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Sikhumbuzo Moyo at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia
THE long wait for the 2018 Fifa World Cup to roar to life finally ended on Thursday when the global community was glued to activities taking place at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow for both the month long jamboree’s official opening ceremony as well as the first of the 64 matches for the tournament.

Well, results are already known as hosts Russia got off to a flying start by pummelling the tournament’s lowest ranked nation Saudi Arabia 5-0 in front of a packed audience that included Russia’s first person Vladimir Putin, the game’s leader Gianni Infantino and the Saudi crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon.

As is the norm for any major event, there is always the official opening ceremony and Thursday’s event did not deviate from that tradition, save to say the ceremony was actually low key, an almost anticlimax especially when you compare with what Africa offered to the world at the Soccer City Stadium when the continent played host to it’s first ever Fifa World Cup final.

The spectacle created by the cast then, led by Spanish singer Shakira was just out of this world and comparing with what we witnessed at the Luzhniki, one just wonders what the organisers spent all this time doing.

Even the last tournament in Brazil had a better opening entertainment than witnessed here save for the middle finger boob showed by main cast singer, British pop star Robbie Williams.

For the fans who started queueing to get in early in the day, and those who were glued to their television sets worldwide, the ceremony was perhaps over before it even started.

It was just too short for an event of this magnitude and inside a stadium that has many memories, some sad of course.

For Zimbabweans, it was supposed to invoke the 1980 Olympics in which the country bagged it’s first Olympics Games medal through the ladies’ hockey side. The match was of course not played here but Luzhniki Stadium was the main arena for the Summer Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies.

Commissioned on July 31, 1956 and with an original carrying capacity of 13 700, Luzhniki Stadium was also the venue for what is still Russia’s worst sporting disaster when 66 fans died during a Uefa Cup match stamped between FC Spartak and HFC Haarlem in October 20, 1982.

For those who support the Red Devils, Manchester United, it’s the very same venue that their team beat Chelsea 6-5 on penalties to win the Uefa Champions League in May 2008.

This was only the third time that two clubs from the same country had contested the final; the others being the 2000 and 2003 finals. It was the first European Cup final played in Russia, and hence the easternmost final in the tournament’s history.

It also marked the 100th anniversary of Manchester United’s first league triumph, the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, and the 40th anniversary of United’s first European Cup triumph in 1968. It was Manchester United’s third European Cup final after 1968 and 1999, while it was Chelsea’s first.

Outside the stadium as you enter the arena, one is greeted by the imposing statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, a further iconic badge to the facility which in all fairness ought to be known for lifelong momentus events, not what we witnessed which was disguised as the official opening ceremony of the 2018 Fifa World Cup finals.