Russia have run considerably further than any other team at the World Cup

Tipped by many pundits to be a laughing stock, World Cup hosts Russia have confounded expectations by handsomely winning their opening two group matches against Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The host nation kicked off the tournament in style last Thursday by thrashing Saudi Arabia 5-0 and took themselves to the brink of the knockout stages with a 3-1 win over Egypt on Wednesday night.

And delving into the statistics has possibly revealed their secret - the Russian players have been running further than not only their opponents on the night, but every other team at the World Cup.

In their opening match against Saudi Arabia, the hosts ran 118km over the course of the 90 minutes - a figure that remains the highest in the tournament so far.

And in their victory over Egypt, the Russian players ran a combined 115km - the second-highest return in the World Cup matches completed to date.

By means of comparison, the next-highest figure is the 112km covered by Egypt during their Group A opener against Uruguay.

And Russia's running stats, as recorded by FIFA, are considerably higher than the tournament average so far of around 106km.

Russia's back-to-back victories have caught everyone by surprise after many tipped them as one of the worst host nations ever in the World Cup.

Having crashed out of the group stage at Euro 2016 and having seen competitive action only in last summer's Confederations Cup during the last two years, Russia had dropped to No 70 in the FIFA Rankings.

But they have amply compensated for a lack of form with plenty of running and a clinical touch in front of goal.

England, for their part, ran a total of 105km in their last-gasp 2-1 victory over Tunisia on Monday night.

Group A seems to be the place to go for honest endeavour, with the top four recordings of distance covered coming from that group, including the two Russian returns.

But hard-running doesn't necessarily ensure a positive result - just ask Australia, who covered 111km in their 2-1 defeat to France in Group C.

The only side that collectively have failed to cover 100km were Colombia in their 2-1 defeat to Japan, but this is explained by the fourth-minute sending off of Carlos Sanchez.