“Spartak” and “Rostov” was not up to “Zenith”

Another victory in the 25th round of the Russian Football Championship was won by Zenit, which, thanks to four goals from Malcolm, defeated the Wings of the Soviets – 5: 1. But the nominal pursuers of the club from St. Petersburg “Spartak” and “Rostov” tied – 1:1. Formally, the championship race has not yet been completed, but the gap between Zenit and Rostovites has grown to 11 points, and it is virtually impossible to eliminate it.

In general, it is already clear that Zenit will again become the champion, but the Petersburgers themselves wanted to arrange everything beautifully at their home stadium in a principled match with Spartak, which will take place in the 26th round. To do this, now they needed not only to defeat the Wings of the Soviets themselves, but also for Spartak to defeat Rostov. Meanwhile, the team of Sergei Semak has already encountered problems in Samara, when they lost here 0-2 in the group stage of the Russian Cup.

And most importantly, there was no confidence in the success of Spartak, who recently played very hard and more often unsuccessfully with Rostov.

At “Zenith” match for health reasons with wings” missed one of his backbone players – Wendel, perhaps the main link between defense and attack. And in this, too, there was a certain chance for success for the Samara team in addition to the advantage of their field. Moreover, the hosts of Solidarity Arena took the lead already in the ninth minute, when Sergei Babkin headed the ball into the far corner after a cross from the right flank by Roman Yezhov. True, they failed to catch on to this result. Glenn Bale stepped on the foot of Petersburger Daler Kuzyaev in the penalty area, although he did not prevent him from passing, but this was still enough to award a penalty, which Malcolm calmly took. In addition, then the wards of Igor Osinkin let Claudinho get too close to the goal, who hit the goalkeeper Ivan Lomaev.

There was a controversial episode when Zenit defender Dmitry Chistyakov, as it seemed, uncleanly kicked the ball in the penalty area from striker Vladimir Pisarsky, however, unlike the incident with Kuzyaev, VAR was not interested in this situation. And soon Bale received a second yellow card, and even before the break, the Wings remained in the minority. Now the victory of the guests was not in doubt, especially since Malcolm immediately delivered a control blow in the debut of the second half. In the future, the Brazilian made poker at all, establishing himself in the rank of the top scorer of the championship with 22 goals.

Zenit won 5:1 and scored 61 points.

Match Spartak – Rostov first of all, of course, was of key importance in the fight for silver medals. CSKA also participates in it, which met on the road with the fifth-placed Akhmat. A quick double by Ivan Oblyakov created very comfortable conditions for the army team. In the second half, there was a moment when they could theoretically lose control of the game, but goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev saved them, repelling Artem Timofeev’s point-blank shot. Only in the end the Grozny players made the guests nervous when Mohamed Konate reduced the difference to a minimum. And yet CSKA did not miss the victory, and before the final whistle Maxim Mukhin restored the advantage by two goals – 3:1. Thus, the red-blue with 48 points caught up with Spartak.

The red-and-whites retained third place, but, of course, dreamed of how to return to second. At the same time, they finally had no personnel losses due to injuries or disqualifications. But Rostov, already in the first minutes, made a forced substitution after Kirill Shchetinin was knocked out by his teammate Viktor Melekhin in a game of martial arts. However, this incident did not affect the guests, who acted aggressively and in an organized manner, often showing even more solid football than the hosts.

However, both teams lacked creativity in the attack, and therefore goalkeepers Alexander Selikhov and Sergey Pesyakov were more involved in playing along than direct duties. Is that the Spartacists themselves sometimes sowed panic in their penalty area. At first, Selikhov almost brought, and closer to the break Alexis Duarte aggravated. At the end of the first half, Guillermo Abascal’s wards nevertheless became more active, but with the efforts of Giorgi Jikia, they delivered only one shot on target, which Pesyakov easily coped with. Rostovites also hit the goal only once, when Alexei Mironov, with a standard from a very sharp angle, decided to test Selikhov’s vigilance.

Before the second half of the meeting, it turned out that the captain Jikia was out of action in the red-whites due to damage. And it was quite a worrying sign, considering what a nightmare they had in defense in many matches of the spring part of the season.

Center forward Nikolai Komlichenko guests in the absence of Jikia clearly felt freer and went to ram. In a collision with Christopher Martins, he even almost earned a penalty, just short of reaching the penalty area.

In general, the game was still heavy, viscous and surprisingly unspectacular. Even Quincy Promes, who was much more inventive, could not come up with anything in the attack. The danger was only Mironov’s long-range strike, and so the teams continued to play without a goal and scoring chances. But absolutely unexpectedly, the replacement of the head coach of Rostov, Valery Karpin, fired, who released Alexander Selyava on the field. A typical destructive defensive midfielder who had never scored in the Premier League, suddenly charged from his left foot from behind the penalty area so much that even Selikhov could not save Spartak.

Martins did not save the hosts either, when Pesyakov flashed an excellent reaction, and then Alexander Sobolev, together with Shamar Nicholson, did not close Danil Prutsev’s cross along the front line. It seemed that Muscovites could no longer avoid defeat. However, in the last minutes, they just staged a total assault, overlaid the Rostov gates with standards, and Selikhov generally completely changed his penalty area to someone else’s and retrained as an attacker. And “Spartak” still snatched a draw after a corner, when Sobolev pushed through the defenders of the guests and hammered the ball into the net with his head.

Karpin literally tore and threw on the edge, expressing some claims to the referee Kirill Levnikov, who eventually had to show the coach a red card.

The emotions of the Rostov mentor were understandable: the most important victory sailed right out of his hands. And now his team has 50 points, Spartak has 49, and even CSKA is nearby. “Zenith” is the champion in five minutes and can win the title even in the next round, if the Rostovites, for example, do not beat the “Torch” at home, and the St. Petersburgers will squeeze the red and white.

Alexander Ilyin