Despite the loud signboard of the Moscow derby CSKA - Spartak, it was the meeting between Rostov and Krasnodar that promised to become central in the tour. At a minimum, if we take the position of teams in the standings as the main criterion for evaluating. In anticipation of the 25th round, the teams settled on the fourth and third lines, respectively, and continued to fight for getting into the Champions League. True, if the wards of Murad Musaev have not yet given up their hopes of directly entering the European tournament, then Valery Karpin's team had to fight for the opportunity to play in the qualification. The reason for this was the defeat from Sochi 1 in that match, the pupils of the yellow-blue academy entered the field.
In anticipation of the match, Krasnodar remained the main mystery of the championship. The championship of Russia resumed on June 24, but the “bulls” did not have time to enter the field. First, because of the outbreak of coronavirus in the opponent’s squad, the confrontation with Dynamo was postponed, and then, for the same reason, the game with Orenburg was canceled. Thus, at the time of the southern derby, the pause between the black-green matches lasted more than 100 days.
In this regard, the composition of the guests was of particular interest. Especially given the serious personnel losses in the person of Urosh Spaich, Victor Klasson and Ari. As a result, the nominal defender Kayo was at the center of defense, Christian Olsson appeared on the site of the attacking midfielder, and the role of the forward was assigned to Marcus Berg. At the same time, Manuel Fernandes, who was considered the main player in March, was unexpectedly left on the bench.
This season, “bulls” are leaders in terms of the percentage of possession of the ball (57.4%) and the number of passes (524.7) on average per match. Therefore, it was not surprising that this time too they firmly took the initiative. The hosts did not particularly resist and retreated to their third of the field, allowing guests to calmly conduct combinations in the immediate vicinity of the gates of Sergei Pesyakov. At the same time, the bulls preferred to send the balls into the box, even despite the presence of Grenadier Berg. Bearing in mind that Rostov was the leader in the league in the number of horse martial arts won per game, this decision by Musaev seemed obvious.
It was striking right away how much the central midfielders provided strong support for the black-green attack. Gazinsky, Villena and Utkin regularly found themselves, if not in the penalty box, then at its limits, while the pupil of the Krasnodar Academy participated most actively in the offensives of the team. Therefore, it is not surprising that the connection of Daniel led to a goal. It was the rebound from his night that the ball hit Olsson’s head, and then appeared on Berg’s foot. An experienced Swede beat the goalkeeper without any problems and came out on top in the club's scorers list this season. In his asset was six goals. Ari has the same amount.
Nevertheless, the most active guest footballer and the main driving force behind the attacks was Wanderson. If Olsson and Christian Ramirez acted side by side on the left flank, then the right edge was left to the Brazilian. It was he who performed the cross on Utkin in the episode with a goal, and at the end of the inning he could double the advantage of black and green. Once again, Winger left the personal guardian in the person of Yevgeny Chernov out of work, but struck it uncomplicatedly. He did not calm down in the second half, one of the highlights of which was his ingenious defeat of two defenders at the side line of the field.
The fact that it was Vanderson who was the cornerstone in the construction of Krasnodar showed the ending of the meeting. At the 75th minute, the Brazilian left the lawn, after which there was a turning point in the game. The guests stopped making combinations, as a result of which they began to more and more cling to their penalty area. Even the exits of Remy Cabell, who had recovered from his injury, as well as Magomed Shapi-Suleymanov and Manuel Fernandes, did not help.
Surely many expected that one of the main characters of the southern derby will be Pavel Mamaev. The former “bulls” football player was indeed extremely motivated, but the whole fuse dried up in the first half, during which he acted as the organizer of a couple of dangerous attacks. In the second, he limited himself to a yellow card for talking with the referee and participating in the attack, which almost ended in scoring Matvey Safonov. Substitute Alexander Dolgov received the transfer a meter and a half from the goalkeeper rival, but struck higher. At the same time, the 10th number of yellow-blue could well have become the addressee, but Alexey Ionov reasoned differently.
Surely it was logical to expect that having more time to prepare, “Krasnodar” would be noticeably fresher than the “Rostov” who played the second game in five days. It is worth noting that this is exactly what Karpin was afraid of. However, the lack of tone was much more important than accumulated fatigue. In the end, the wards of Valery Georgievich literally crushed the enemy, which was facilitated by two more athletes who started the meeting on the bench. Matthias Normann, although he was far from perfect form, he worked actively in the center line, and Ivelin Popov sharpened and connected well to the attacks.
The hosts organized a bulk, as a result of which, in compensated time, the chief referee Vitaly Meshkov had two reasons for appointing an 11-meter goal to the guests. First, he and his assistants were forced to watch a video replay of the episode during which Suleymanov hit Chernov in the face, and then the moment the ball hit Cayo’s elbow. But if in the first case there was no violation of the rules, in the second the judge pointed to the “point”.
It is worth noting that the appointment of a penalty turned out to be quite controversial. There was no talk of intentional play here, but in favor of Meshkov’s decision is the fact that the Brazilian’s hand was set aside and increased its body area. Nevertheless, the adoption of the final decision stretched as much as seven minutes. First, the video assistants and the chief referee examined the moment when the ball hit the elbow, and then - for the possible offside position at the discounter Maxim Osipenko. As a result, the 11-meter was executed only in the 101st minute. Popov came up to the “point” and outplayed Safonov in cold blood.
However, Meshkov did not stop there and didn’t let go of the teams playing in the 30-degree heat for another eight minutes. The meeting ended only after 109 minutes and did not identify the winner in the southern derby. Krasnodar missed a major victory and lost the chance to reduce the gap with Lokomotiv to one point. At the moment, the teams share three points, but black and green have a match in reserve.
Despite the successful conclusion, this meeting did not extend the most pleasant series for the Rostov players. So, the yellow-blue for the 12th time in a row could not beat the principal rivals. The last time they got the better of the “bulls” in April 2014. Then the match ended with the score 2-0, and goals scored by Zano Ananidze and Artyom Dziuba, rented from Spartak, were noted.