Formal defeat from Zenit
Artem Dziuba's failure to call the Russian national team for the November matches was one of the most controversial decisions made by Valery Karpin.
And after the 15th round match with Nizhny Novgorod, it will be even more difficult for the head coach of the national team to ignore the Zenit striker.
After an unsuccessful meeting with Ural, in which Dziuba was replaced at half-time, Sergei Semak seemed to be able to leave an experienced footballer in reserve.
But he again got into the base and took advantage of his chance.
By the 60th minute of the match, he scored the fifth hat-trick in the RPL and broke the tournament record for this indicator.
Four each in the assets of Wagner Love, Alexander Kerzhakov, Oleg Garin, Dmitry Kirichenko and Jose Salomon Rondon.
At the same time, the striker scored on touch all his goals in the reporting match, ideally taking advantage of the presented moments.
During the entire game, he shot five times on goal Arthur Nigmatullin - and more than half of these episodes were effective.
Dziuba was also good at playing along.
Especially memorable was his effective heel discount on Malcolm, who laid the foundation for the defeat - 5: 1.
A confident victory for the Petersburgers helped to complete the first round as the sole leaders of the RPL.
And now it will be hard for the main sniper of the team to refer to his bad form, because in the fall he scored a great move and scored ten times in nine league matches.
Explainable defeat of Lokomotiv
If Zenit won a landslide victory, then one of its main pursuers - Lokomotiv - unexpectedly lost at home to Akhmat (1: 2).
The hosts approached the meeting with Grozny, experiencing serious staffing problems.
The company for the long-injured Stanislav Magkeev, Anton Miranchuk and Tino Angorin was made up by the team's main playmaker Rifat Zhemaletdinov and forward Fyodor Smolov.
It is not surprising that with such losses, the railroad workers were defeated.
Fatal for them was the optional removal of Murilo in the 34th minute.
The Brazilian, after an unsuccessful discount, Pablo was forced to knock down Artyom Arkhipov, who could go one-on-one with Marinato Guilherme.
The referee Sergei Ivanov regarded the incident as a foul of the last resort.
The punishment turned out to be double, since according to the results of the episode, Daniil Utkin scored for the third time this season with a direct free-kick.
And after an hour of the meeting, Artyom Polyarus scored a magnificent shot from the penalty line into the far nine with a rebound from the bar.
Soon the Muscovites managed to close the gap.
And Vitaly Lisakovich, who came on as a substitute, distinguished himself with the first touch.
However, until the end of the match, it was not the red-greens who could win back, but the guests - to bring the score to a large one.
They did not realize a number of one hundred percent chances, but nevertheless won a second victory in a row in the RPL and entrenched themselves in the middle of the standings.
Akinfeev's ruined anniversary
On Sunday, CSKA was let down by another Brazilian defender - Bruno Fuchs, whose acquisition for € 8 million last summer raises big questions. The legionnaire made his debut in the army in August 2020, but was injured and dropped out for a long time. The comeback took place in the recent cup match against Metallurg Lipetsk. And Alexey Berezutskiy decided to give his ward a chance to play against Khimki. But Fuchs did not use it and let the Muscovites down, receiving a red card for a foul of the last resort already in the 15th minute. Fortunately for the hosts, Kemal Ademi missed the penalty spot, missing the target.
Thus, the Brazilian spoiled the double anniversary of Igor Akinfeev. This game became for him the 800th in his career in all tournaments and the 500th in the championships of Russia. The 35-year-old goalkeeper is the first footballer to reach the landmark milestone in the national championship. At the same time, he played with zero for the 335th time in his career and in the 227th - in the RPL.
But the partners did not support the captain.
Remaining in the minority, the red-blue did not manage to rebuild and could not oppose anything to one of the outsiders of the tournament.
Indicative statistics: the army team had only two shots on goal and one on target, while the guests shot 16 times on goal and five times on target.
If not for several saves of Akinfeev, CSKA could have suffered a third defeat in a row.
The only thing that pleased the fans was Berezutsky's statement that the long-term leader of the team would extend his contract expiring in June 2022.
Confident victory for Dynamo
Dynamo, unlike other capital teams, did not experience any problems in the match with another candidate for elimination - Arsenal.
The blues and whites sometimes face difficulties in confronting opponents inferior in class, but this time Sandro Schwartz's wards left the opponent no chance and won the biggest victory in the current RPL season - 5: 1.
The guests actually capitulated in the first half, when they conceded four goals in just 13 minutes.
The double was designed by Vyacheslav Grulev, who is now in the lead in the team scorers race together with Daniil Fomin.
Sebastian Szymanski scored two points on the “goal + pass” system, and Fabian Balbuena scored his debut goal in the Moscow team.
At the same time, Arsen Zakharyan was not on the field in the first half, who only recovered from damage and did not make it to the starting lineup.
The 18-year-old footballer came on as a substitute immediately after the break and also hit the goal of Anton Kochenkov, throwing him beautifully.
The only fly in the ointment for the hosts was the goal of prestige, scored by Daniil Khlusevich at the end of the meeting.
Rubin's incredible luck
One of the main advantages of the Russian championship can be safely called the extreme unpredictability of the tournament.
RPL is a league in which everyone can present a surprise, and points are not guaranteed to anyone.
This was clearly demonstrated by the match between Sochi and Rubin.
The Southerners approached the home game in excellent condition, placing themselves in second place in the standings.
Kazan, on the contrary, won only two victories in the fall, and in the previous round they lost to Rostov - 1: 5.
In addition, the disqualified Khvicha Kvaratskhelia could not take part in the meeting of the 15th round.
The hosts took the initiative from the first minutes and looked more preferable throughout the match: 61% possession of the ball, 28 shots on goal by Yuri Dupin (seven of them were on target).
But the bloodless guests scored three points.
They made only two shots on target, and both were assists.
Danes Oliver Abildgaard and Anders Dreyer managed to excel.
The latter brought the team a strong-willed victory in the end - 2: 1.
Judge Alexei Matyunin also drew attention to himself.
After an hour of the meeting, he showed the opponents' footballers a red card within three minutes.
First, Igor Yurganov was directly deleted after viewing VAR, and then Abildgor.
The defensive player, having a "yellow card", almost flew into the opponent with a straight leg in the opponent's half of the field.
But the referee team did not study the repetition of the episode with the fall of Mateo Cassierra in someone else's penalty area with an equal score.
Irreplaceable scorer of "Ufa"
As soon as Dziuba got a hat-trick and got close to Hamid Agalarov in the scorers' race, the Ufa forward responded.
In the away match with Rostov, the 21-year-old football player scored twice and helped his team to take one point from the banks of the Don, as well as extend the unbeaten run in the RPL to five meetings.
The striker himself again reacted very carefully to the moments he had.
He struck two shots on the opponent's goal, and both were effective.
First, Agalarov sent the ball on target from close range after a corner kick, and then he himself earned and converted the penalty.
True, Hamid also noted with a minus sign.
In the first half, it was he who played with his hand in his own penalty area and gave Evgeny Kukulyak a reason to point out the “point”.
One way or another, Hamid continues to practically single-handedly drag the Ufa club.
He finished the first lap at the top of the RPL top scorers list with 13 goals.
All in all, Ufa scored 16. Now the sniper may well reach 15 goals before the winter break, and it will not be easy for the club to keep him in the transfer window.