Baltiyskiy believes: the RPL newcomer is among the leaders
There are no happy hours, so the seemingly recently launched RPL season has already covered almost a quarter of the distance. The seventh round was the last summer event in Russian football and completed the start of the championship, after which a pause for national team matches is scheduled.
An insulting draw
Most of the grandees go on break with positive emotions from the victories. Zenit spent some time rocking up and managed to lose points three times in August, but by the end of the month they had gathered themselves and even went on a small winning streak. In the seventh round, Paris NN came to St. Petersburg — Nizhny Novgorod, as usual, showed absolutely nothing away and lost without a chance. 11 defeats in 12 away matches in the Premier League in 2025, of which ten are dry, with one single triumph at the joints with Sochi. The catastrophic statistics of Nizhny Novgorod.
Thanks to the goals of Santos and Casserra, Zenit entered the top five and is still one point ahead of Spartak. The Muscovites also won their match, but much more nervously and dramatically — with the help of two Barko penalties, the second of which happened in the 97th minute. Moreover, the opponents were by far the worst team of the season, scoring only one point. Yes, nothing good has happened in Sochi for a very long time. It is not surprising that Roberto Moreno, apparently, says goodbye to the league.
Spartak's head coach, Dejan Stankovic, on the contrary, is desperately holding on to his job. In early August, the club's leaders allegedly even thought about firing the Serb and, according to insiders, gave the specialist five matches to fix the situation. By the beginning of autumn, the capital's team had risen to the top 6, although a couple of weeks ago it was in the joint zone. Apparently, the red-and-white cycle has not yet been completed and Stankovich remains for now.
Other Muscovites, Cherkizovskys, are doing better, but still not perfect. Lokomotiv, which has not known defeats so far, incredibly frustratingly missed the victory over Krylia in Cherkizovo. A confident first half by the hosts lit up 2:0 on the scoreboard. Loko was not confused by the missed shot from Rakhmanovich at the beginning of the second — a few minutes before the final whistle, Nikolai Komlichenko made the score 3:1, but his goal was controversially canceled due to a violation of the rules on Sergey Pesyakov. Instead of a calm +3, Galaktionov's team got a penalty in their own goal in the 97th minute and a third draw in a row. But Alexey Batrakov scored his ninth goal of the season, giving an assist to Dmitry Barinov.
Surprisingly, following the results of seven rounds, Baltika, which recently rose from the first division, has no defeats either. Kaliningrad conceded only five goals (less than Krasnodar), continue to stay in the group of leaders and are only one point behind the first place. Another victory was scored away — 2-0 against Akron. The most striking event of the meeting was the episode with Artyom Dzyuba, who received a dissection in the first minutes after being hit on the head by Kevin Andrade. Despite the injury, the striker spent the entire 90 minutes on the field and had a chance to score.
— Who was the opening act of the start of the season? "Baltika," said former Zenit striker Alexei Gasilin in an interview with Izvestia. — Firstly, they have retained the entire backbone of the FNL. Secondly, Coach Talalaev's style is very impressive. Very often, teams that rise to the Premier League play defensively, but here we see sharp attacking football and pressure. So if you take a team, then at the start it's Baltika, plus Lokomotiv. But this was to be expected from the railroad workers.
The Cherchesov effect
There were other draws in the tour, except Cherkizovskaya. Akhmat still does not lose in the championship under Cherchesov — Grozny shared points with Rostov on the road, 1:1. Georgy Melkalze scored the only goal from goalkeeper Giorgi Shelia. This is the goalkeeper's third assist in the Premier League during his career — the best indicator along with Igor Akinfeev among representatives of their role.
Orenburg and Rubin did not determine the winner either, although Kazan were leading 2-0 by halftime thanks to Mirlinda Dacu's double — the Albanian scored 60% of the team's goals this RPL season, six out of ten. In the second half, Jordi Thompson got involved, who made 1+1 in 20 minutes, returning the hosts to the game and preventing the opponent from gaining a foothold in the top five.
CSKA and Krasnodar competed in the central match of the weekend at the VEB Arena. Both had the opportunity to top the table if successful, and the Army team also set a personal record for a winless streak — 21 matches. And, in fact, they reached it — the rivals exchanged canceled and then scored goals, ending in a 1-1 draw.
"To some extent, I'm surprised by CSKA's performance," the award—winning Russian coach Yuri Semin told Izvestia. — In such a short period of time, the team began to play in a completely new way. The army men play boldly and actively. They dance with their game. It is also very important that there is a leader like Akinfeev. Moises is the best defensive player in the league. They have a good selection of players. There is still a lack of a central striker, there are questions about this position.
The main character of the evening, of course, was John Cordoba, who first equalized the score by closing the feed from the corner, and then grabbed a direct penalty for hitting Moises in the body. Without a leader on the field, Krasnodar held the away draw and remained in a clean first place with 16 points due to the above-described misfire of Lokomotiv. CSKA is second, one point behind, as are Baltika and Loko. The density at the top is crazy! So we go on a two-week break.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
