Following Lokomotiv and Ural, Spartak and Krylia Sovetov also had to play the RPL matchday 18 match in freezing temperatures. The thermometer at the red-and-white arena in Tushino on Saturday showed -11.5 ° C, so there was no question of postponing the game. The weather took pity on the players a little: there was no heavy snowfall, so this time the fans saw the ball, as well as the players of the Samara team, who decided to play in white shirts.
The coach of the guests Igor Osinkin, in turn, tried to look at the issue philosophically. According to the specialist, there are both negative and positive aspects in every situation.
"Take a look at the chronicle of the 90s and compare it to today's lawn. Neither the field nor the weather hindered us today. Spring-Autumn System? It won't bring us a lot of free dates at the snap of our fingers. My personal opinion is that it is advisable not to go into December. Perhaps Moscow will also benefit from a closed arena, like in St. Petersburg, so that not only in the south of the country it is possible to play comfortably at this time of year," said the head coach of Krylia Sovetov.
At the same time, Spartak CEO Oleg Malyshev drew attention to the fact that injuries increase at such low temperatures.
"You can run around the field with the ball, you can play in such conditions. I would especially note the work of our agronomists, because the field was in perfect condition. But from a commercial point of view, playing in such weather is not the best option, because it is very difficult to gather a lot of fans (the match was attended by 8 thousand spectators – RT). The question is not about the fall-spring system itself, but about how our calendar is compiled. Ideally, we need to minimize the number of matches in such weather conditions," Malyshev explained.
However, if the low temperature did not affect the quality of the field, then it affected the composition of the Muscovites. Jesús Medina, Theo Bongonda, Ruslan Litvinov, Leon Klassen were absent from the hosts' squad. The club's press service reported that all of them had fallen ill the day before. At the same time, astute journalists drew attention to the fact that many Spartak players arrived at the stadium without hats, and they took to the field without hats.
"Well, for example, Alexander Sobolev thinks that he has a cool hairstyle! But seriously, a few people are out of action because of the virus, but it's a common cold. Our headquarters is working tirelessly to minimize the damage from the situation. Perhaps the large number of moves in recent times had an effect," said the coach of the red-and-white Vladimir Slišković, who replaced Guillermo Abascal on the bench.
This week, the Spaniard was disqualified for two matches by the RFU CDC for reacting to Bernard Berisha's behavior in the game against Akhmat in the 17th round of the RPL. However, according to former Spartak midfielder Andrei Tikhonov, the absence of a coach should not affect the players' performance.
"When a team knows what to do on the pitch, they don't need a coach at that moment! By and large, a coach is needed only before the game and at half-time. When we were playing, Oleg Romantsev didn't give any hints during the match. When footballers perform their duties professionally, they know what is required of them. If they need a coach to babysit every second of the game, then such players need to change their sport," the specialist told RT.
Tikhonov turned out to be absolutely right. The hosts, who clearly wanted to take revenge on Krylia Sovetov for the disappointing 0-4 defeat in the 10th round of the RPL, immediately went forward and opened the scoring in the second minute.
Quincy Promes received the ball in front of the penalty area in a fight with two defenders of the visitors, pretended that he would beat them, and he himself shot into the left corner of the goal between the legs of Roman Evgeniev: from a ricochet off the defender's leg, Ivan Lomaev failed to react to the shot in time. Thus, the forward of the Muscovites approached the top 5 best scorers in the history of the red and white. Now the Dutchman has 114 goals for Spartak, Yuri Gavrilov has one more.
Less than ten minutes later, the hosts were already leading 2-0. Daniil Khlusevich crossed from the left flank into the centre of the opponent's penalty area. Alexander Soldatenkov was the first on the ball, but the Samara defender failed to handle it properly and take it away from the goal, which Alexander Sobolev took advantage of, shooting Lomaev from close range. The forward of the Russian national team scored for the first time since August this year.
It would seem that after such a start, the game should have calmed down a little, but the frost on Saturday contributed to the fact that both teams actively went forward. Promes had two more chances: first, he saw the Samara goalkeeper coming too far out of the goal and threw the ball over him, but it hit the crossbar. And then the Dutchman hit the post from a set piece. Krylia Sovetov could have scored as well: Amar Rakhmanovich fought with Srdjan Babic in the goalkeeper's box, but Alexander Maksimenko managed to intervene in time and save his team.
Spartak removed the question of the winner of the match at the beginning of the second half. At the same time, the goal turned out to be quite curious. After a deflection off the visitors' defender, Nail Umyarov found himself one-on-one with Lomaev, but did not shoot, but rolled the ball across to Promes. Evgeniev tried to clear it out of the penalty area, but it bounced to Christopher Martins, who did not miss in such a situation.
Despite the score, the visitors continued to attack, but failed to find the back of the net for Maksimenko. As Osinkin noted, although his team fought to the end, the result was predetermined after the third goal.
"We beat Spartak three times in a row before this match. Somewhere in my heart I knew it couldn't last forever. Everything went wrong from the very first minute: cuts, ricochets, and so on. With the score 2-0, it was difficult for us to claim a successful final result. We couldn't play flawlessly defensively and we had a lurch towards the attack. Alas, we failed to demonstrate balanced football. After the third goal, we finished the match, if I may say so," the specialist said at a press conference.