The central match of the fourth round of the Russian Premier League has ended at the Otkrytie Arena stadium in Moscow. Spartak won a strong-willed victory over Lokomotiv and extended their unbeaten run in the derby to six meetings. The game was remembered for the spectacular goals of Jordan Larsson, Alexander Sobolev and Murilo, as well as a number of guests' injuries.
The derby between Spartak and Lokomotiv is one of the most prestigious in Russian football, so it hardly needs advertising. Over the past 20 years, teams have consistently been among the leaders of the league and are fighting for medals, and their face-to-face confrontations have attracted huge attention of the audience. But the press services of the clubs decided to warm up the excitement a little more for the central match of the fourth round of the RPL and staged a duel on social networks. For several hours, they exchanged jokes and videos of heads into each other's goal in recent years.
At the same time, the title of Zenit's main pursuer in the national championship was at stake in this meeting. After three rounds, Lokomotiv had seven points to its credit and, if successful, moved to a clean second place and reduced the gap from the championship leader to two points. As for Spartak, the victory also put him on the second line, however, only in terms of additional indicators. Domenico Tedesco's wards scored eight points and were compared on this indicator with the Sochi players.
Based on the standings, Lokomotiv could be considered the favorite, if not for one "but". Over the past three years, the teams have played five official games, but the railroad workers have never been able to gain the upper hand. A draw was recorded three times, and the red and white won twice. The last time Spartak lost was on 19 August 2017. Then the rivals scored seven goals for two (4: 3), and the author of the decisive goal was the Portuguese Manuel Fernandes.
Speaking about the rosters, the important event for Spartak was the return of Domenico Tedesco to the bench. The German athlete missed two games due to health problems, in which he was replaced by assistant Andreas Hinkel. At the same time, star newcomer Alexander Kokorin again did not get into the application. As a result, Ezequiel Ponce and Jordan Larsson made up a couple of forwards, and Alexander Sobolev remained in reserve.
In turn, Marko Nikolic decided to surprise his counterpart and play according to the scheme with two clean strikers. Fyodor Smolov and Eder came out in pairs, in connection with which the talented winger Dmitry Rybchinsky was on the bench. On the flanks of the midfield are brothers Alexey and Anton Miranchuk, and in the center - Dmitry Barinov and Grzegorz Krykhovyak. Francois Camano, who only signed a contract with the club on Monday, got to the bench right away.
The debut of the meeting was extremely eventful. By the tenth minute, the opponents had a chance to execute a free kick dangerously close to the goal. But if Larsson preferred to strike a direct blow and did not succeed, then Alexei Miranchuk performed an aimed serve at Murilo. The Brazilian turned out to be the quickest of all and left Alexander Maksimenko out of work, scoring the first goal of his career. It is noteworthy that at the time of the transfer Vedran Chorluka pushed Georgy Dzhikia, but the referee Sergei Karasev did not react in any way.
However, 18 minutes later, Lokomotiv lost its star supporting midfielder. Barinov injured his knee and, with tears in his eyes, left the field on a stretcher, and Stanislav Magkeev came out instead. It is noteworthy that he received the damage in the seventh minute, when, in violation of the rules, he stopped Bakaev's breakthrough, and subsequently only exacerbated it.
The misfortunes of the guests continued after the 30th minute. At first, they made a gross mistake in defense and allowed Larsson to shoot freely from the border of the goalkeeper's zone. Ayrton won the fight on the second floor and performed the perfect discount, but the Swede missed a great chance to restore parity. And then Lokomotiv lost another of its leaders. Oleksiy Miranchuk made an unsuccessful selection attempt and was injured on the back of the thigh. Like Barinov, he desperately tried to continue the game, but the damage made itself felt. He was replaced by the author of the assistant double in the opening match of the season Rybchinsky.
The ending of the half was remembered not for dangerous moments, but for the joints, in which the representatives of the hosts acted as victims. First Rybchinsky crashed into Djikia, and a few seconds later Maciej Rybus hit Roman Zobnin in the face with his elbow. Karasev showed the Pole a deserved yellow card, and very soon awarded his compatriot with a mustard plaster. Krykhovyak harshly stopped Nail Umyarov's breakthrough.
In the second half, Spartak continued to act as number one and quickly achieved success. Already in the 53rd minute, Umyarov performed a magnificent pass at 30 meters, and Larsson ran away from the gaping defenders of the opponent and went one on one with Marinato Guilherme. This time the Swede was much cooler and shot straight into the far corner. Jordan scored his third goal of the season and caught up with Christian Noboa in the scorers' race.
But already at the end of an hour of the game, the red and white lost a football player due to injury. Like Miranchuk, Ponce pulled the back of his thigh and was forced to leave the field. Sobolev appeared instead, but for a long time he could not prove himself. Although Lokomotiv acted from defense, it repeatedly organized sharp counter-attacks. First, Krykhovyak, and then Eder had good chances to excel. But neither the Pole nor the Portuguese got the blow.
Subsequently, Spartak's advantage only grew. The red and white took the ball under their control and began to besiege the opponent's penalty area. Zobnin and Larsson tirelessly plowed right edit, regularly creating problems for the defense, but could not deliver the decisive blow. And Lokomotiv again responded with counterattacks, one of which almost ended in a goal. Eder broke through to a rendezvous with Maksimenko, but struck extremely inaccurately, which caused discontent from Anton Miranchuk. The midfielder supported the offensive and, in case of transfer, could hit an empty net.
A few minutes later, one of the main rules of football worked again. "Spartak" was much more careful about its moment and for the second time forced Guilherme to surrender. Ayrton again supported the offensive and executed a canopy into the penalty area, while Alex Kral won the horse fight and threw the ball behind his back. Sobolev “shot” the goalkeeper of the Russian national team and completed the red-and-white comeback.
The current RPL silver medalist rushed to recoup, but he did not have enough strength or resources. Smolov was injured and went to the bench, and the released Vitaly Lisakovich, Rifat Zhemaletdinov and Kamano were not noted for effective actions. Spartak extended their unbeaten run against Lokomotiv, and the railroad workers suffered their first defeat under the leadership of Nikolic.