Ayrton's mistake, Umyarov's shot and Litvinov's and Edvaya's sending off: how Spartak and Lokomotiv drew in the 14th round of the RPL

In one of the central matches of the 14th round of the RPL, two participants of the Europa League from Russia, Spartak and Lokomotiv, met.

For both teams, the metropolitan derby turned out to be key in many ways.

The red and white in the last three meetings of the national championship scored only two points and in case of defeat they risked even more distance from the European Cup zone and get bogged down in the lower half of the standings.

The railroad workers, on the other hand, won two consecutive victories in the championship under the leadership of the new head coach Markus Gisdol and shared the second place with Sochi.

Taking into account the success of the southerners in the confrontation with CSKA and the unexpected misfire of Zenit, it was important for the red-greens not to let go of a direct competitor, and also to reduce the gap from the leader to three points and actually return to the fight for the championship on the eve of a pause for the national teams' games.

At the same time, Loko faced serious staffing problems before the match.

Pablo, Nair Tiknizyan and Tino Andjorin (not to mention the long-injured Stanislav Magkeev, Anton Miranchuk and Ze Luisha) were not included in the application due to various health problems.

And Maciej Rybus and Alexis Beka-Beka received extra yellow cards.

As a result, the nominal midfielder Dmitry Barinov made a pair of Tin Barely in the center of defense, and Dmitry Zhivoglyadov and Maxim Nenakhov were on the flanks.

Daniil Kulikov replaced Bek-Bek in the support zone.

But Fyodor Smolov and Francois Camano returned to the base, who made up the top three in the attack line with Girano Kirk.

But Ruy Vitoria did not have to break his head about the composition.

He did not change the charges, who got a draw with Leicester in the LE.

Including from the first minutes on the field came Mikhail Ignatov, who was injured at the end of the meeting in England.

Thus, the hosts again played 5-2-1-2 with Quincy Promes and Alexander Sobolev in attack.

But I was curious if they would bet on defense or play bolder.

However, shortly before the starting whistle, one forced castling took place.

Samuel Gigot was injured during the warm-up, and Ilya Kutepov took his place in the top three.

As a result, from the confrontation with Leicester, Spartak took only the worst - a complete lack of ideas in the attack.

As in England, the players of the attacking group were cut off from their partners, and in the center of the field there was no person who could connect them with the rest.

Ignatov was not allowed to do anything on the right edge of the Nenakhs, and in this zone Mikhail could not show his strong qualities.

Promes disappeared on the left flank, and Sobolev was more remembered by disputes with the referee.

Indicative statistics: in the first half, the red and white owned the ball only 39% of the time and did not strike a single shot on target.

Marinato Guilherme was frankly bored at the last frontier.

Only at the beginning the owners acted as the first number, but failed to extract dividends from this segment.

Gradually, Lokomotiv pushed the game to someone else's half of the field, and on the 23rd minute unexpectedly opened the scoring.

And in this episode, the opponent's defense again gave a characteristic failure.

Kamano was allowed to move from the side closer to someone else's penalty area and prepare an excellent cutting pass from the bottom to Kirk.

Jikia was not ready to intercept, and Ayrton lost the Dutchman, who scored his debut goal for the railroad workers.

After that, the red-greens continued to control the course of the meeting.

They wove combinations on the flanks, creating overload.

Smolov regularly moved here.

However, the really dangerous moments did not arise often.

Before the break, I only remembered a strong shot by Rifat Zhemaletdinov from outside the penalty area into the near nine.

And “Spartak”, to top all the troubles, remained in the minority.

The game, in principle, turned out to be quite rough, and two of Loko's defenders, Konstantin Maradishvili and Kulikov, “hung on the cards,” as did Vyacheslav Litvinov.

However, the young footballer of the hosts, apparently, forgot about it when he went into a hard tackle on someone else's half at the feet of an opponent.

Judge Ivan Sidenkov without hesitation showed him the second yellow card.

Sobolev and Zelimkhan Bakaev challenged the referee's decision from the bench in a rather harsh manner, for which they also received a yellow card.

They were unhappy with the fact that the referee a little earlier in a similar situation did not send Maradishvili off for a foul on Zobnin.

Vitoria did not make emergency changes, and Ignatov temporarily moved to the support zone.

To Spartak's credit, in the second half, the team showed a completely different football and suppressed the opponent in the minority.

During the break, the coaching staff made competent substitutions.

Nail Umyarov expectedly entered the battle instead of Ignatov, and the hosts actually switched to a 4-4-1 scheme.

Moreover, Maximiliano Kofrie closed the right flank of the defense, and Moses rose higher.

Vitoria's charges returned to the field with a completely different attitude.

They fought for every ball and lay in the tackles, not sparing themselves.

He began to regularly win horse martial arts ahead of Sobolev.

Finally, Promes woke up.

And the support zone with the advent of Umyarov began to look more reliable.

Lokomotiv lost to the opponent mentally.

The team was pinned to their goal and defended rather chaotically.

Gisdol tried to solve the problem with Murilo's exit.

The Brazilian, as in the match with Galatasaray, made a duet in the center of defense with Tin Edvay, and Barinov rose higher.

But it didn’t help.

The standard position helped to level the score for the hosts.

After filing the corner, the projectile successfully bounced onto the penalty line towards Umyarov, and he sent the projectile from the turn into the far corner with a rebound from the bar.

Smolov did not have time to cover the midfielder's shot, and Guilherme saw the ball too late and was clearly late with the jump.

Sobolev could immediately bring the red and white ahead, but after filing from the front, performed by Ayrton from close range, he struck directly into Guilherme's hands.

After that, the game leveled off a bit.

In addition, Sidenkov constantly had to stop her with whistles.

The players continued to act as tough as possible and committed a total of 35 fouls.

In the end, Vitoria tried to snatch victory.

For example, he freshened up the flanks with the help of Alexander Lomovitsky and Jordan Larsson.

And later Bakaev also joined them.

Gisdol, it seemed, agreed with a draw, although his players tried to organize counterattacks, and Vitaly Lisakovich, who came on as a substitute, even scored from an offside position.

And after the final whistle, Edvay received the second yellow card for talking to the referee.

Thus, the Moscow derby ended in a draw.

"Spartak" failed the first half and remained in the minority, but managed to show character and earned one point.

Lokomotiv lost two and failed to catch up with Sochi in the standings, and also missed the opportunity to get closer to Zenit.