Team Russia has been drifting in the wind and the current so far in this year’s World Cup. The nation has won two matches, with an overwhelming 5-0 victory over Saudi Arabia on June 14 and another 3-1 over Egypt on June 20 after ferocious competitions.

Like on the field, the anti-doping argument between the US and Russia off the football pitch has also been intensified. Travis Tygart, chief executive of US Anti-Doping Agency, voiced his concern that Russia could violate the anti-doping rules again during the tournament, and questioned why football's world governing body FIFA had awarded the quadrennial tournament to the country which had been shrouded with doping scandals, during an interview with The Guardian after a meeting hosted by UK Anti-Doping in London.

However, Team Russia’s doctor Eduard Nezuglov rejected the calls and stated that they had submitted over 300 samples of the players over the past year to FIFA, Union of Europe Football Associations (UEFA) and the country’s anti-doping agency, Russia Anti-doping Agency (RUSADA) and the results all showed that they are clean.

"The squad have likely given more samples in the past year than England,” The Guardian cited Nezuglov as saying and he also added “I’m ready to bet on a bottle of milk that the English have not given samples as often.”

The calls for more testing on Russian footballers has become more eye-catching since Russia overwhelmingly triumphed over Saudi Arabia and Egypt at the very beginning of the tournament and also triggered debates on social media platforms.

“British and Americans feel they lose their world domination based mostly on lies, and are capable of everything for preventing that,” a Romanian Facebook user called Daniel Cracium commented.

"As if the US didn't embarrass itself enough with the Olympic doping fiasco, now this? Wow, big time sore losers watching the amazing success of the World Cup in Russia, can they be any more transparent?” a Facebook user from Pennsylvania posted.

“Operation Puerto unearthed loads of top footballers (and other sports such as basketball) who remained unnamed. FIFA will cover it up as tennis did. The governing bodies of these have too much to lose from sponsors pulling out to do something about it,” Brent Carr from the UK commented on Facebook.

According to The Guardian, FIFA has refused to release any information about the testing regimen applied to the Russia team ahead of the opening of the 2018 World Cup, saying “there is ‘insufficient evidence to open anti-doping proceedings against any player.”

The McLaren Report, an independent report into allegations and evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russia commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) urged FIFA to act. In the report, it concluded that around 33 footballers among over 1,000 athletes in various sports were found to be involved in the cover-up.