MOSCOW – Grena­da were sound­ly whipped 5-0 by Rus­sia in a one-sided in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match at the VTB Are­na in Rus­sia on Wednes­day.

It was al­ways go­ing to be a tough out­ing for the 174th ranked Caribbean side, which was play­ing the 34th ranked Rus­sians on home soil for the first time in its his­to­ry.

Danil Prut­sev opened the scor­ing for Rus­sia in the 16th minute, fin­ish­ing from close range af­ter re­ceiv­ing a pin­point pass from Lechi Sadu­laev.

Grena­da’s goal­keep­er Chad Phillip made sev­er­al out­stand­ing saves to keep his side in the con­test, but Rus­sia dou­bled their ad­van­tage three min­utes be­fore half time when Ar­sen Adamov scored from a cor­ner.

One minute lat­er, the home side took com­plete con­trol of the match cour­tesy of a strike from Artem Dzyu­ba to make it 3-0.

Dzyu­ba’s goal was a his­toric one for the 36-year-old vet­er­an strik­er, as he be­came Rus­sia’s top goal scor­er of all time.

De­spite a change in the goal­keep­er po­si­tion by Grena­da at the break, with Ja­son Bel­fon re­plac­ing Phillip, Rus­sia con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate pro­ceed­ings and ex­tend­ed their lead to four when Dani­il Fomin net­ted in the 53rd minute.

Ze­limkhan Bakaev then com­plet­ed the rout in the 59th minute, much to the de­light of the home crowd.

CMC