Russia team doctor Eduard Bezuglov claimed his team had been tested more than 120 times by Fifa and over 200 by both Uefa and the Russian anti-doping agency, Rusada, during two training camps this year.

The testing comes amid greater scrutiny of the host nation’s group success. Prior to their World Cup whitewash, the Russian squad were seeded lowest in the FIFA rankings of all 32 teams and dubbed as former international Andrei Kanchelskis said: "The worst Russian team I have ever seen." 

The negativity did not seem to rub off on manager Stanislav Cherchesov’s men, who swept past Saudi Arabia 5-0 on opening night before subduing Egypt and Mo Salah to make it 6 points from 6. But it hasn’t stopped doubts starting to feaster as to the legitimacy of this surprising revival.

“I’d bet you a bottle of skimmed milk that’s at least two times more than the number of probes England team players gave. So let the English look at themselves,” Bezuglov said. “We’d also like to know how many probes the English gave because Fifa never answers these questions.” 

As a byproduct of being hosts, Russia has not had much game time due to their lack of a qualification campaign but looked nowhere near threatening during pre-World Cup friendlies. Without a win in seven games and only one shot on target in the last two friendlies, the idea that Russia would join South Africa as the only host nations to not progress to the group stages looked more and more likely.

However, in what can only be described as the most perfectly timed comeback, victories in their first two games mean that Russia will move on to the knockout rounds with a final Group A game on Monday against Uruguay. And, according to the British Newspaper the Telegraph, Russia players have run a greater distance than any other team, covering 73 miles in their first game and 71 miles in their second.

Three Russian’s that have lit up the stage on football’s global platform, Aleksandr Golovin, Aleksandr Samedov and Yury Gazinsky top the statistics for the players who have covered the most ground. Despite competing with all-time greats such as five-time Ballon d'Or winner Portugal’s Ronaldo, Brazil’s talisman Neymar and Senegal’s Sadio Mane, who has had a prolific season at Liverpool scoring the equalizer in their Champions League final against Real Madrid.

The team doctor put this down to team’s intense preparation, adept football staff and utilizing the momentum of playing at home. "Players are in good physical shape because of the coaching staff, their own training and the support of the whole country,” he said. “They feel it -- and it helps."

“Those who ask why we run like this should call on their fans to come to the tournament and support their own team more actively. Then nothing will hinder them.”

Vyacheslav Koloskov, the former Soviet Union coach and FIFA vice president who is now an official with the Russian Football Union, told Russian media the inquiries are only a response to Russia's success thus far and that two players have undergone doping tests after each of the first two games.

Before the World Cup, there had been a number of recent incidents involving Russian athletes doping, which to an extent has marred sport’s reputation in the country. Russia was banned from the recent winter games following state-sponsored doping, leading up to and including the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

And due to the McLaren Report, which found 1,000 Russian athletes across 30 sports benefited from state-sponsored doping between 2012 and 2015, FIFA investigated their own concerns about the World Cup players, barring Russia from any involvement in the process with samples sent to Lausanne for analysis. Although it found there was insufficient evidence of doping, the report stated that several players unrelated to the World Cup continued to do so.

There was also a contentious decision to drop the defender Ruslan Kambolov from the squad in May because of a calf injury, a few weeks later Russian deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko announced he was under investigating by FIFA for doping.

Fifa, which has repeatedly described Russia as “one of the most tested teams prior to the 2018 Fifa World Cup”, refused to reveal how many drug tests it had conducted on the host nation following their staggering start to football’s flagship event.

A spokesman said: “When it comes to tests during the competition, please understand we cannot comment.”