[World Cup 2018] Russia Team: 84% White, with rest post-Soviet peripheral ancestry

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Russia

Russia’s starting eleven in a December 2017 game

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Russia’s FIFA World Ranking in 2018: 70th

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Russia national football (soccer) team at World Cup 2018

Racial stock of the Russia-2018 World Cup team:
— 84% European ancestry [19.3/23.0],
—– of which seventeen players (74%) are fully White-European;
— 11% Middle Eastern ancestry [2.5/23.0], Ossetian and Azeri,
— 5% Central Asian ancestry [1.2/23.0], various incl. Chuvash, Tatar

For an in-depth, player-by-player racial-ancestry analysis, see below. For an analysis of the political significance of the racial-cultural dynamics seen in Russia’s 2018 World Cup team, see here (below).

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Race and Europe’s ‘National’ Teams, World Cup 2018

Introduction to Series of World Cup Posts

This year’s World Cup (June-July 2018), as a politicized sporting event, gives us the opportunity to reflect on the racial situation in Europe as it stands, as it has evolved over the past twenty years (using World Cup teams as fixed comparison points). The trajectory of changes in the racial stock of teams may point to wider racial prospects for the 2020s, 2030s, and beyond.

Rarely discussed in its own terms, but on millions (perhaps billions) of minds, is the fact that Western Europe’s World Cup squads of recent years have not been very European but are largely multi-racial teams, sometimes White-minority teams, and thus symbolically in line with Europe’s shakily reigning “Multicultacracy” ideology.

The goal of these posts is to quantify this year’s Western European national teams’ racial-ancestral(-cultural) origins in some depth. Which European teams are the ‘least’ and which are the ‘most’ European?

Are there political implications to the racial balance of World Cup national teams? I would propose that there are, as follows:

Some countries, notably France, have received criticism for being top-heavy with non-European ‘mercenary’ players, men of recognized individual talent but with oftentimes less-than-solid ties to, and often being resentful of, the country they are representing. Will such racial ‘mercenary’ teams overperform in 2018, as they would presumably be expected to if team play is a summation of individual talents, or underperform, perhaps due to a relative lack of national-patriotic feeling?

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Europe’s World Cup 2018 teams analyzed so far:

— Belgium: 70% White, 22% Black, 17% Muslim
— Croatia: 100% White, no Muslims (with racial-anthropology analysis)
— Denmark: 90% White/Scandinavian
— England: 63% White, No Muslims
— France: 33% White, Black-African Majority
— Germany: 83% White, 11% Muslim
— Iceland: 100% White, 98% Icelandic
— Poland: 100% White, disproportionately from western Poland
— Portugal: 77% White, heavy African-colonial presence
— Russia: 84% White (This Post) with the remainder Caucuses and Central-Asian
— Serbia: 94% White, 4% Muslim, 4% Gypsy[?]
— Spain: 92% White
— Switzerland: 70% White, but only 44% White-Christian
— Sweden: 91% White, No Muslims

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Player-by-Player Racial-Ancestral-Cultural Origins

(Method of classification: The twenty-three men on the RUSSIA World Cup 2018 squad are individually evaluated by race, national-ancestral origin, birthplace, and place raised until adolescence, where such data is available. Players of half-White mixed race receive a 0.5 ‘White;’ two half-White players are thus together counted as 1.0 Whites.)

(Any corrections or additional information is welcome in the comments.)

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Russia 2018

Player years of birth range from 1979 to 1996.

GOALKEEPERS
[White-European ancestry at 2.0/3.0] [Middle Eastern ancestry at 1.0/3.0]

— Igor Akinfeev (born in Moscow; married to Ukraine-born model with two children; seemingly of Baltid racial type; see picture)
— Andrey Lunyov (White; born in Moscow)
— Vladimir Gabulov (Middle Eastern; born in North Ossetia; see picture)

DEFENDERS
[White ancestry at 7.3/8.0] [Central Asian or Turkic at 0.7/8.0]

— Mário Figueira Fernandes (White; born in southern Brazil in 1990 and moved to Russia in 2012 for football career; granted citizenship by presidential decree by President Putin in 2016, before eligible by law [five-year residency required]; exact ancestry uncertain beyond Portuguese name but could pass all across western Europe; see picture)
— Ilya Kutepov (White; born in Stavropol, southern Russia; probably of East Nordid type despite birth near the Caucuses region)
— Sergei Ignashevich (primarily White; born in Moscow; probably primarily East-Alpinid/Gorid with Cro-Magnid and distinct Lappoid influences; see picture). (Update (7/8): Ignashevich has a Chuvash parent, as alluded to in a Tweet picked up by Russia Today, which explains the apparent ‘Lappoid’ influence — It is not Lappid but actually the morphologically-similar-[to Lappid]-but-genetically-distinct Turkic-Mongoloid ancestry via the Chuvash ethnic group of Russia) [will estimate 0.8 White, 0.2 Turkic (Chuvash), as the Chuvashes are around one-third Mongoloid]

[An aside on ‘Lappid’ vs. ‘Lappoid’: My original classification for Sergei Ignashevich was “Gorid and Cro-Magnid, with Lappoid influence.” Generally, the -oid ending (‘Lappoid’) refers to an ancestral racial influence resembling a core type (-id). The Lapps are a pre-modern people of far-northern Europe and their presumed representative type is the Lappid (which in some systems includes several affiliated types, some of which are almost Mongoloid in appearance. Due to the steady influx of primarily Nordid-CroMagnid blood into Lapp groups, especially in the past few centuries, the Lappid type is today very rare in pure form, but forms a minor component of some populations. Anyway, the influence on Ignashevich’s appearnace that appears to resemble Lappid may have been a minor ancestral component that resembles Lappid but is something else, hence ‘Lappoid’ (resembling Lappid). Upon learning that Ignashevich has one Chuvash parent, it is now highly likely that the non-Europid racial influence visible in him is certainly not Lappid, but something Mongoloid/Turkic [via the Chuvash ethnic group of Russia]. Any type ending in -id in racial anthropology refers to a specific racial type, sometimes clarified with the term “proper” (as in, ‘Nordid proper‘), while ‘-oid’ is used generally for vaguer cases of influence,often but not always via admixture, which alter a primary type.]

— Andrei Sergeyevich Semyonov (White; born in Moscow; of Nordid type)
— Fyodor Kudryashov (significant non-European ancestry of unknown origin, presumably of one of the Mongolic groups of central Asia or Siberia; see picture; born in Irkutsk, Siberia) [will classify as 0.5 White, 0.5 Unknown, likely Central Asian]
— Vladimir Granat (White; born in Ulan-Ude, Siberia; a city considered the center of Tibetan Buddhism in Russia; hometown 73% Russian and 21% Buryat [Mongolic]; Vladimir Granat does not display any visible Mongoloid racial influence; see picture)
— Yuri Zhirkov (White; born in Tambov, Russia; could fit in many places across Europe [see, e.g., this picture]; is of North Pontid type altered by other elements)
— Igor Smolnikov (White; born in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Ural District; Nordid type)

MIDFIELDERS
[White ancestry at 7.0/9.0] [Middle Eastern ancestry at 1.5/9.0] [Tatar or similar at 0.5/9.0]

— Denis Cheryshev (White; born in 1990 in Nizhny Novgorod, central Russia, the hometown also of his father Dmitri [b.1969]; raised in Spain after his father got a contract with a Spanish football club in 1996; Denis is now a Spanish-Russian dual citizen; member of Russian national team from 2012; given his biography as having been raised in the West, it is surprising that his racial-anthropological type is so western, as if geography alters phenotype; he is classifiable as a West Baltid; a good example of the racial kinship of much of the Russian Federation’s population with Western Europeans)
— Daler Kuzyayev (Likely has substantial Tatar or similar ancestry, born in Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan [semi-autonomous ethnic republic within Russia]; hometown has slightly more Tatars than Russians; see picture; phenotype displays what appears to be likely Tatar or similar ancestry; my supposition that he is an ethnic Tatar seemingly confirmed by Russia Today) [will classify here as 0.5 White, 0.5 Central Asian]
— Yury Gazinsky (White; born in Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Far East; of primarily Nordid type, leaning towards “Norid” via Dinarid influence)
— Alan Dzagoev (Middle Eastern; born and raised in Beslan, North Ossetia–Alania to an family of ethnic-Ossetian origin from Georgia who migrated to Russian Ossetia in 1989, where Alan was born one year later; see picture; his phynotype typical of the Ossetian population with Dinarid-Armenoid influences strong)
— Roman Zobnin (White; born in Irkutsk, Siberia)
— Anton Miranchuk (White; born in Krasnodar Krai, southern Russia, which was an 88% Russian majority; moved to Moscow for football career from 2011 at age 16; twin brother is Anton)
— Aleksandr Golovin (White; born in Kaltan, Siberia, in a 90%+ Russian area; strong Nordid influence tempered by what may be Alpinid)
— Aleksandr Samedov (half-Middle Eastern, half-White; see picture; mother is Russian but his phenotype displays the coarse features of his Azerbaijani paternal ancestry; converted to Christianity from Islam due to influence of Russian-Christian wife in 2012)
— Aleksandr Yerokhin (White; born and raised in Barnaul, deep in the interior on the Russian steppe but not in an ethnic republic; home region has a 94%-Russian majority)

FORWARDS
[White ancestry at 3.0/3.0]

— Fyodor Smolov (White; born in Saratov, Volga region; probably of Gorid with East-Baltid influence; he may have Chuvash ancestry, my speculation based on a Tweet picked up by Russia Today which claims one player is of half-Chuvash origin; if this is true, Smolov is a good candidate) (will estimate 0.8 White, 0.2 Central Asian [Chuvash], assuming that Chuvashes are around one-third Mongoloid and assuming Smolov is half-Chuvash) (Update (7/8): The half-Chuvash player is defender Sergei Ignashevich (see above). Smolov’s dark features [see picture] may or may not be minor non-European ancestry.)
— Aleksei Miranchuk (White; see entry for twin brother idfielder Anton, above) [Will count as 1.0 White]
— Artem Dzyuba (White; born in Moscow; Ukrainian father, Russian mother)

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Comparison with past RUSSIA squads

2014

Russia-2014 players were born between 1979 and 1993.

Racial-Ancestral Stock: Approximately same as the 2018 team. Unlike the West European teams, there was no Subsaharan presence on the team, and little to no Islamic component; there are non-European elements but these are the normal ones on the Soviet/Russian coattails, including peoples of the Caucuses such as half-Azerbaijani Aleksandr Samedov and full-Ossetian Alan Dzagoev [on both of whom, see entries for 2018 above]

Russia Record in 2014 World Cup
3: Games (finished at 24th place)
2: Goals For
3: Goals Against
-0.33: Goal Differential per Game Played

2010

Russia did not qualify for the World Cup in 2010.

2006

Russia did not qualify for the World Cup in 2006.

2002

Russia-2002 players were born between 1963 to 1983.

Racial-Ancestral Stock: The team’s overall racial-ancestral stock was not apparently different that it was in 2018. There remained non-ethnic-Russian players but none from outside the general Russian-Soviet sphere. One such person was reserve goalkeeper Stanislav Cherchesov [b.1963], an Ossetian, who has managed the Russian national team since 2016, and who fits Steve Sailer’s general definition of the quasi-metaethnicity “men with gold chains.”

Russia Record in 2002 World Cup
3: Games (finished at 22nd place)
4: Goals For
4: Goals Against
0: Goal Differential per Game Played

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Analysis

Russia’s impressive performance in the 2018 World Cup (hosted in Russia) — on paper, it was should not have advanced to the second round — continues the tradition of overperformance by home teams. Russia has consistently performed poorly World Cups since the breakup of the USSR. It qualified three times but never passed the group stage.

In racial-cultural terms, Russia has long been a partially non-European country, and President Putin appears to want to rule over a multiracial-multicultural country. The substantial numbers of non-Europeans on Russia’s “coattails,” historically, increased in number and dispersion in Soviet times and continue to slowly increase in the Putin era. This is all quite visible on the Russian team, as described above, and the team is, by one definition, less than three-quarters White [i.e., full White-Europeans] excluding people from the Caucuses, rising to 84% as here calculated when including partial-Europeans. This is roughly in line with the total non-European ancestry in the Russian Federation today (which very likely surpassed 20% in the early 2010s or earlier).

In national terms (rather than racial terms), notably there are no players from outside the Soviet sphere, except a single White-Brazilian, Mário Fernandes. It appears that Russia has never fielded a player with substantial Subsaharan-African ancestry at any of its national teams at the World Cup.

Predictably, the racial-politics of the World Cup have overlapped with some of the anti-Russian hysteria in some corners of the U.S. media in the era of President Trump. Some of the anti-Trump, ‘Russia Delenda Est’ voices emerged to denounce the Russia team as “too White,” which I would note is the same criticism they have of Trump supporters. As documented in this post, the Russia team actually has substantial non-White ancestry (15%+), roughly in proportion to the overall population of the Russian Federation.

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