All results:
“Zenit” in pursuit of “Krasnodar”
After an unsuccessful start, Zenit gradually gained momentum. In the 14th round, the St. Petersburg team went to visit the stubborn Baltika. It wasn’t easy, but the blue-white-blues won. The Kaliningraders did everything to tightly close all areas of their half of the field. It worked until the 63rd minute, when Ivan Sergeev, after a backheel pass, sent the ball into the goal. And then Mateo Cassierra put an end to it. The Colombian has strengthened his leadership in the list of top scorers, he now has 11 goals scored. A surprising statistic considering last season’s disastrous performance.
Zenit won its fourth victory in a row and even took the intermediate first place in the RPL ranking. But Krasnodar also did its job. The Southerners ended their two-game winless streak in the RPL, beating Krylia Sovetov.
Vladimir Pisarsky finally scored against Samara. But even before that, John Cordoba and Olakunle Olusegun upset their opponents twice.
“Krasnodar” won again: before the face-to-face with “Zenith” in Saint Petersburg, the southerners were two points ahead of their opponents. The fate of the first round champion title will be decided in St. Petersburg.
At the same time, it’s scary for “Wings”. Until recently, Igor Osinkin’s team occupied second place. But in the last four rounds, the Samara team scored only one point, which is why it fell to 4th place. And there is already a whole group of Moscow pursuers.
Faizullaev and Chalov dragged CSKA into the top three
The match in Moscow, in which CSKA hosted Nizhny Novgorod, turned out to be extremely interesting. Sergei Yuran’s team claimed to be the main opening of the first round. And the Nizhny Novgorod team may well upset CSKA. The guests took the lead twice, but in the middle of the second half something incredible happened to them: Nizhny conceded twice in two minutes, which left them without points (2:3 ).
The main characters were Fyodor Chalov and Abbosbek Faizullaev. Chalov scored himself, and Faizullaev scored two goals for his team. After the match, Chilean Victor Davila even expressed hope that Faizullaev would become a better footballer than Alexis Sanchez (!!).
CSKA is now in the top 3, but it is still far from Krasnodar and Zenit.
Dynamo had to catch up with the army team. The Muscovites closed the tour program with a match in Fisht. The Sochi team took the lead midway through the first half, but the guests responded with three goals before the break. After that, it seemed that Sochi no longer had a chance. However, the hosts managed to escape, and in the end they almost put the finishing touches on their opponents. “Dynamo” clearly needs to learn to score points.
Dziuba against the old
It was a great match between Lokomotiv and Spartak. The red and whites were more interesting in the first half, but the cards were mixed by the expulsion of Daniil Khlusevich at the end of the first half. Despite the minority, Spartak managed to score thanks to the efforts of Anton Zinkovsky. But Lokomotiv fought back. Naturally, Artyom Dzyuba stood out, how could it be otherwise?
In the end, Loko staged a veritable distribution of Christmas presents, not converting as many chances as would have been enough for a defeat. A very offensive draw, which obviously did not please Dziuba.
Revenge of Tashuev
In Grozny, “Akhmat” welcomed “Fakel”. Voronezh residents were brought to the capital of the Chechen Republic by Sergei Tashuev, who previously headed Akhmat. The revenge on the ex was a complete success. The Grozny team scored in first-half stoppage time and Fakel responded with two goals after the break. Moreover, the winning goal was scored in the 93rd minute!
“Akhmat” is on a four-game losing streak, occupying 14th place, and “Fakel” has already risen to 10th place, having won three consecutive victories.
The Urals are doing badly. The Yekaterinburg team is also going through a long winless streak. The last time they won in RPL was in the 5th (!!) round. In the 14th round, the Yekaterinburg team lost to Rubin at home, conceding in stoppage time. Ural coach Viktor Goncharenko looked a little confused. The head coach admitted that his team needed to end this streak quickly. It is clear that it is psychologically difficult to survive this.
“Orenburg” and “Rostov” played a very cheerful match. The teams exchanged blows, creating chances to score 3:3 or 4:4. But in the end they were left with a less effective draw – 1:1. And both were unhappy. “Rostov” did not convert a penalty in the first half and “Orenburg” ultimately missed many chances.
Tournament table
Anton Mozgovoy, Athletistic
Source: Sport
I’m Scott Moore, a professional writer and journalist based in the US. I’ve been writing for various publications for over 8 years now, and have been working as an author at athletistic for the past five years. My work has been featured by some of the leading sports websites and magazines across Europe.
