The army team crossed the “Ural” – Kommersant

The first participant in the Fonbet Cup of Russia superfinal was CSKA, which in the second leg of the final stage of the “Way of the RPL” won – 2: 1 – away over “Ural”. The Yekaterinburg club went to fight for the right to meet again with the army team in the second stage of the Way of the Regions final. In it, his opponent will be Krasnodar, in the penalty shootout after a draw – 0: 0 – in regular time, having defeated the main sensation of the tournament at home – playing in the second-ranking division Akron.

Akron, the upstart number one of the domestic football season, hardened by victories over Torpedo, Lokomotiv, Dynamo and Spartak, did not give in to Krasnodar, of course. It was already a familiar picture: the Togliatti club, unknown to anyone six months ago, is being crushed, strangled, and, even if straining and straining, over and over again beats off other people’s attacks. And all the beauty of Krasnodar, like the one that Ilzat Akhmetov, who gave Juan Batchi a magical heel pass, is wasted – Akron is holding on. On thin, but keeps and sometimes even arranges sharp forays into other people’s possessions. The blow of Nikita Saltykov, thanks to the rebound that corrected his trajectory, for example, was fraught with no less threat than Batchy’s blow.

This anomaly club was unbreakable. In the second half, Krasnodar seemed to add a little more tempo and variability. But this circumstance did not bother the guests at all. They seemed to know that even if they suddenly falter once or twice, luck will still surely reward them for their audacity. Well, as in that episode, when the Krasnodar forward John Cordoba gave a trick from the ultra-complex and ultra-spectacular category: if everything ended the way the Krasnodar footballer wanted, he would most likely have few competitors in the battle for the prize for the author of the best goal of the season. Cordoba fought the defender, standing sideways to the gate. It was impossible to break through. Cordoba hit. He hooked the ball up with the side of his foot, and it smoothly, “parachuted” fell into the goal. And the impeccable Akron goalkeeper Sergei Volkov was fooled for the first time. Nothing could help him anymore – except for the crossbar, on which the ball eventually hit.

And the degree of tension, the degree of Krasnodar anger, the desire to avoid the sad fate of the predecessors defeated by Togliatti with ambitions and opportunities after that all rose and rose. But, of course, Akron held out and the match went to a penalty shootout.

And in it, the Krasnodar goalkeeper Matvey Safonov came to the fore, in incomparable jumps, repelling the blows of Evgeny Pesegov and Vladimir Azarov and breaking off an incredible series of successes of Togliatti. They, unlike their rivals, left the Cup of Russia.

CSKA knocked out the cup superfinal in the confrontation with Ural, which played its usual football, the one that two weeks ago brought it a draw full of prospects – 1:1 – in the Moscow match. Strictly speaking, it looks, shall we say, strange, old-fashioned. This is the kind of football when a team gives the ball to the opponent with pleasure, and then defends somehow not at all trendy, or something, low, soft. It looks like an endless game with fire, which is bound to turn into a catastrophe sooner or later. But after all, in this style, which works badly in the championship, Ural managed to get to a very noticeable stage in the Russian Cup.

And again, everything grew together with him. Once, however, he escaped trouble by a miracle. CSKA carried out a chic attack, crowned with a subtle pass by Ivan Oblyakov to Konstantin Kuchaev, who jumped out of a snuffbox like a devil from an ambush. Ural was helped out by the flair of goalkeeper Ilya Pomazun, who smelled the smell of fried food in advance and managed to rush towards Kuchaev.

But from the corner, which was appointed after this throw of Pomazun, CSKA still scored and for several minutes probably wondered why the referee Sergei Ivanov was in no hurry to count the goal: there seemed to be no reason to cancel. But VAR confirmed their presence. The ball flew into the net from Anton Zabolotny and on the way, on the ribbon itself, touched who was standing, it turns out, a little ahead of another army man – Moises. That is, even without him, he would have found himself at the gate, but this extra touch made Ivanov still record offside.

And “Ural” continued in the same vein, as if he was sure that he was invulnerable in the Cup, that nothing could take him in this tournament. However, the limit of luck was not unlimited. In stoppage time for the first half, Emmerson made a completely stupid loss wide of the box, in a situation where he had plenty of safe options at hand. The army team quickly transferred the ball that they unexpectedly got into the free zone, from where Jesús Medina aptly fired into the far corner.

Ural resurrected the myth of its phenomenal cup vitality right after the break. Rai Vlut dragged the ball into the penalty area of ​​CSKA, and there, fighting with Igor Diveev, he somehow fell too spectacularly. Ivanov, having watched a replay of the episode in which the contact between the players was ephemeral, certainly deserved a curse from the army fans. But the penalty was appointed, and the artistic Vlut converted it.

The happiness of “Ural” was short-lived. For the second half, the CSKA coach sent Fyodor Chalov, who had not yielded this position to anyone for a long time, to the “pillar” of Fedor Chalov, instead of the quickie, Konstantin Kuchaev, at the forefront of the attack. The replacement turned out to be in the suit. However, in the combination that led to the goal, it is worth highlighting another amazing pass from Oblyakov on the left, after which Chalov had to shoot Pomazun from an absolutely lethal position.

“Ural” after that finally grew bolder, the game revived. But CSKA retained the advantage, although it experienced an unpleasant moment in the end: Yuri Zheleznov sent the ball into the crossbar. The army team reached the superfinal of the Russian Cup, which will be held on June 11. “Ural” is now facing a meeting on May 17 in the main final of the “Path of the Regions” with “Krasnodar”.

Alexey Dospekhov