Petersburg “Zenith” for the third time in a row won gold medals in the Russian football championship. Sergei Semak’s team secured a triumph two rounds before the finish of the tournament, and did it extremely powerfully, defeating on Sunday at home with a score of 6: 1 the second Moscow Lokomotiv.
This defeat made it much more difficult for Zheleznodorozhniki to fight against Spartak for silver medals and a ticket to the Champions League qualification. After Monday’s away victory over Arsenal Tula (2: 1), the red and whites are one point ahead of Loko.
At the same time, both clubs can still fall off the podium due to the efforts of Kazan “Rubin” and FC “Sochi”. They are four points behind Spartak and three points behind Loko. On Saturday, they managed to win crucial matches in the struggle for a place in the top five and getting into the European cups. Rubin beat Dynamo Moscow at home (2: 0), while Sochi beat Krasnodar away (3: 1).
Their pursuers in the person of CSKA, which played at home in a draw with Ufa (1: 1) and Dynamo itself, are two and three points behind Kazan and Sochi, respectively. But they still have a chance of a place in the top 5. They also, in theory, remain with Khimki, from which Rubin and Sochi are five points ahead. The struggle at the bottom of the tournament table became no less acute. Yekaterinburg “Ural”, although it lost away to “Khimki” (0: 1), ensured its salvation from relegation. Now the running 12th team is not even threatened with participation in transitional matches with FNL clubs.
After the away defeat from Rostov (0: 2), Tambov, occupying the last place, lost even a formal chance to escape. Now three clubs are fighting to avoid a direct relegation. Arsenal has a slight advantage, two points ahead of Rotor Volgograd, which won at home against Akhmat Grozny (1: 0), as well as Ufa.
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Zenit – Lokomotiv
It was important for the St. Petersburg club to secure the championship in St. Petersburg, where they played the last match of the season. The remaining two meetings of Zenit are to be held in Ufa with the local club of the same name and in Saransk, where Tambov is playing. As a result, with the exception of a couple of rare moments at the hosts’ goal, the match was entirely for the team from the Northern capital, which arranged a cruel defeat.
Zenit became only the second club in the history of Russian football to win championship gold three times in a row. In 1992-1994, Spartak Moscow did it, and in 1996-2001 it also had a winning streak of six championships. In Soviet times, this kind of superiority happened twice. In 1946-1948 three consecutive golds were won by the Moscow CDKA (future CSKA), and in 1966-1968 – by Dynamo Kiev. According to Anatoly Byshovets, who played for Kiev in those years, and decades later coached Zenit and Lokomotiv, the current triumph of Petersburgers is absolutely natural.
“This season, like the two previous ones, the team went smoothly and steadily,” he shared his opinion with Izvestia. – Yes, there were recessions, there was a lot of criticism, especially against the background of an unsuccessful performance in the Champions League. But the head coach showed the ability to cope with crisis situations and prepare the team so that it would approach decisive matches as efficiently as possible and, without looking back at the problems, achieved its goal. Three gold in a row is a very big success for Serezha Semak. I am glad for him, because, while coaching him in the national team, I always highly appreciated Sergei. It is logical that he shows himself well as a coach.
For Lokomotiv, the defeat at Zenit was the largest in the history of the railwaymen’s performances in the Russian championships. The previous anti-record happened in the same season – in December Marko Nikolic’s charges were defeated by Krasnodar (0: 5). Now they are one point behind Spartak and in order to get into the Champions League they must not only win the two remaining league matches against Dynamo and Ural, but also wait for the red-and-white to lose points at home in the game against Khimki “Or on the road with the Grozny” Akhmat “.
– The aggregate experience of Zenit players is much higher than that of Loko, – added Anatoly Byshovets. – And he decides a lot in such a key match, in case of victory in which the “railroad workers” would still have a chance for gold. But there are a lot of young players in the team who have not gone through this. As a result, somewhere they were mistaken, somewhere the goalkeeper Marinato Guilherme was mistaken, and Zenit realized almost everything that they created. Plus, the refereeing also left much to be desired. But, in my opinion, nothing terrible happened for Lokomotiv. This game will be a good lesson for him. Now it is important to get together and win the remaining two matches in the championship, as well as the final of the Russian Cup against Krylia Sovetov.
Rubin – Dynamo
Dynamo started the match with a flurry of chances at the Rubin’s goal. But the goalkeeper Yuri Dyupin saved the Kazan citizens, and in one of the episodes the ball hit the post. For such extravagance in the implementation, the blue and white were punished in the 15th minute, when, almost in the first intelligible attack of the Kazan team, Djordje Despotovich opened the scoring.
The guests tried again to increase the pressure on other people’s gates and recoup. They had an advantage for most of the first half, but Rubin could now afford to play defensively in a convenient manner. At the beginning of the second half, he remained in the minority after the removal of Ilya Samoshnikov. But this only mobilized Leonid Slutskiy’s charges to play a tighter defense, as a result of which Dynamo had fewer and fewer chances to fight back.
And in the end, Roman Neustädter made a mistake, making an unsuccessful discount with his head back to goalkeeper Anton Shunin. The ball was intercepted by Hwang Im Böm, who doubled his team’s lead. Rubin secured the fourth place and almost secured an entry into the European competition. He can also compete for medals. And Sandro Schwartz’s charges are stuck in seventh place and are close to not playing in Europe next season.
– Poor implementation of chances in attack and mistakes in defense are the team’s main problem, – ex-Dynamo head coach Sergei Silkin told Izvestia. – With a fairly high-quality game, she cannot turn her capabilities into goals, and sometimes she also brings herself out of the blue. The quality of Dynamo’s football is such that it deserved more with Rubin and Khimki and in several other games. But in the end, the team may not make it to the European Cups at all. Very disappointing. Especially in the last game, where bad luck and Dupin’s play allowed Rubin to score first, and this is extremely convenient and important for the Kazan team, which squeezed the most out of this game, especially against the background of the injury of Khvichi Kvaratskhelia, on which Kazan has a lot this season in the attack.
Arsenal – Spartak
The first half passed with a significant playing advantage of Spartak, and Alexander Sobolev’s goal from Viktor Moses’ pass in the 25th minute looked logical. But in the end, the red and white created problems for themselves, when Ilya Kutepov scored into his own net before the break. In the second half, the Tula acted much more reliably in defense, but not very confidently counterattacked.
They could well have hoped for a draw, but in the 76th minute they missed Moses on the corner of their penalty area, who passed Jordan Larsson, who scored the winning goal. At the end of the game, Vladislav Gromyko almost equalized, but missed the goal. Spartak won the initiative in the fight for the second place and will keep it in case of victories in the remaining two rounds. Arsenal have allowed their competitors to get closer to them in the struggle for survival. With one of them – “Ufa” – the Tula will play away in the last round. Before that, they will meet at home with Rubin.
“I would not say that Spartak is already a favorite in the fight for second place,” ex-owner of the red-and-white Andrei Chervichenko told Izvestia. – In my opinion, Lokomotiv, torn to shreds, looked more preferable in St. Petersburg than Spartak in Tula. His victory is more an accident than a pattern. If Gromyko had hit the goal at the end of the match, it is unlikely that the red and white would have been able to score again. A very bad game in their performance. It is not even clear how a team that is going to play in the Champions League is capable of doing it in its current state. She gets home 0: 3 from one outsider of “Ufa”, and then barely beats another outsider. And in the Champions League there will be teams stronger than even Zenit and Lokomotiv, and not just the bottom of the RPL table, with which Spartak suffers.
The matches of the penultimate, 29th round of the RPL will take place on May 7, 8 and 10. The games of the final, 30th round will be held on May 16. The transitional matches for the right to play in the Premier League between the 13th RPL team and the fourth FNL team, as well as the 14th RPL team and the third FNL team will be held on May 21 and 24.
On Sunday, Krylya Sovetov Samara, leading in the FNL, were the first to secure a direct entry into the highest echelon of Russian football. This Saturday Orenburg may join them if they win their match in the penultimate, 41st round of the tournament. In this case, Nizhny Novgorod will get into the transitional matches from the third place. Alania from Vladikavkaz is now in fourth place, but Moscow’s Torpedo and Kaliningrad’s Baltika are capable of overtaking it.