Moscow Spartak beat Orenburg in the Russian Cup match

Spartak, which in recent days, after losing to Fakel in the championship, was very often mentioned in the context of the almost ripe dismissal of coach Guillermo Abascal, avoided another tournament failure by beating Puti RPL at home in the return quarterfinal match – 3:1 – “Orenburg” and reaching the next round. True, the guests themselves made the task easier for Spartak, for some reason playing against them without their strongest players. Another Moscow giant had to leave the “upper” bracket: “Baltika” dropped Lokomotiv to the “Path of Regions” in the penalty shootout that capped the return match for it, the main time of which ended in a draw – 1:1.

If the Moscow match really, as is believed, meant a lot to Guillermo Abascal in terms of continuing the alliance with Spartak, with which not everything seems to be going smoothly and smoothly lately, then even before it he probably should have been mentally grateful for the help another Spanish coach, David Deogracia, who heads Orenburg. At the sight of the line-up he put forward for this, in theory, a very prestigious, very important meeting by the standards of the club, those who were closely following him should have had their eyes wide open. There was not a single undisputed first-team player in it – in fact, only reservists! And this despite the fact that the situation insisted that Orenburg had an excellent chance to get into the semi-finals of the RPL Path. In the end, in the first match last year, he got, albeit minimally, a reserve of one goal. Who wouldn’t want to bet on proven fighters in such a situation? And Deogracia seemed to have agreed in advance to descend into the “Path of the Regions.”

Spartak did not agree to let him go there

The whole game in the opening period screamed that things were really bad for Spartak. There is not an ounce of luck (Alexander Sobolev fired into the crossbar from the corner of the goalkeeper), but the carelessness is beyond the roof.

Carelessness is, for example, when the defensive line doesn’t give a damn about the fact that some opposing player receives the ball near the penalty line and is about to shoot. Well, why cover it? Who is this anyway? The player was Orenburg newcomer Mohammad Ghorbani, who hit, strictly speaking, quite softly, but waited for a lucky rebound from Srdjan Babic, which stunned goalkeeper Alexander Selikhov and, presumably, the fans, who had probably already decided that with such and such an opponent “Spartak” will never screw up like they did a few days ago with “Fakel” in the championship. But no, nothing could be guaranteed here.

Moreover, the football after Ghorbani’s goal was strange. Somewhat sour, without strain. And this unexpected Orenburg option held on quite confidently until Jesus Medina’s cross from the right, coming out to intercept which the unknown goalkeeper Alexey Kenyaykin, perhaps himself amazed that he was entrusted to fight with Spartak, did not calculate the exit and allowed the tall Sobolev to stick the ball in in the net.

The Spartak players emerged from the slightly monotonous mode only in the second half.

And when Anton Zinkovsky, after a pass from Daniil Khlusevich, who grew out of a sharp flank attack through the active Victor Moses, scored the second Spartak goal, Guillermo Abascal did not even try to hide his emotions, chopping the air with his hand at the edge. Yes, this match, undoubtedly, was not an easy match in his life; there was something special in it for the Spaniard.

Soon the Spartak team once again took the lead – now not in a specific match, but in the sum of the two. It was Sdrzhan Babic who, after the set piece, demonstrated amazing composure, receiving the ball and aiming for the far corner that opened up to him. I wonder if Orenburg’s strongest players would have given him so much time if they had been on the field?

Meanwhile, Spartak did not want to extinguish the intrigue even after Babich’s goal and the subsequent removal of Orenburger Vladimir Poluyakhtov. It was an amazing sight – Orenburg’s reserve squad was in the minority, although it was diluted after replacements by some notable players. And he could have achieved a penalty shootout if Selikhov had not taken Dmitry Vorobyov’s killer header.

It came down to a penalty shootout in another RPL Path match, played on Thursday. After the Kaliningrad draw – 2:2 – Lokomotiv and Baltika shared goals in Moscow.

This time there were half as many of them as in the first meeting. And in the shootout from the penalty spot, everything was decided by the failure of Artem Dzyuba, who fired at the crossbar, and the phenomenal reaction of Baltika goalkeeper Evgeniy Latyshonok, who parried a tight and seemingly hopeless shot into the bottom corner of another Lokomotiv forward Sergei Pinyaev.

After these matches, the composition of the next round of play-offs became fully known, the draw for which will take place on Friday. Zenit and CSKA reached the semi-final stage of the RPL Path along with Spartak and Baltika. “Orenburg” and “Lokomotiv” joined “Rostov”, “Dynamo” (Moscow), “Akhmat”, “Ural”, “Khimki” and “SKA-Khabarovsk”, which was knocked out on Thursday in the series, at the second stage of the “Path of Regions” penalty after a draw in regular time with the score 1:1 “Sochi”.

Alexey Dospehov