Marcel Lička had nothing personal

In the final matches of the 15th round of the Russian Championship, Dynamo defeated Orenburg – 2:0, and Spartak defeated Rostov – 2:1. As a result, the blue and white finished the first round in third place, and the red and white in sixth, although only one point separates them.

At the end of the first round, Dynamo head coach Marcel Licka met with his former team, which, in fact, became a springboard for him to a big metropolitan club. Without the Czech specialist, Orenburg is still showing more modest results and before the 15th round they were in 13th place, very close to the relegation zone. At the same time, under the Spaniard David Deogracia, who replaced Jiri Jarosik as coach, the South Urals again played quite nice football, very similar to the one promoted by Lichka. Despite all the difficulties during this season, they destroyed Zenit and Lokomotiv, and also achieved a draw with other representatives of the leading group – CSKA and Krylia Sovetov.

“Dynamo” was missing due to health problems of Fedor Smolov, but one of the leading performers, Brian Mansilla, who was serving a disqualification, was also absent from “Orenburg”. But for the Muscovites, Mumi Ngamalyo returned to the start and immediately scored with a dangerous header, which was parried by goalkeeper Nikolai Sysuev in a spectacular jump. And in general, they got into the game better, while the guests still lacked Mansilla’s energy and exclusive creativity. The same Ngamalyo was obliged to hit an almost unprotected goal from the line of the goalkeeper’s area and nevertheless missed, and a little earlier Sysuev stopped the breakthrough of Konstantin Tyukavin. Then Bitelo tried to score with his heel, but Sysuev caught that ball too. And when Tyukavin hit at an acute angle, the goalkeeper’s functions were performed by the post.

A goal was brewing, and it’s even surprising that before the break, Dynamo never materialized their unconditional advantage. Moreover, in the opening of the second half, they almost conceded themselves when Jimmy Marin jumped out one on one with Igor Leshchuk, and the goalkeeper had to help out his teammates. And this was not accidental, since Orenburg noticeably added and seized the initiative. However, it was the hosts who opened the scoring, after Tyukavin picked up a rebound from Sysuev, who was caught off guard by a ricocheted flank serve, and scored an easy goal. And soon Bitelo, again with the help of a rebound, delivered the ball to Luis Chavez, and he hit the half-empty goal with his head as he fell. Lichka’s new team beat the old one 2:0 and finished the first round with 25 points in an honorable third place, ahead of Krylia and CSKA in terms of additional indicators.

Rostov head coach Valery Karpin played his 11th match against his former club in the Premier League. At the same time, the statistics of previous meetings were in his favor: six wins and two defeats with two draws. And he already beat the current Spartak coach Guillermo Abascal last season. Moreover, at home the red-whites have not defeated the yellow-blues in the national championships since May 2018.

Now the Muscovites quickly took the lead after Mikhail Ignatov’s goal, demonstrating their determination to finally break the unsuccessful streak of home performances. And then Ignatov intercepted a sloppy pass from Rostov goalkeeper Sergei Pesyakov and paid the favor to Quincy Promes, who assisted him in the first scoring episode. “Spartak” took the lead 2:0 and slowed down, allowing the guests to attack, and Mohammad Mohebi even forced the hosts’ goalkeeper Alexander Maksimenko to really come into the game. And yet, overall, Abascal’s team still controlled the match, maintaining a comfortable margin by the break. The only downside they could probably put down was the injury of Roman Zobnin and a couple of mistakes by Maksimenko when kicking the ball in with his feet.

In the second half, Rostov tried to switch to more aggressive football, letting the powerful Nikolai Komlichenko ram the Spartak center of defense. And he enthusiastically set to work, hitting his header close to the bar. It was not possible to create such chances regularly, but the persistent Komlichenko eventually achieved his goal and earned a penalty when the ball, after his header, flew into the outstretched hand of Ruslan Litvinov. Maxim Osipenko scored from the spot, and the Rostovites still had 10 minutes plus injury time to at least avoid defeat.

The ending turned out to be nervous, especially since striker Alexander Sobolev, who appeared on the field shortly before the final whistle, did not take advantage of a good chance to seal the victory for the red-whites. However, Spartak held out and held on to a 2:1 score that suited them quite well, rising to sixth position with 24 points.

Alexander Ilyin