The leader won back the victory – Newspaper Kommersant No. 61 (7506) dated 04/10/2023
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Zenit retained a huge margin of safety in the fight for the gold of the Russian Championship, having won in the 22nd round a victory – 2: 1 – on the road over the transformed Lokomotiv in the spring, which, during an exciting match, led the score and delivered a lot of problems to the leader of the championship.
The plot and content of the match, which was played late Sunday evening at the Lokomotiv stadium, fully corresponded to its “updated” in the past weeks, after the owner of the arena, who survived the deepest crisis, shook up the base, the coaching staff, added so that he again became like following the most fashionable trends of the grand, “billboard”. It was bright and intriguing, this match. And, of course, he demonstrated why the current Lokomotiv is much more successful than the one that rocketed down in the championship last fall.
This “Locomotive” tormented the domestic flagship in full. Here Zenit throws an out in their own half, and there is simply no one to give the ball to – all the players are dismantled, all the zones through which you can intelligently develop an attack are covered. We have to play through the removal, of course, quickly intercepted. But Claudinho is taken into a box at the edge, and nimble Sergey Pinyaev makes him make a loss. And the amazing Zenit dribbler trudges back across the field with a bad, evil smile. So smile those who understand that they have just been left in the cold.
“Zenith” still owned the ball more often. But it was a possession from which there was little use.
The defense of Lokomotiv, with 19-year-old Yegor Pogostnov as one of the core elements, refused to fake. For half of the first half, the Zenit attack was remembered only by two creatively executed standards – a penalty kick and a corner kick. But in both cases, Lokomotiv fought back easily.
And then he exploded. For a long time, Lokomotiv did not manage to add some interesting “chip” to the diligence at the forefront. And then Artem Dzyuba gave a chic pass – with a heel, in touch – to Maxim Glushenkov, who after him was surprised to find that almost all the gates were in front of him and you just had to not miss the far corner. Glushenkov still missed, but the goal of Lokomotiv still matured after his strike.
“Zenith” injected the ball from the gate. A banal, routine situation from which nothing can be squeezed out. But Renan innocently rolled the ball at Wendel, and Wendel, taking it, apparently did not expect at all that Glushenkov, who had not gone anywhere, would tightly press on him from behind. On the part of the Lokomotiv forward, it was an ideal fight – exactly on the verge of a foul, but without crossing it. The ball eventually went to Glushenkov, and this time he did not spare the Zenit goalkeeper Mikhail Kerzhakov.
Zenit, however, took revenge on this insanely uncomfortable Lokomotiv even before the break. He took revenge thanks to the class of his performers. Malcolm flawlessly “sold” in a free kick to the railroad workers who got in his way, and he himself gave the finest pass to Wendel.
Everything in this match was unsteady, everything hung in the balance. Sometimes – on a very flimsy one, as in that episode of the second half, when the still neat Lokomotiv gave the ball to Zenit in the central circle and ran into a sharp attack.
It was completed by sending the ball into the corner, Andrey Mostovoy reached for the cross and hit the post. And the surviving “Locomotive” bit painfully in response, again provoking Zenit techies to falsehood.
And yet, the guests were slowly pulling the tight rope to their side, slowly pinching Lokomotiv in its half. No, it was precisely on a full-fledged equal to the flagship that, whatever one may say, with all its merits, did not pull: strength, power, and stamina were not enough. Zenit took the lead when Douglas Santos fired from a distance, and Mateo Cassierra, who came off the bench, did a great job of rebounding, folding and sticking the ball hovering over the lawn into the net with “scissors”. Desperately trying to prevent trouble, Pogostnov only chalked up an own goal.
Zenit won, breaking Lokomotiv’s four-match winning streak, and retained a huge margin of safety in the “golden race”. The closest pursuer – “Rostov” – he is ten points ahead of after the Moscow meeting. But the Rostovites will play their match of the 22nd round only on Monday: they meet Orenburg on the road.
Before this match, the struggle for places in the top three became a little more aggravated. It was aggravated by CSKA, which overclocked in the spring. Valor in his devastating 3:0 victory over Khimki, of course, was not that much, given that the opponent is now moving in the opposite direction of the army and after the current round already shares the bottom line in the table with Torpedo, although still a month ago it seemed that no one could take her away from the Moscow club.
But in any case, the win turned out to be spectacular – largely, by the way, thanks to the recent decision of CSKA coach Vladimir Fedotov to transfer Ivan Oblyakov from the middle line to the front line, to the top three forwards. In this role, Oblyakov’s talent seems to be revealed in a new way, sparkling with different facets and shades. In the match with Khimki, he opened the scoring, deftly dodging opponents in the penalty area, although there were a lot of them and they seemed to be positioned so that the mouse would not slip through. Then Oblyakov showed himself to be a wonderful assistant, giving the perfect exit pass to Baktiyor Zainutdinov. And in the second half, he could well have added one more goal to the goal and assist, but hit the post.
Taking a fairly easy three points, CSKA found itself close to the third-placed Spartak, which the day before played a draw – 3:3 – with Dynamo. The two metropolitan giants are separated by only a point.
22nd round
Spartak-Dynamo 3:3
Sobolev, 7, 88 (pen.); Keita, 40 – Zakharyan, 35; Sobolev, 40+3 (own goal); Makarov, 66.
Akhmat-Ural 2:0
Kharin, 4; Berisha, 57.
Torpedo-Fakel 2:0
Kukharchuk, 34; Netfullin, 90+1.
Sochi-Krylya Sovetov 1:2
Noboa, 87 — Gaponov, 52; Costanza, 73.
CSKA-Khimki 3:0
Oblyakov, 33; Zaynutdinov, 37; Carrascal, 61.
Krasnodar-Paris Nizhny Novgorod 3:1
Krivtsov, 4, 14; Cordoba, 62 – Suleymanov, 71 (pen.).
Lokomotiv — Zenit 1:2
Glushenkov, 26 – Wendel, 40; Pogostnov, 77 (own goal).
Leaderboard
I V N P M O
1. Zenit 22 17 3 2 57:11 54
2. Rostov 21 13 5 3 38:28 44
3. Spartak 22 12 6 4 48:27 42
4. CSKA 22 12 5 5 40:20 41
5. Akhmat 22 11 3 8 33:29 36
6. Dynamo 22 10 6 6 39:29 36
7. Krasnodar 22 10 5 7 47:36 35
8. Orenburg 21 10 2 9 41:41 32
9. Sochi 22 9 4 9 32:41 31
10. Ural 22 7 4 11 24:35 25
11. Lokomotiv 22 7 4 11 32:39 25
12. Wings of the Soviets 22 6 6 10 23:33 24
13. Nizhny Novgorod 22 5 4 13 24:44 19
14. Fakel 22 2 11 9 27:41 17
15. Khimki 22 3 4 15 19:50 13
16. Torpedo 22 3 4 15 15:35 13
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