The World Cup started without Russia - and Russian media aren't hiding their rage. While the ball rolled in Canada, Mexico and the US, the main topic in Moscow isn't football, but who's to blame that their national team is once again watching from the sidelines.

According to a review by the British service's Moscow correspondent, part of the Russian press is aiming its anger in an unexpected direction - at Donald Trump. The paper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" accused the US president of failing to keep the peace during the tournament and of having "let the genie out of the bottle," escalating tensions in the Middle East with strikes on Iran. The paradox is obvious: the same leader Moscow had otherwise been courting is now to blame for there being no football.

Behind the sporting frustration lies a heavier picture. Russian state media are trying to spin recent troubles as victories ahead of Russia Day, but the numbers are hard to massage. The country faces a budget deficit of six trillion rubles, despite expected oil revenues.

And where the propaganda struggles most is tourism. Visits to Crimea have dropped due to fuel shortages and Ukrainian drone strikes on railway infrastructure - for the first time, cancellations outnumber new bookings. The Kremlin officially talks of seven million expected tourists and 20-percent industry growth, a figure with little connection to what ordinary Russians see on the ground.

For the Balkans, which have lived for decades with the gap between official figures and the reality on the street, this is a familiar genre. The authorities count growth, the citizen counts what's left in their pocket - and between those two ledgers usually hides the true state of a country. Being shut out of the World Cup is only the most visible symptom; the real story, as usual, is in what doesn't make the front pages.