Sobolev's fourth double, Maslov's second own goal and Makhatadze's beautiful ball: how Spartak beat Rostov in the RPL

A principled match for Karpin

Moscow "Spartak" gained an excellent move in March.

The red and white won three victories in a row in the RPL over Krasnodar, Dynamo and Ural with a total score of 13: 3 and moved up to second place in the standings.

However, in the 24th round, Domenico Tedesco's charges faced perhaps the most serious test in this segment - the game against Rostov.

On the one hand, the yellow-blues do not show outstanding results after the resumption of the season.

On the other hand, they traditionally regularly take points from the ten-time champion of Russia, especially at their home stadium.

The trend only intensified after the arrival of Spartak Valery Karpin as head coach.

Under his leadership, the Rostovites achieved four victories in seven matches with one draw and two defeats.

In particular, the red and whites lost the last two matches in the RPL to their opponent, and the meeting at the Otkritie-Arena at the end of 2019 ended in a defeat - 1: 4.

On the eve of the next confrontation, the hosts presented an atmospheric video in which Karpin, as well as several of his wards, appeared as characters from the series "Peaky Blinders".

In addition, “Rostov” for once approached the match with almost perfect line-up.

Kento Hashimoto, Maxim Osipenko and Pavel Mamaev recovered from the injuries.

The first ones got into the starting stock, but the last one remained in stock.

In turn, Tedesco could not count on Ilya Kutepov, Alex Kral and Esequiel Ponce.

As a result, Roman Zobnin and Nail Umyarov are located in the support zone.

And in the attack, as in the game with Ural, Alexander Sobolev and Jordan Larsson came out.

Bright first half

Already the first half gave the fans a real spectacle.

Both teams did not seek to sit back in defense and relied on quick attacks, trying to fill the free zones in the enemy defense.

The rivals spent the first 20 minutes on exploration.

The players acted with maximum dedication, but there were practically no dangerous moments and blows.

But then they fell like a cornucopia.

Victor Moses' goal revealed the game.

In this episode, it is worth noting the excellent game of Umyarov, who emerged victorious from single combat in the central circle, saved the ball and gave a timely pass to the Nigerian.

In turn, the legionnaire near someone else's penalty easily walked away from Nikolai Poyarkov and shot into the near corner.

Ex-Spartak player Sergei Pesyakov could have rescued his team, if not for the ricochet from Haitam Aleesami, who was trying to save the situation.

However, the red and white did not last long.

Another team in their place would have tried to calm down the course of the match, but the guests traditionally went ahead and did not have time to return to defense, and the opponent punished them for this.

In addition, Pavel Maslov was once again unlucky.

At the 27th minute, the defender of the Russian youth team tried to interrupt the transfer from Dmitry Poloz to a partner, but only cut the ball into his own goal and scored the second own goal in the last three RPL matches.

Just five minutes later, Tedesco's wards conceded the second goal, and again it was not without a gross individual error.

Ayrton was unable to interrupt the supply to Poloz from the left flank, letting the round pass between his legs.

Alexander Maksimenko coped with the first strike of the striker, but the Rostov player got the ball back and made a pass to the attacker who burst into the penalty area Georgy Makhatadze, who with a rebound from the bar sent the shell into the near corner.

But "Spartak" did not seem to notice this and continued to go forward with great forces, and the hosts began to run out of strength.

As a result, in the 44th minute, the red-and-whites still won back.

And the co-author of the goal was the already mentioned Aleesami.

This time he was unable to interrupt the supply from the left flank to Sobolev and only corrected the ball to his opponent's head.

So the forward of the Russian national team scored the 11th goal in the current RPL season.

It is curious that in the first half Muscovites delivered twice as many shots as their opponents (ten versus five), but both shots of Rostov on target ended in Maksimenko's goal.

Spartak's advantage after the break

The second half of the meetings "Rostov", as a rule, holds worse than the first, and the reporting match was no exception.

Although, returning to the field, the hosts made a couple of quick attacks.

During one of them, Ali Sow almost went one-on-one with Maksimenko, but the goalkeeper closed the distance in time and got to the ball first.

And then the initiative was completely owned by "Spartak".

The pressure of the red and white became more and more serious.

For the time being, Pesyakov coped with the opponent's attacks.

In particular, he saved the team after Larsson's not very successful strike in the near corner and a powerful shot from Moses from outside the penalty area.

However, in the 58th minute he was powerless too.

Promes made an excellent serve from a corner, and Sobolev, ahead of the opponent, sent the ball on target with his head.

Thus, he scored the 12th goal, completing the fourth double of the season and reducing the gap from the leading scorers in the race Serdar Azmun and Artem Dziuba to one accurate shot.

True, right there, the red and white were almost left without Samuel Gigot.

The Frenchman, trying to restrain the breakthrough of Pontus Almqvist at the edge of the penalty area, dropped the Swede on the lawn, and he accidentally hit him in the face with spikes in the fall.

It immediately became clear that the damage to the defender was quite serious.

On the field even had to take out a stretcher.

Tedesco also began to prepare to replace Ilya Gaponov.

However, Gigot still managed to continue the game and left the field only ten minutes before the end of regular time.

But this did not give Rostov any advantage.

The team tried to go forward by inertia, but over and over again ran into sharp counterattacks by the opponent, and there was no strength to go back.

Rather, the guests could increase the advantage in the score, than the hosts could recoup.

Karpin tried to refresh the game with substitutions.

First, he released Armin Gigovich on the field, and in the 77th minute he threw three players into the battle at once: Denis Terentyev, Khoren Bayramyan and Mamaev.

The blue-yellows have changed into a 4-2-3-1 pattern.

However, this did not help the team much.

In the end, she did not even manage to organize the finish bulk, although Tedesco's wards were also tired and, in addition, lost their main central defender.

Despite this, the red and white fought for every ball and went to the end in all episodes.

It was as if the head coach was with them on the field, who miraculously did not receive a card from the chief referee Pavel Kukuyan.

As a result, "Spartak" held out and won a fourth victory in a row in the RPL, and the gap from Zenit was reduced to one point.

True, the Petersburgers have a game in reserve - they will play their 24th round match with Khimki on Monday.