“Zenith” moved “Wings” to its place

In the 12th round of the Russian Championship, Zenit and Krylia Sovetov swapped places. On Sunday, the club from St. Petersburg, having beaten Samara 3:1, took second place, and they dropped to third. Meanwhile, Spartak jumped to fourth place thanks to a 2:0 victory over Paris Nizhny Novgorod.

The match between Zenit and Krylya Sovetov was the main event of the 12th round. Samara, who showed perhaps the most brilliant football in the Premier League, were in second place, and St. Petersburg came in third. At the same time, the tournament situation favored the permanent champion of Russia in recent years, who could not only get ahead of “Wings”, but also reduce the gap with the leading “Krasnodar”, which lost two points in a meeting with “Baltika” on Saturday.

However, the Samara team had its own plans and immediately made it clear that they were very ambitious. “Zenith” was only the owner of the field, and by no means the master of the situation.

If the guests were inferior in possession of the ball, they practically did not allow the St. Petersburg team to approach the goal, and from time to time they themselves started a combination game. Although the Wings, of course, really missed their key central midfielder Fernando Costanzi, who probably means as much to them as Wendel did to Zenit.

Only at the end of the first half did the hosts get excited and really put pressure on the opponent, especially after Samaran Amar Rakhmanovich elbowed Claudinho on the verge of a red card. Having recovered from a slight knockdown, the Brazilian immediately organized a good chance for Ivan Sergeev, whose shot was saved by goalkeeper Bogdan Ovsyannikov. Claudinho came out fully charged for the second half, again assisting Sergeev. The Zenit striker again failed to deal with Ovsyannikov, but corrected himself in the next episode when he subtly played along with Wendel. The Brazilian, finding himself tete-a-tete with the goalkeeper, skillfully threw the ball into the net.

In general, “Wings” for some reason noticeably lost ground after the break, and the St. Petersburg team simply began to tear them apart. If Mateo Cassierra’s tenth goal in the championship was canceled by the referees, having recorded a violation of the rules on the part of the author of the assist, Gustavo Mantuan, then there were no longer any questions for Wendel, who scored the double. This time the Brazilian hit the goal from a cross from Douglas Santos. Before the final whistle, Andrei Mostovoy also scored from a pass from Alexander Erokhin, and Roman Ezhov only corrected the result. Zenit won 3:1 and took second place from Samara. Now he has 23 points, and is already five points away from Krasnodar.

Unexpectedly, the match between Spartak and Nizhny Novgorod also acquired a fundamental character.

The team of Sergei Yuran, who recently admitted in an interview that he would like to coach the red-whites, was above Guillermo Abascal’s team when the points were equal. And the tournament price of this confrontation was quite high, since victory in it allowed us to get close to the top three.

Meanwhile, information leaked from the Spartak camp about the conflict between the leading and practically the only striker Alexander Sobolev and Abascal. Allegedly, the Spanish specialist had serious complaints against the player due to a violation of discipline, and things even came to a showdown in a raised voice. But in the end, Sobolev seemed to be suspended from training in the general group. The club called all this rumors, however, the footballer did not make it into the starting lineup for the match with Nizhny Novgorod, and the red and white started it without nominal forwards.

However, Spartak did not seem to notice the loss of such an important fighter for them and did not look like a team that had any problems, as they say, in the locker room. In the first half, the Muscovites completely outplayed Nizhny and forced them to constantly defend. The score 1:0 at half-time did not correspond to the huge advantage of the hosts. Quincy Promes could have punished visiting defender Kirill Gotsuk for a blunder in the first minutes, but Viktor Aleksandrov cleared the ball out of the empty net. Goalkeeper Artur Nigmatullin also helped out the Nizhny Novgorod team several times. Well, when Danila Prutsev completed a beautiful multi-move, he simply had no chance.

Abascal still released Sobolev for the second half, especially since it seemed that Promes was injured. True, the red-and-whites did not add to their execution either, failing to take advantage of a number of scoring chances and risking missing out on a well-deserved victory in the game. But in the end, Gotsuk retired from Nizhny, and Christopher Martins scored on a counterattack. Spartak won 2:0 and moved up to fourth place with 20 points.

Alexander Ilyin