The Premier League is not all the way – Sport – Kommersant
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In the lower part of the grid of the first round of the play-offs of the football Fonbet Cup of Russia, where the clubs qualified by the Way of the Regions and the Way of the Russian Premier League compete against each other, two more matches have ended. “Akhmat” beat “Ufa” with a score of 2:1, but “Torpedo” was defeated by “Akron” – 0:2. Thus, the RPL suffered its first loss at this stage of the tournament.
Compared to the upper part of the bracket of the quarterfinal stage of the Russian Cup, where representatives of the Premier League are gathered entirely, among which the only thing missing is Zenit, in the lower level of the confrontation, of course, it is noticeably more modest. All the more so because it was far from being the strongest players from the first division that made it to the playoffs using the Way of the Regions, while the St. Petersburg Zvezda is still “boiled” in the second league.
With all due respect to the Ulyanovsk “Volga” or the Togliatti “Akron”, which is currently based in Zhigulevsk, these are too small clubs, and they were brought so high only thanks to a fortunate combination of circumstances.
“Volga” has already finished its performance in the tournament, losing to “Zenith” – 0:3. Akron seems to have caused a sensation by beating Torpedo 2-0, but here it is worth making an allowance for the fact that Togliatti knocked out the worst team in the Premier League at the moment. Maybe the same Muscovites set themselves some tasks in the current Cup of the country, but for them now there is nothing more important than the championship and maintaining a residence permit in the elite. I even got the impression that the head coach of the black-and-white team Andrei Talalaev used the cup match in Zhigulevsk rather as an opportunity to prepare for the restart of the national championship. In addition, Akron and Torpedo played in the first division last season, and it is possible that they will meet there again in a while, so there was no tangible difference in class between them.
Here “Ufa” and “Akhmat” competed in the Premier League not so long ago, so according to the old memory, this confrontation probably attracted the greatest interest in the lower bracket of the play-offs of the Russian Cup. However, after being relegated from the top division, the Ufa team are experiencing serious difficulties in the first one, taking only third place from the bottom in the current championship, and in the spring they will face a tough struggle for survival. Almost all the leading players left the team, only during the season it has already changed two head coaches, and now it is headed by Arslan Khalimbekov.
In the match against Akhmat, which is doing well, as evidenced by the sixth place in the first part of the Russian championship, Ufa successfully resisted for a little more than half an hour.
And then none other than Hamid Agalarov scored a goal for the Ufa team. Forward Grozny, as they say, did not regret his former club, in which he became the top scorer in the Premier League last season. Agalarov opened up great under a cool cutting pass by Evgeny Kharin and, left alone in front of goalkeeper Ivan Kukushkin, put the ball into the net. The only thing is that the striker tactfully refused the emotional goal celebration. Well, at the end of the first half, Lechi Sadulaev scored. In his explosive style, he advanced to the penalty area, passing a couple of opponents along the way, and shot into the corner from dribbling.
In the second half, Ufa still tried to get back into the game, despite the seemingly hopeless situation. Only Grozny were closer to the goal. The same Agalarov could score a double when he circled the goalkeeper and missed the goal from an acute angle. But the Ufa team finally squeezed out a scoring chance, when the partners brought Andrey Nikitin to the final blow. Approximately from the corner of the goalkeeper’s area, he launched the ball above the crossbar. And then the goalkeeper George Shelia had to react to the threat from the midfielder of the hosts Danila Emelyanov.
As a result, this segment of the Ufa activity led to the appointment of a penalty kick for an infringement on the Angolan Egas Kasintur, and the Colombian Dylan Ortiz converted it. The ending of the main time has already acquired quite a nervous character. The guests tried to protect themselves with the third goal, but first of all they took care of the defense, reflecting all the attacks of the opponent.
Akhmat won 2:1 and advanced to the next stage of the quarter-final stage, joining Zenit and Akron. Only the match between Zvezda and Pari Nizhny Novgorod, which will take place on Monday, remains in the lower bracket. Then the winners of the first round will compete for reaching the semi-finals with the teams that lost in the quarter-finals of the upper bracket, for which, we recall, there is a double elimination system.
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