“Pensioner” Dziuba is the best in the frosty derby

It’s good that in a constantly changing world there are unshakable constants: no matter how old Artem Dziuba is, he is the best on the field, playing in Russia in the cold and watching VAR for 5-7 minutes. Cup of Russia. 1/4 finals. Cherkizovo. Lokomotiv – Spartak 0:1. Goal: Prutsev, 16.

Despite the frost clearly below 10 degrees, the railroad and Spartak teams had to go out onto the almost perfect (at the end of February) lawn of the Cherkizovsky stadium in order to open the football season after the winter break.

The updated Lokomotiv (the signing of Dziuba and Smolnikov is a clear success of the club’s breeders) in the first half with 11 thousand spectators (the vast majority of which are Spartans – which is a huge disadvantage of “working with fans” for the owners) one and a half times approached Maksimenko’s goal. Neither the cold, nor the practically re-assembled squad, nor the principal rival, nor the home field, nor the urgent need to “cling” to the Cup – none of this became a reason for the railway workers to play football.

But “Spartak” did not shine with feints and sharp attacks, but used the first oversight of the hosts. Probably, no children’s football school in the country teaches defenders to play like this across the field near their own penalty area. Wards of Guillermo Abascal, who put up a composition entirely composed of Russians, easily intercepted the frosty ball near Lantratov’s possessions. Spartak’s pressing and the kindergarten mistake of the red-greens led to the only goal in the match. Ilya Kuzmichev just became the kindergartner whose mistake allowed Ruslan Litvinov and Danil Prutsev to open the scoring in the match. The latter shot perfectly into the far corner and the Loko goalkeeper had to get the ball out of the net.

The red-and-whites struck nine shots at the hosts’ goal, scored the ball into their frame and calmly went to drink tea during the break. And after that, the game changed. Dzyuba showed that neither age nor a failed business trip to other lands made him worse. Loko pinned Spartak to his goal, and it was Artem who had two chances. More aggressive game ahead of the hosts has borne fruit. The railway workers put pressure, but Spartak was not ready for this.

The coaching staff of the red-whites made a series of substitutions, releasing Promes and Balde. The first couple of times he played well in defense, the second one was lost on the frozen lawn. But as already noted, Dzyuba became the hero of the match (it was he who received the award for the best player of the meeting). First, the pupil of “Spartak” pushed through Denisov and struck his head – the bar played for the red-whites. And then Artyom could not complete the beautiful (only) combination of his team – the ball, after being hit by the forward Loko, treacherously did not want to fly into the more than two-meter (in height) goal.

“Spartak” the whole second half did nothing but fight back. The hosts even scored, but after many minutes of viewing by the Varovites, the referee of the match Bezborodov had to go to the TV himself – Magkeyev’s goal was canceled. The red-whites failed the second half, but achieved a major victory. The new helmsman of the railway workers, Mikhail Galaktionov, managed to “ignite” his players in the second half, but nothing intelligible came of it.

The teams will play the second leg on February 27 in Tushino.

Questions from our correspondent to the team coaches at the press conference.

Spartacist Guillermo Abascal was the first to answer.

Promes played well in defense in the second half. Is this your setup?

– When we started to lose control over the game, we understood that Lokomotiv’s full-backs were playing very high, they were joining. If we have time to play with them, we can safely block their serves. When Ignatov and Zinkovsky were tired and no longer had time, we tried to make substitutions. All three were like that.

Helmsman of the Lokomotiv Mikhail Galaktionov.

Your team creates two moments at the end of the game – and creates their age Dziuba. Is this the attacking football you were talking about?

– In none of the interviews we said that the team would play attacking football. It is worth being more attentive to quotations and to publications that reprint them. As for the development of scoring episodes, it does not matter who creates them, a young player or an adult Dziuba. It’s a fact that we didn’t succeed in the first half. As for the second half and the pressure that we created, I told the guys that we should build on this.

Vladimir Sabadash.

Photo – Sergey Vinogradov.