Rostov provided the champion corridor – Kommersant

At the start of the 26th round of the Russian Football Championship, an important match took place in the fight for medals, including gold medals, which Zenit practically guaranteed itself. Rostov, which occupies the second place, sensationally lost to Fakel at home – 0:2, and this means that the club from St. Petersburg can advance the next championship ahead of schedule already in the Sunday derby of the two capitals with Spartak.

The match with a modest sign “Rostov” – “Torch” unexpectedly acquired a special status and was inferior in importance only to the super-principled confrontation “Zenith” – “Spartak”. After all, it depended on its outcome, how quickly the leader of the Premier League will officially become a champion. The Petersburgers expected to do this already in the 26th round, just in a landmark meeting with Spartak and in the most festive atmosphere at home with their fans. But Rostov upset their plans in the last round, when, having tied with the red-whites, he kept at a distance of 11 points. And now, it seems, he was not going to contribute to the speedy coronation of Zenith.

The Rostovites themselves really needed points in the fight for silver medals with the same Spartak and CSKA. Moreover, Fakel, struggling for survival, came to visit them, which recently surprised them by changing their head coach.

And the point is not only that at the end of the season such drastic changes are at least untimely, and often too risky and unpredictable. The resignation of Dmitry Pyatibratov occurred after the victory of the Voronezh team over Dynamo away, and his successor Vadim Evseev was urgently pulled out of the first league, where he worked with the Yaroslavl Shinnik. Although, in general, Evseev also has little experience in working in the top division with the Permian Amkar and Ufa.

True, the new Torch mentor did not meet his Rostov colleague Valery Karpin directly on the edge of the field, as he was serving a disqualification for a red card, received on emotions after the end of the match with Spartak. In the absence of Karpin, the operational management of the game process in the technical area was carried out by his deputy Viktor Onopko.

And in the starting lineup of the Rostovites there was no team leader and main central defender Maxim Osipenko. And without a pillar of defense, the yellow-blue experienced certain difficulties. So already in the debut, an ordinary throw from out of bounds led to a scoring chance, when the ball darted into the penalty area of ​​the hosts, Daniil Utkin failed to take it away, and it all ended with a dangerous shot by Georgy Gongadze with a rebound from the lawn. Rostov was rescued by goalkeeper Sergei Pesyakov.

At the same time, Torch goalkeeper Ilya Svinov was for a long time in the role of an outside observer and only reacted to primitive crosses from set pieces. Evseev chose a rather bold tactic for an away match with one of the best clubs in the championship, which his players effectively implemented. It feels like the Rostovites looked much brighter a week ago against the background of Spartak, and somehow faded against the background of Torch.

Behind the Voronezh team there was such concrete that in the first half Karpin’s wards simply did not know how to break it open, and absolutely nothing came up.

The second half started discouragingly for Rostov. In the very first seconds after the resumption of the game, the guests threw the ball to the penalty area, where Khyzyr Appaev and Georgy Gongadze hooked on it. There was a discount for Roman Akbashev, who was running up from the depths, and he, without the slightest doubt, in one touch, loaded on goal from the summer and, despite the fact that there was a very decent distance to them, caught Pesyakov by surprise. It is curious that almost immediately Evseev replaced the author of the goal, having acted so clearly for security reasons, because he was already “hung” on a yellow card and theoretically could run into a second warning.

The hosts, of course, made an attempt to recoup and finally gave birth to the first scoring chance. However, this threat arose from a standard position performed by Utkin. Viktor Melekhin headed the ball into the empty net, but Rostov’s top scorer Nikolai Komlichenko didn’t bring it over the front line, and even prevented Alexander Silyanov, who was already ready to close the far post. Moreover, in the future, the contender for medals could only dream of such episodes. But the “Torch” was lit again. Vasily Cherov gave a sharp pass to Appaev, who took an advantageous position in the penalty area, and the attacker delivered an irresistible header.

Voronezh took the lead 2:0 and with such a comfortable score went into the end, leaving the favorite with meager chances of salvation.

They were still defended with reinforced concrete and kept zero. Yes, and “Rostov” attacked somehow doomed, and failed to adapt to the tactical model of Evseev, who spectacularly returned to the Premier League. As a result, Fakel increased its lead over Khimki, which are in 15th place and defeated by Dynamo – 0: 1, to seven points and came close to Krylya Sovetov, which is still in 12th place. .

Well, Fakel seriously helped Zenit, which can now colorfully arrange the fifth consecutive championship title in Sunday’s match with Spartak. If the Petersburgers reach the mark of 64 points, then four rounds before the end of the championship they will already be out of reach for Rostov with its current 50 points, and for Spartak (49), and for CSKA, which, even in the event of a quite probable victory over Orenburg will score only 51 points.

Alexander Ilyin