Zenit drew with Spartak and missed the opportunity to lead the Premier League

In the central match of the 19th round of the Russian Football Championship, Zenit tied with Spartak – 0:0. In another meeting, Krasnodar failed to defeat Rubin – 1:1. Thus, the status quo was maintained in the gold race. Krasnodar are in the lead with 39 points and are still two points ahead of the chasing St. Petersburgers.

The main event of the 19th round, undoubtedly, was the Saturday confrontation between Zenit and Spartak, while the leader of the first part of the championship performed as a kind of warm-up for them “Krasnodar”who took “Ruby”. There was also intrigue here, given that the Kazan team, returning from the first league, was a pleasant surprise before the winter break and finished in the group of medal contenders.

Krasnodar’s top scorer John Cordoba was still serving a suspension. For the same reason, two more important football players for them, Alexander Chernikov and Juan Bashi, were not available. The team’s head coach, Vladimir Ivich, immediately introduced Brazilian Victor Sa, recently acquired from Botafogo, into the starting lineup, but he kept another newcomer, Colombian national team midfielder Kevin Castano, in reserve.

Krasnodar also had certain difficulties in the game. For a long time, the hosts could only boast that they took dangerous corners a couple of times, and Junior Alonso also hit the crossbar. But the hosts were unexpectedly helped by Rubin goalkeeper Yuri Dyupin, who made a grave mistake when leaving the penalty area and waved his foot past the ball. The nimble Olakunle Olusegun was right there and hit the empty net. True, Dupin soon saved the Kazan team from the second goal, parrying a point-blank shot from Moses Cobnan.

In the second half, Krasnodar played pragmatically in terms of the score, often retreating with the whole team to their half of the field. But when the guests buried themselves in a positional attack, they launched sharp counterattacks.

Moses could have scored in one of these runs, but he was stopped by Dupin, after which the goalkeeper did not allow Eduard Spertsyan to finish off the ball. The Kazan team never figured out how to open the Krasnodar defense, but a standard came to their aid. Goalkeeper Matvey Safonov rescued the hosts after the first corner kick, which ended with a shot from Alexander Zotov, but Rubin still achieved their goal on the second attempt, when central defender Rustam Ashurmatov headed the ball into the net. This happened already in the 90th minute, and the leader had practically no time left to fight for victory. Naturally, the 1:1 draw did not suit Krasnodar, which scored one instead of three points and provided an opportunity for Zenit to take first place.

Of course, the match in St. Petersburg was already accompanied by excitement, and here Spartak also fueled interest in it, although it would have been better not to have done this. At the training camp in the UAE, the leader of the red and white Quincy Promes got into another scandalous story and was detained by local police because, according to unofficial information, he fled the scene of a traffic accident. Now the Dutchman is awaiting trial, but he has already been charged with two charges in his homeland – assault causing bodily harm and drug smuggling, which carry a total of seven and a half years in prison. So it remains to be seen how this will all end.

The absence of Promes, of course, was a huge loss for Spartak. In addition, the head coach of the Muscovites, Guillermo Abascal, also missed the match with Zenit due to disqualification, who was counting heavily on the Dutchman and was probably forced to rebuild the tactical plan for the game. The red-and-whites had a new striker, Manfred Ugalde, from the first minutes, but Alexander Sobolev also found a place in the starting line-up. On the left is Anton Zinkovsky, and on the right is Jesus Medina. It was they who made up the so-called attack group. As for Zenit, they started two new recruits – central defender Nino and attacking midfielder Arthur, who was considered by the management of the St. Petersburg club as a worthy replacement for Malcolm.

Arthur already burst into the visitors’ penalty area in his debut, but failed to make a cross pass. The hosts were very close to scoring when Spartak central defender Alexis Duarte headed the ball into his own goal on a set piece. The Red-Whites were saved in that episode by Daniil Khlusevich, who managed to back up goalkeeper Alexander Maksimenko. Then the game calmed down a little, however, it was controlled by Zenit, which periodically exploded and sowed slight panic in the opponent’s rear. The same Duarte was especially panicked, having also received a warning due to nervousness.

However, in the middle of the first half, Spartak produced a good segment, which began to cover the St. Petersburgers with high pressure over and over again. Several interceptions looked potentially very dangerous, but never translated into scoring chances. But Zenit scored quite a goal with a regular pass into the penalty area from Douglas Santos to Arthur, whose shot under the bar was effectively parried by Maksimenko. After this, the hosts again took the initiative, but before the break Spartak attacked again. Another thing is that the guests never bothered goalkeeper Denis Adamov.

The second half began with a shot from the top scorer of the current championship, Mateo Cassierra, who, however, picked the ball rather than shot, so Maksimenko added to his statistics with an easy save. Here Ugalde hit with an accented low shot into the far corner, and Adamov was lucky that the Costa Rican was just a little short of accuracy.

After exchanging threats, the teams took a break until Spartak created a threat from a set piece.

Duarte seemed to have an advantageous position, but he hit the opponent’s goal much worse than his own.

Zenit coach Sergei Semak was the first to make changes, releasing, in particular, young Pedro instead of Arthur. Abaskal’s deputy, Vladimir Slishkovich, responded with his own personnel changes and removed Sobolev from the game, who did not like it very much. But the only thing the striker managed to do was put Strahinja Erakovic on a yellow card. Moreover, the adjustments seem to have benefited Spartak more. Zinkovskiy and Medina took turns turning the ball into the top nine from the free kick, and Srdjan Babic also hit the target from the corner. It was quite calm at the visitors’ goal until Maksimenko aggravated the situation by making an unforgivable mistake near his own penalty area. The St. Petersburg residents nevertheless forgave him, and Cassierra missed in the finale of that game episode. And in the end, Mikhail Ignatov almost brought victory to the red and white when, after an elegant wall with Ugalde, he caught the barbell.

The 0:0 draw did not allow Zenit to catch up with Krasnodar, which retained a two-point advantage (39 versus 37). Spartak was ahead of Lokomotiv in additional indicators (now they have 31 points each) and reduced the gap to the bottom three Dynamo to a minimum. But the blue and white still have a match with the railway workers ahead of them in the 19th round.

Alexander Ilyin