“Fiery” Moscow derby in favor of St. Petersburg “Zenith”

In terms of intensity, emotions, game and what happened after the game, this is really one of the brightest derbies of recent years. The only thing that is bad for the capital is that the second capital goes into the gap due to the fact that the army team and Spartak shared points.

RPL. 13th round. Moscow. CSKA 2:2 Spartak. Goals: Chalov – 17′, Zinkovsky – 53′, Sobolev – 57′, Chalov – 70′.

Both coaches released combat squads, and how else – the most principled derby of the capital, the struggle with St. Petersburg for the first line (in theory), well, the confrontation of the coaches themselves: Russian against a foreigner, experience against youth.

Guillermo Abascal and Vladimir Fedotov took the most direct part in the game, and not only with leadership from the touchline, substitutions and changes of schemes, but also with a face-to-face confrontation before going to the break and “fire” in statements after the match. But even here, in the coaching confrontation, by and large, it is also a draw.

Only one person failed the game, there is no smell of a draw here – Promes. The Spartak player not only didn’t score, it happens with forwards, the Dutchman made a “bring” in the first minute, and only the sluggishness of the army team did not allow opening the scoring in the match. Then came the time for the second “jamb” – Promes “bought” to the provocation of Willian Roshi. And if in place of Sergei Karasev there was another judge, less experienced and authoritative, the Spartak player could get a red card. After that, the Dutchman “dissolved” on the field, and he was practically invisible.

And then a hurricane of those very attacks, emotions, confrontations, struggles, often on the verge of a foul, began, a “leaf fall” of yellow cards, which resulted in what happened during the break – the young and hot Abaskal “ran into” an experienced and unflappable Fedotov.

CSKA opened the scoring because of the “sleepy” Mikha Mevl, who could not cope with the “mercury” Chalov. For some reason, Roman Zobnin began to “demand” Milan Gaich to comply with fair play, and the soldier continued to play football. Mevlya lost one to one to Chalov, and the CSKA striker “closed the gestalt” – he scored against Spartak. The red-and-whites hardly left their half of the field, and the army team quickly regained the ball. Further, Alexander Selikhov “tricked up” when a corner was taken, and Daniil Denisov had to take out the leather sphere from the goal line after the strike of the soldier Zainutdinov.

The second half turned out to be not so bright in terms of emotions, but more fruitful for goals. “Spartak” gave a fantastic five-minute period: at first, the individual skill of Anton Zinkovsky led to the fact that the country’s number 1 goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev conceded a very “distant” goal. Yes, the Spartak player really had a cosmic blow, and even a radio-controlled one, but the flight of the ball into the net of the CSKA goalkeeper was too long. And here Akinfeev, in addition to himself, can also blame Jorge Carrascal, who has a “deuce” in defensive play.

Sobolev, who scored in every game, “closed” the shock five-minute period of Spartak. The center forward of the red-and-whites famously opened up on the flank in a counterattack launched by Prutsev, Zainutdinov “watched TV”, and the Spartak player put his team ahead of the score.

And then the time came for the experienced Fedotov, who put Carrascal and Medina on foot on the bench. They were “dead” both in attack and defense. Ivan Oblyakov, who appeared on the field, cut out an ideal assist, Spartak in the amount of three “watched TV”, Denisov made a positional mistake, and Chalov scored a double – a header from the lawn, and Selikhov had no chance to get a round.

Probably, the final draw is fair, based on what the teams showed on the field. But for the championship race, this draw is in favor of Zenit, and this, as you understand, is a big minus for the RPL.

“You have to use your moments. There were a whole lot of them for two. Then came the goal due to the loss of concentration, although at half-time we said that we need to improve when playing defensively, to be tougher. But that did not happen. What did Carrascal say? I was just talking about going out to play football. This is our passion, our love, and football does not tolerate carelessness. That’s what I was talking about, “- this is how the head coach of the hosts Vladimir Fedotov commented on his decision to make a double substitution at a press conference.

“It happens like this: football gives you something, takes something away. I am glad that the team showed such a desire: they did not give up, they went forward. This is the third match in a row. Of course, I can’t be happy with the situation when we miss. But we show character, show our football! The match against CSKA was very difficult for us. Everyone had a hard time picking up rebounds from their goaltender’s passes. But the players remained focused, took control of the game and played the football we are used to. Concentration is very important, because in such a match it was possible to lose. At the same time, we are sorry that we could not bring the matter to victory. This is football – let’s learn a lesson, ”Spartak head coach Guillermo Abascal summed up the derby.

Vladimir Sabadash.

Photo by Vladimir Golikov