Luck plays its part

Italy midfielder Daniele De Rossi will miss Monday's 2018 World Cup qualifier in Israel but defender Leonardo Bonucci is expected to be available, the Italian football federation said on Friday.

De Rossi, 33, was injured during Thursday's 3-1 defeat to France in Bari and will sit out his country's opening Group G qualifier in Haifa.

Coach Giampiero Ventura had earlier said Bonucci would not make the trip to Israel due to family reasons, but the Juventus defender is set to rejoin his international teammates on Saturday after an improvement in the health of his two-year-old son.

Fellow Juve centre-back Andrea Barzagli remains a doubt, though, as Italy prepare for the start of a qualifying campaign in which they will likely battle with Spain for the group's lone automatic qualifying berth. 

Sam Allardyce vowed to defer to captain Wayne Rooney over his positioning after starting life as England manager with a last-gasp 1-0 win over Slovakia in World Cup qualifying.

Adam Lallana snatched a 95th-minute winner against 10-man Slovakia in Trnava on Sunday to prevent Allardyce from becoming the first England manager since Bobby Robson in 1982 not to win his first game.

Rooney, making a record 116th appearance for an England outfield player, adopted a deep-lying midfield role for much of the game despite Allardyce having said he would play in a number 10 position.

But Allardyce said: "This is the most decorated outfield player in England. He's won everything at Man United, more or less, and at Champions League and domestic level.

"He holds a lot more experience at international football than me as an international manager.

"So using his experience with a team, and playing as a team member, it's not for me to say where he's going to play.

"It's up to me to (ask): 'Are you playing well in that position? And if you are playing well and contributing, that's great.'

"Yes, I'd like him to get forward a bit more. He's been a goalscorer all his life and I want him still to score goals, but he reads a game as he reads it.

"I must admit, he did play a little deeper than I thought he'd play. But I was pleased with his performance."

Rooney, 30, started the game in midfield alongside Jordan Henderson in a 4-1-4-1 system.

Borussia Dortmund teenager Christian Pulisic scored twice as the United States thrashed Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 6-0 on Friday to edge closer to a place in the final round of CONCACAF qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup.

A first-half flurry of goals from Bobby Wood, Matt Besler and Jozy Altidore effectively sealed a straightforward victory for Jurgen Klinsmann's side against the Caribbean minnows.

Rising star Pulisic added a fourth for the USA in the 71st minute shortly after coming on as a second-half substitute.

Pulisic, 17, then laid on the fifth for another substitute, Sacha Kljestan, in the 78th minute.

Pulisic completed the scoring with a confident finish in injury time to make it 6-0.

The win left the United States within touching distance of the "Hexagonal" final round of qualifiers.

Klinsmann's men would have been assured of qualification if Trinidad & Tobago had beaten Guatemala in the day's other Group C game.

However two goals from Carlos Ruiz -- including an 87th-minute equalizer -- secured a 2-2 draw for Guatemala in Port of Spain against the "Soca Warriors."

The result means the USA need a point in their final group game against Trinidad in Jacksonville, Florida on Tuesday to be certain of progressing to the later rounds.

The first goal came when Wood curled in a shot from the edge of the area on 28 minutes after good work from Altidore and Fabian Johnson.

Besler had celebrated the birth of his baby daughter just hours before kick-off, then marked the occasion with his first international goal on 32 minutes. 

Russia says it will take extraordinary measures to combat any terrorist threat when it hosts the World Cup next year, as its military campaign in Syria makes the country a prime target for jihadists.

A bombing on the metro in Saint Petersburg in April that left 15 people dead was among the recent high-profile terror attacks on Russian soil.

The fear of more attacks was heightened after seven people were stabbed in Siberia in August in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, while the authorities have reported breaking up several jihadist cells across the country.

"There is a very real threat of an attack in Russia" during the World Cup, which runs from June 14 and July 15 2018, said Alexander Golts, an independent Russia expert specialising in security.

Russia has experienced a number terror attacks over the last 20 years and during two wars in Chechnya, but the threat has increased since Moscow's military intervention in Syria in September 2015 to support President Bashar al-Assad's regime, making it a priority IS target.

"The authorities say they have succeeded in destroying IS. But several thousand Russians have been taking part in (jihadist) conflicts and now they are beginning to return to Russia," Golts told AFP.

According to the Federal Security Service (FSB), about 2,900 Russian jihadists, most of them from the Muslim-majority Caucasus republics, have fought in Syria. Between 2,000 and 4,000 more fighters from Central Asia now live in Russia.

The world's most high profile sporting event, along with the Olympic Games, makes an ideal terrorist target.

- Threats against players -

Every day, dozens of calls to commit attacks during the tournament from IS propaganda organs are published via social networks. Many of these involve threats against players.

But Pascal Boniface, director of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations in Paris, said these threats are put out "to attract attention".

There is a risk of terror at "any global sporting event which attracts cameras and those with a desire to make an impact".

Several months before the Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2014, bomb attacks killed 34 people in Volgograd, also in southern Russia, and "we were very worried about attacks" during the event, Boniface said.

FSB director Alexander Bortnikov revealed last month that a number of planned attacks had been thwarted ahead of the World Cup warm-up event the Confederations Cup in June.

- Human rights concerns -

In 2016 Russia set up an international "working group" charged with overseeing safety at the World Cup and bringing together the security services of 32 countries, despite diplomatic tensions between Moscow and the West, Bortnikov said.

"Every country is sending delegations and the common cause of the fight against terrorists goes beyond any disagreement they might have," Boniface added.

Saint Petersburg police last week began deploying dogs trained to sniff out explosives on the underground network, while a list of sensitive areas which will be kept under particularly close watch -- including luxury hotels, training grounds and tourist areas of host cities -- was published.

Although the authorities remain tight lipped on the details of the World Cup security plan, deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko has announced that at least 30 billion rubles (445 million euros, $512 million) will be spent by Russia in this area.

A decree concerning "strengthened security measures during the Confederations Cup and the World Cup" signed by President Vladimir Putin came into force this June and will be applied again from May 25 to July 25 next year.

The decree includes measures limiting the right to protest and curbing driving in the tournament's 11 host cities, as well as introducing no-fly zones and forbidding entering these cities by bus without a special permit.

Human Rights Watch said it was "impossible not to be concerned" by aspects of the increased safety measures.

"We have already seen the consequences of the presidential decree," its Russia researcher Yulia Gorbunova told AFP, pointing to the 33 people arbitrarily detained during the Confederations Cup.

"There are reasons to believe that during the World Cup (these restrictions) will be all the more severe," she said.