forrest Mix Country Club, a modest but comfortable hotel, complete with swimming pool and fitness centre, as the team’s base.
Surrounded by sparse, snowy trees in December, the hotel is away from prying eyes, but the players could feel cooped up, given the remoteness of the town.
England last stayed in a sleepy spa town at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when the infamous presence of wives and girlfriends in Baden Baden was deemed to have played a part in England’s failure to progress beyond the quarter-finals.
Boredom was allegedly to blame in South Africa when Fabio Capello imposed a strict regime on the players and banned the WAGs from attending.
In 2012, the FA’s decision to base the England team in the Polish city of Krakow for the European Championship, despite playing all their group games in Ukraine, was widely criticised.
In Rio, during the 2014 World Cup, there were yet more issues, this time as the players had to contend with a three-hour round trip to the training ground through heavy Copacabana traffic.
And that history means England’s choice of base will be closely scrutinised as the tournament approaches and the squad flies over to Repino.
State-of-the-art training facilities are under construction in Zelenogorsk, a slightly larger town ten minutes away down the coast.
Whatever England’s players might be expecting from Repino, one thing is for certain, according to Igor Prokofiev, a taxi driver who lives in Zelenogorsk.
He said: „People will see next year what Russian hospitality is like. Everyone is welcome!“
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