Military bearing: how CSKA knocked Spartak out of the championship race

The victory of CSKA in the Moscow derby over Spartak (2:1) significantly changed the situation in the fight for the medals of the Russian Football Championship. Following the results of the 26th round, the Army team entered the top three, knocking out Spartak. And this plays into the hands of the leading Krasnodar, which has increased its gap from competitors. First of all, Zenit St. Petersburg, coming in second, thanks to their own away victory over Dynamo Makhachkala (3:2), as well as Zenit's misfire in the away game with Dynamo Moscow (1:1). Now Krasnodar must win three of the four remaining matches in order to become the national champion for the first time in history.

Spartak – CSKA

After Spartak's seven-match winning streak at the end of last year, many began to consider the red and white favorites of the championship race. But in the spring they slowed down sharply. First, there was a difficult home victory over Orenburg in last place (2:0), then an away defeat against Rubin Kazan (1:2). Then there was a bright victory at home over its direct competitor Zenit (2:1). It seemed to demonstrate that Dejan Stankovic's team had retained their champion pace.

But in the next four rounds, there were two more misfires — a draw away from Akhmat Grozny (0:0) and a home defeat from Dynamo Makhachkala (1:2). And in the 25th round, Spartak barely pulled out a victory away from Tolyatti Akron thanks to a penalty in the last minutes of the match. At the same time, the red and white lost 0:2 during the meeting.

A lot should have been decided by the derby with CSKA, which has never lost after the winter break. In eight spring rounds in the championship, the Army team scored six wins with two draws.

Spartak had a territorial advantage in the derby for most of the match, but they missed after a corner kick at the end of the first half — Saul Guarirapa scored. After the break, the red and white did their best to escape defeat. And we almost achieved this when, at the end of the match, Ezequiel Barco equalized the score from the penalty spot. But in the next attack, Marko Nikolic's men pulled out the victory due to Christian Bistrovic's goal. Spartak slips to fourth place and is eight points behind the leading Krasnodar.

—Spartak played a good match, they moved well, but for some reason they were too involved in attacking through the flanks and overhanging into someone else's penalty area, which is strange, since the CSKA defenders are one and a half to two heads taller than the attacking red-and-white players," former Spartak owner Andrei Chervichenko shared his opinion with Izvestia. — All this proves once again that Nikolic is more interesting and more skilled as a coach than Stankovic. Marko positioned his players well, realizing that Spartak would push forward, and fully giving him the initiative. CSKA tried to play on the counterattack, not very well — in the style of "knocked out and ran." But he did it efficiently and quickly, due to the speed of his young guys. As a result, the first goal was scored from the standard, but the second winning goal was scored precisely due to this speed, when Spartak began to celebrate their realized penalty and rejoice that they were still in the game.

According to the expert, Spartak has already effectively lost its chance of winning the championship. And his spring crisis was caused by euphoria after a winning streak that lasted from mid-October to mid-March.

"All these praises, the copper pipes that begin with every successful performance of Spartak, with every successful episode, like at the end of last year, once again did not lead to good," Chervichenko added. — Once again, everyone started singing songs about the championship that the red and white had practically won, about the fact that Spartak had all the greatest players, and this was playing a cruel joke. In the perception of the players and the coach, everything should happen that way. When this does not happen, great hopes are dashed and, as a result, apathy begins, which can last until the end of the season. I do not exclude that Spartak may now slip to fifth place altogether. Because you can forget about the championship. Now the chances of success remain only in the Cup, but even if they focus on it, the negative from the failure in the championship will still be hidden in their heads, which will cause a nervous breakdown in the Cup.

Thanks to the victory in the derby, CSKA is now third and seven points behind Krasnodar. Interestingly, the Army team still has to play at home with the leader through the tour.

"We are very happy to win such a victory, especially since for me this is the first derby victory over Spartak in three seasons of playing at CSKA," said Milan Gayic, defender of the Army team, in a conversation with Izvestia. — How did you manage to win this time? Due to the fact that they scored more. Seriously, we always want to win the derby, but it doesn't always work out. And sometimes it doesn't work out in games where we are much better than Spartak. For example, last season, when I scored two goals, we conceded at the end in the 97th minute from Jesus Medina and drew 2-2. It's great that now we managed to score in the end, on the contrary, after conceding a penalty goal. Luck was on our side somewhere, but overall I think we played well and deserved to win. Do we believe that we can compete for the championship? I don't know, the main thing for us now is to win the remaining four league matches, and then we'll see where we finish the season. Krasnodar has a big lead, of course, but anything can happen — that's why we love football.

Dynamo (Moscow) – Zenit

After a crushing 4-1 victory over Krasnodar in mid-April, Zenit came close to the lead and seemed to become the favorite again in the fight for gold. But then there was a minimal forced home victory over the distressed Khimki (1-0). And it became clear that the end of the championship would be extremely difficult for the St. Petersburg club.

Dynamo Moscow still has a chance of winning medals, so he also had the motivation to fight in the match against Zenit. As a result, it was the blue and white who had the advantage for most of the match, but the club from the Northern Capital scored first - Pedro scored in the 18th minute. However, at the end of the first half Yaroslav Gladyshev equalized the score. And at the end of the match, he went one-on-one with goalkeeper Evgeny Latyshon, but shot past the goal, failing to bring victory to Dynamo. As a result, they remain fifth, four points behind third place. Zenit is now at the same distance from the first line.

"We can praise the blue and white for the way they played the match against Zenit," Sergei Silkin, the former head coach of Dynamo Moscow, told Izvestia. — The guys played to the limit of their abilities, showed a good attitude. And they could even win, but the realization of the moments let them down. As it is, a draw doesn't really give them anything in the tournament, so they helped Krasnodar more than themselves. Krasnodar is now the favorite in the fight for gold. Of course, it's still not clear, he may have misfires, but if Zenit plays the same way as Dynamo in the remaining rounds, then he will lose points somewhere.

Dynamo (Makhachkala) – Krasnodar

The Dagestani club has already taken points from the favorites more than once this season. Due to his excellent physical fitness and the ability to impose a fight from the first to the last minute, he became an uncomfortable opponent for everyone. The visit to Makhachkala was in many ways a test for Krasnodar regarding its readiness to take the championship. After the crushing defeat in St. Petersburg, it seemed that the Bulls would break down psychologically and begin to lose their leadership.

But then they managed to defeat the unyielding Akhmat at home (3:1), and then went to Dynamo Makhachkala, where they withstood the very high-quality nature of the match. Moses Kobnan opened the scoring in the game pretty quickly, allowing Krasnodar to lead. In the middle of the first half, the hosts equalized with a goal from Mohammad Hosseinnejal. However, just before the break, Joao Basci brought the RPL leader forward again.

In the 65th minute, Eduard Spezyan increased the advantage of the guests. He could have killed the intrigue in the match in the 79th minute, but did not realize a penalty. It almost went sideways for Krasnodar. In the 86th minute, Kirill Zinovich reduced the gap in the score with a free kick. And then, because of all the stops of the match, the teams played an additional 10 minutes, at the last of which a penalty was awarded to Krasnodar due to a hand game in the penalty area.

But Stanislav Agkatsev beat off Hamid Agalarov's blow, breaking his finger. Thus, he brought victory to Krasnodar, which now has to win three matches in the remaining four rounds to take the championship.

There were also five more matches in the last round. In the struggle between two teams from the transition zone, Pari Nizhny Novgorod defeated Akhmat Grozny (1-0) at home, and in the 103rd minute of the match, the home goalkeeper Nikita Medvedev kicked a penalty twice - after the first time, the judges forced him to interrupt due to an early entry into the penalty area of one of the field Nizhny Novgorod players. Rostov drew 1-1 with Lokomotiv Moscow on its own field. Samara's Krylia Sovetov snatched a 2-0 victory over Orenburg in the end at home. Khimki drew at home with Akron Togliatti (2:2), Rubin Kazan won at home against Fakel Voronezh (2:1).