in the final match of the second round, Spartak beat Baltika – 2:1

In the final match of the second round of the Russian Championship, Spartak beat Baltika at home – 2:1. The red-and-whites won the maximum six points at the start, which only Krasnodar managed to achieve. Another five clubs, including Zenit, scored four points each.

The favorite in the confrontation between the contender for the championship and the debutant of the Premier League, who first rose to the top division of Russian football after being relegated back in 1998, was obvious. And yet a certain unpredictability was present in this match. Spartak is unpredictable on its own, while Baltika is still a mystery team, from which it is not clear what to expect. In the first round of the championship, she seemed to predictably lost on the road to Sochi, and at the start of the Russian Cup, she slammed the Wings of the Soviets away.

Spartak had a successful start in both tournaments, although, again, they ran into problems where they should not have had them.

With “Orenburg” I even had to include moral and volitional qualities to the fullest. But the red-whites also demonstrated their potential, especially in attack. And Jesus Medina couldn’t make his debut because of an injury, and forwards Alexander Sobolev and Shamar Nicholson did not enter the field. In the match with Baltika, Medina was already included in the squad, and Sobolev, who had served a disqualification imposed last season, took his usual place in the starting lineup.

If Baltika fought for the first points in the championship, then the goal of Spartak was Krasnodar, which led the standings. Moreover, the Kaliningraders did not lock themselves in their own half and offered the favorite high pressure. Moreover, they had to score already in the sixth minute, but Gedeon Guzina, being in front of the gates of Alexander Maksimenko, waved past the ball after a comfortable cross from the right. However, the hosts returned courtesy for courtesy when Theo Bongonda ran one on one with Baltika goalkeeper Yevgeny Latyshonok and missed, despite having the opportunity to pass Quincy Promes to an empty net. And soon Latyshonok repelled Sobolev’s dangerous blow.

The guests, of course, risked getting involved with Spartak in open football and giving that space for quick counterattacks. Nevertheless, such tactics at least aroused respect and created difficulties for the red and white in organizing the game.

At some point, the team of Sergei Ignashevich simply suppressed them with their activity and seized the initiative, and regular ball throws into the penalty area kept Maksimenko and the Spartak defense in a fair amount of tension.

Somehow, Bongonda, Promes, and another well-known techie, Victor Moses, went into the shadows. And even though at the end of the first half the Muscovites forced Baltika to go back, they defended themselves quite confidently. However, Promes and Bongonda still made a sweetie out of the usual approach to the gate. The Dutchman dragged the ball to the penalty area and threw it behind the backs of the defenders on the oncoming Belgian, who headed his second goal for Spartak, taking into account the cup match with Krasnodar.

But the score 1:0 was too slippery for such a game, and it is quite natural that Baltika did not put up with it. She continued to cover the red-whites high, and they still felt extremely uncomfortable under this pressure, and in one of the episodes they were rescued by Maksimenko, although the referees erroneously recorded a violation by the Kaliningrader who threatened the goal.

The second half was dictated by the guests, and Spartak was lucky several times that they could not deliver a more or less accurate blow.

The hosts periodically ran out to counterattack, and some of them looked very promising. However, they lacked precision. The same Bongonda failed to issue a double, breaking through the goalkeeper. As a result, the outcome of the match was not clear until the last minutes. Another thing is that Baltika still began to run out of steam and noticeably eased the pressure. In addition, Spartak took control of the game with the help of substitutions, and Mikhail Ignatov, who left the bench, organized the second goal in the end, assisting Promes, who had only to hit an empty target.

True, the red-whites still could not do without nerves. In the 90th minute, they conceded from a set piece when Chile’s 2015 Copa América winner Angelo Henriquez sent the ball into the net with a cut header. But in stoppage time, no miracles happened, and Spartak won the second victory in the championship – 2:1. Like the leading Krasnodar, he scored six points and is lower in additional indicators.

Alexander Ilyin