Few experts believed in the success of Dynamo in one of the central matches of the 24th round with Zenit. For St. Petersburg, not only the advantage of the home stadium spoke, but also the results after the resumption of the season. In eight meetings, the wards of Sergei Semak won five victories and practically solved all the issues in the championship race. The gap from the main pursuer in the face of "Rostov" consisted of nine points, as a result of which the blue-white-blue were considered by many to be unattainable.
An additional motivation for the hosts should have been an offensive defeat in the Russian Cup, where Zenit lost to Dynamo in a penalty shootout. True, then the team from the Northern capital was in a weakened squad and could not count on the disqualified Malcolm and Wilmar Barrios, as well as Rodrigao, who this time was on the bench. Otherwise, St. Petersburg approached the confrontation in full combat readiness, which could not be said about their counterparts. Due to injury, Diego Laxalt was still absent, and Saba Sazonov could not enter the field due to too many yellow cards. And this only exacerbated the problems of Muscovites in defense.
As a result, in the center of defense, Roberto Fernandez was paired with Milan Majstorovich, who had played only 193 minutes for the blue and white until that moment. And it was extremely difficult to imagine how the 18-year-old Serb would hold back such star strikers as Matteo Cassierra, Malcom and Claudinho. But Dynamo's difficulties did not end there. The application did not include one of the team's top scorers in the RPL, Konstantin Tyukavin, who had eight goals to his credit. According to head coach Slavisa Jokanovic, he had a sore throat and was not ready to help his partners in an important meeting. His place in the starting line was taken by Fyodor Smolov, who only continues to get in shape after an injury.
In the first minutes, one could get the impression that Jokanovic took out Sandro Schwarz's notes and decided to remind the fans again of the times when Dynamo played modern football with high pressure. The guests literally terrorized the opponent's defenders and forced Dmitry Chistyakov and Renan to make more than one mistake. And if Smolov had been more accurate on the finish, they could have scored before the end of the tenth minute.
It took time for Zenit to learn how to get out of pressure, but by the middle of the half, the opponent's attempts to cover the hosts in their own half were less and less successful. Semak's wards gradually adapted and, with the help of long throws to Claudinho and Douglas Santos, began to go on the offensive. True, there were problems with combinations. They carried out the first protracted attack already in the 24th minute, but Cassierra's header was not dangerous.
After that, St. Petersburg residents no longer gave up the initiative. Yes, sometimes the Muscovites counterattacked well, but bright episodes at the gates of Mikhail Kerzhakov rarely occurred. One can only recall the "shot" of Denis Makarov, with which, albeit not without difficulty, the goalkeeper coped. Zenit responded to this with a series of attacks with the participation of its main stars, and in the end still forced the opponent to make a fatal mistake.
Moomin Ngamalyo did not notice Elazar Dasa, who rushed to the safety net, and brought down Malcom in his own penalty area, giving Vitaly Meshkov a reason to appoint an 11-meter penalty. The victim himself came to the point and beat Anton Shunin, scoring his 17th goal in the RPL. Thus, the Brazilian bypassed Quincy Promes and led the sniper race, and also came out on top in the "goal + pass" system (23).
Before the break, Jokanovic for a good minute emotionally reprimanded Meshkov, expressing disagreement with one of his decisions. Perhaps he spent too much energy on this tirade and failed to get his wards in the locker room. Dynamo's second half started not as actively as the first and did not show a desire to restore parity at all costs. Luka Gagnidze and Yaroslav Gladyshev, who replaced Zakharyan and Ngamalyo, respectively, could not revive the game of the guests.
Zenit, on the other hand, basically preferred to roll the ball for a long time, gradually lulling the enemy's vigilance, as well as catching the not so harmoniously pressing Dynamo in oncoming traffic. And in the 68th minute he achieved his goal. Not to say that the hosts' counterattack turned out to be perfect: the pass to Malcom was not only belated, but also out of pace, and Dmitry Skopintsev had already managed to return to the defense. But the Brazilian had only half a meter of free space to move to the center and irresistibly shoot into the far top corner. Shunin did not save.
Over the next ten minutes, Dynamo could have missed twice more and conceded with a big score, but fortune suddenly turned away from Zenit. Substitute Andrei Mostovoy was unstoppable and created several excellent chances for his teammates. But Claudinho's long-range shot was handled by Shunin (albeit not without the help of the crossbar), and Cassierra made a mistake in the end. The Colombian laid the goalkeeper on the turf, but he did not have enough strength for the final shot. He clumsily rolled the ball on target and gave Majstorovich the opportunity to fish it off the ribbon.
Subsequently, the reigning champions of Russia still upset Shunin for the third time. And it was the overactive Mostovoy who did it, who was assisted by Malcolm, who undoubtedly deserved the title of the protagonist of the match. True, by this time the Muscovites had already managed to reduce the gap. Daniil Fomin's goal did not follow from the logic of the game, but this did not make it any less beautiful. The Dynamo midfielder received a pass on the edge of the penalty area and hammered the ball into the bottom corner.
However, this only slightly sweetened the pill for Jokanovic's team. Zenit dealt with Dynamo without any problems and not only took revenge on him for the defeat in the Russian Cup, but also extended the unbeaten streak in the face-to-face confrontation in the RPL to five meetings. The last time Muscovites defeated St. Petersburg was in August 2020. Then the author of the only goal was Toni Šunjić.