The draw for the quarterfinal stage of the Russian Cup pitted the giants of domestic football against each other

The draw for the play-offs of the Fonbet Russian Cup formed two very powerful pairs in terms of the sonority of brands in the quarterfinal round of the RPL Path. In one of these confrontations, Rostov and CSKA will meet, in the other, Dynamo and Zenit.

On Friday, the draw for the first – quarterfinal – stage of the play-off of the main part of the Fonbet Russian Cup took place. It is divided into two brackets – “RPL Path” and “Regional Path”, the winners of which will meet in the finals. Eight representatives of the highest domestic football division, who took first or second place in their quartet at the group stage, made it to the top. At the bottom, the four clubs in the lower divisions were joined by the same number of Russian Premier League teams that finished third in their groups. In the “RPL Way,” the quarterfinals have a traditional format: two matches. But the loser gets a chance to continue the fight in the “Path of Regions”, falling into the lower bracket. In it, in order to get through the quarterfinals (and then the semifinals), you need to win two matches in a row within the same round. The second one belongs to the club that transferred from the RPL Path.

Of the pairs that the draw formed at its quarterfinal stage, two stand out. They pitted clubs that were among the giants of domestic football. One CSKAthe winner of the previous drawing, will meet with Rostov, which this season, however, is not yet as successful as in the past, when it almost won a medal at the national championship. The second pair is even more sonorous. It contains the Russian flagship Zenit will fight with Dynamo“, which is now in fourth place in the championship table, two lines below the St. Petersburg team. Two more “paper” favorites of the tournament went to clubs that were much inferior to them in terms of status: “Spartak” – “Orenburg”, “Lokomotiv” – “Baltika”.

In the lower bracket, special attention will be focused on the championship leader Krasnodar, which at the group stage let Spartak and Dynamo advance and, finding itself in the “Path of the Regions”, lost the right to misfire.

He will first have to deal with Khimki, who were relegated from the RPL in the spring. Other top division teams – Ural, Akhmat and Sochi – faced Rodina, Volgar and SKA Khabarovsk as their opponents.

Alexey Dospehov