Breakaway claim: how Zenit and Dynamo won away victories over CSKA and Rubin in the 16th round of the RPL

Dynamo's victorious character

On Sunday, November 28, two key matches took place in the Russian Premier League in the fight for medals and tickets to European cups.

And in certain situations, it was even possible to talk about a full-fledged revival of intrigue in the battle for the championship.

To do this, Dynamo had to beat Rubin and wait for Zenit to misfire in a meeting with CSKA.

In this case, the blue and white would reduce the lag behind the Petersburgers to a minimum.

In the confrontation with the Kazan team, the Muscovites, who scored an excellent move and took a clear second place in the first round, were considered clear favorites.

In contrast, Leonid Slutsky's wards gain points in an extremely unstable manner and alternate victories with defeats.

Personnel problems are also affecting.

Oliver Abilgor, Ilya Samoshnikov and Djordje Despotovich missed the game of the 16th round.

But Khvich Kvaratskhelia returned to service.

As a result, although Kazan gave a fight to an opponent from the capital, they did not manage to score a point.

The start of the match turned out to be extremely unfortunate for them.

Already in the 18th minute, Georgy Zotov made a gross mistake under pressure from Vyacheslav Grulev and gave him the ball.

The striker threw Denis Makarov into the breakthrough, who calmly hit the gate of the former team and, out of respect for it, did not celebrate the goal.

A good start negatively affected the guests.

Young Dynamo players believed in success in advance and relaxed, and Rubin immediately punished them for this.

The team managed to recoup even before the break.

Kvaratskhelia and Sead Khakshabanovich easily opened the right flank of the defense of the blue-white, and after the Georgian's feed, no one prevented Saltmurad Bakaev from delivering an accurate header from within the penalty area.

At the beginning of the second half, Kazan took the lead.

This time it was Guillermo Varela who made a gross mistake.

The Uruguayan, trying to prevent Alexander Zuev from hitting the ball on target, knocked him down in a sliding tackle.

Judge Kirill Levnikov had no choice but to appoint a penalty.

Anders Dreyer took his chance.

The newcomer of the team has already scored the sixth goal in ten RPL games and is confidently leading in the team scorers' race.

However, Dynamo showed character and managed to turn the tide of the match.

In general, the victory of the guests looks deserved, because they delivered twice as many strikes as their opponents: 20 against nine and ten against four - on target, and at the right moments they inflated the momentum.

In the 65th minute, the Muscovites had already earned a penalty spot, but Nicolo Moro played it extremely poorly - he shot above the gate.

This did not affect Sandro Schwartz's charges, who only increased the pressure on the opponent.

And in the end it bore fruit.

Poland's midfielder Sebastian Szymanski made a decisive contribution to the result.

First, he delivered a perfect serve from the set to Fabian Balbuena, and then sent the ball into the net in the fall after a successful rebound from Zuev.

By the way, the Pole with 11 points according to the "goal + pass" system (5 + 6) took the clean third place in the RPL.

Dynamo beat Rubin for the second time this season.

Champion step "Zenith"

After the victory of the direct competitor, Zenit had to score three points in the away derby with CSKA. But for the army team, this meeting was in many ways key. Until recently, they were second, but a series of failures threw the team of Alexei Berezutsky out of the top 5. Before the match with the reigning champion, Muscovites shared the sixth-eighth places with Akhmat and Krylya Sovetov. And the next defeat could further alienate them from the European Cup zone and make Berezutsy's position at the head of the team completely precarious.

But the hosts were fresher, because the rival on Tuesday had a difficult Champions League game with Malmö.

And there was no talk of rotation either.

Compared to the European Cup game, Sergei Semak made only two substitutions: Daler Kuzyaev was in the support zone, and Serdar Azmun was at the forefront of the attack.

Artyom Dziuba, who upset Nizhny Novgorod three times in the 15th round, remained in reserve.

The beginning of the meeting performed by Zenit strongly reminded the first half in Sweden.

The guests unexpectedly gave up the initiative to their opponent and began to act as the second number.

At the same time, they did not hold the ball at all.

Malcolm, Claudinho and Azmun were cut off from partners and received practically no transmission.

And Vilmar Barrios and Kuzyaev, who were responsible for the connection between the defense and the attack, were instantly under pressure and allowed a lot of losses.

CSKA turned on high pressure and forced the Petersburgers to defend themselves. The first dangerous moment at the gate of Mikhail Kerzhakov was not long in coming. Anton Zabolotny in someone else's penalty area easily left Yaroslav Rakitskiy and struck the bottom into the near corner. The goalkeeper showed miracles of reaction and moved the projectile to a corner.

However, gradually the guests came to their senses and seized the initiative. And Muscovites have slowed down somewhat. All this led to Claudinho's goal in the 34th minute that did not follow from the logic of the game. Semak's wards organized a quick exit from their own half, which turned into an excellent diagonal to the right flank of Malcolm. The Brazilian seemed to have missed the opportunity to run to the goal, but from the box he rolled a neat pass back to his partner. Baktiyor Zainutdinov did not manage to cover the shot of the Latin American in the support zone, but Igor Akinfeev had to cope with it, if not for the ricochet from Igor Diveev's leg. So Zenit transformed the first half-chance into a goal and opened the scoring.

CSKA started the second half more actively.

CSKA understood that they needed to score as quickly as possible, as over time it will be more difficult to do so.

Unfortunately for the owners, they were ruined by poor implementation.

Maxim Mukhin and Chidera Ejuke missed two 100% chances.

Both struck from outside the penalty area after Zabolotny's discounts, but miraculously missed the target.

Not without a controversial episode.

After Zainutdinov's cross from the left flank, the ball ricocheted from Deyan Lovren fell into the hand of Dmitry Chistyakov, who was creeping into the tackle.

But Sergey Karasev did not appoint a penalty, and his colleagues did not interfere with VAR.

Apparently, the referee team decided that the defender simply did not have time to remove his hand, because the rebound occurred at close range.

“Zenith” responded with an unpleasant attack by Malcolm, who also shot just above the gate from a lethal position.

This moment became a turning point in many ways.

The red and blue continued to attack, but they no longer had faith in success.

In addition, Semak made timely replacements.

Danil Krugovoy refreshed the left flank of the defense, through which the opponent constantly penetrated.

And Dziuba entered the field instead of the absolutely inert Azmun.

Later, Alexander Erokhin, Andrey Mostovoy and Magomed Ozdoev, who recovered from an injury, received their time.

On the other hand, CSKA castles did not work.

Fedor Chalov came to the aid of Zabolotny, but did not remember anything, and Ilzat Akhmetov disappeared into the opponent's support zone.

As a result, the hosts simply had no real chance to win back.

Zenit calmly kept the advantage in class, trying to spend a minimum of effort.

Already in the added time by the referee, the Petersburgers put an end to it - the goal was made by the substitute players.

Dziuba caught the ball in a foreign half and brought Mostovoy one on one, who calmly outplayed Akinfeev.

The blue-white-blue won another victory over a direct competitor and retained a four-point lead over Dynamo.