The power of coaches: how the RPL Winter Cup came to an end

The main exhibition tournament for RPL clubs during the long pause in the season - the RPL Winter Cup in Abu Dhabi - ended with Zenit St. Petersburg defeating Spartak Moscow 3-0 in the final. The Red and Whites' head coach Dejan Stankovic was suspended from the bench, followed by his colleague Sergei Semak in solidarity. In addition to these two teams, Dinamo Moscow and CSKA Moscow, as well as Krasnodar and Rostov, also took part in the tournament.

Best in the final

"Zenit" and "Spartak" are considered one of the main contenders for the championship this season. Both teams went into the winter break in December in the top three after 18 rounds. "Zenit" is in second place, second to "Krasnodar" only on personal meetings with equal points. "Spartak" is third - he is only two points behind the leaders.

In winter, the clubs have launched the most active transfer campaign among all RPL participants. The costs of newcomers are estimated in the tens of millions of euros. And if Zenit has long been distinguished by this, then Spartak became the first Russian club for many years, who decided to compete with the Blue and White Blues in this area.

Interestingly, some foreign players could end up at both Zenit and Spartak. On the day of the Winter Cup final, the Red-Whites announced the transfer of Argentine midfielder Pablo Solari from River Plate. According to the media, his transfer cost €10 million. A few days earlier, the Moscow club officially signed the striker of Greek "AEK" and the national team of Trinidad and Tobago Levi Garcia. Various media sources claim that he cost Spartak €18.7 million and became the most expensive purchase in the club's history.

Meanwhile, the transfer of Serbian Ivan Ilic from Italian Torino is highly probable. Throughout January, Russian and foreign media talked about his transfer as if it was almost done. It was supposed to cost more than €20 million including bonuses. But not so long ago it became known that because of the midfielder's injury, the deal may be delayed, or even not take place at all.

"Zenit" is still limited only to the January acquisition of Brazilian striker Luis Enrique. According to rumors, he cost the St. Petersburgers more than €30 million. And the day before the match with Spartak, there was information about the disruption of the transfer to the club from the Northern capital of Uruguayan midfielder Rodrigo Salazar, for whom could have been paid € 15 million transfer fee and € 5 million in bonuses. His current club, Portuguese side Braga, have officially announced that the deal will not go through.

Meanwhile, Luis Enrique managed to show why he was taken to St. Petersburg, opening the scoring in the match against Spartak in the 16th minute. By the middle of the first half Zenit led 3-0 - first Wendel, who is preparing for a summer departure to Brazilian Botafogo, scored, and then Matteo Casierra brought the game to a rout.

And after the break, the main event of the game and the whole tournament happened - a joint trip to the stand of the two head coaches. It started with Spartak midfielder Christopher Martins roughly fouling Zenit defender Gustavo Mantuana. In response, the Brazilian lunged at his opponent, but was restrained by referee Kirill Levnikov. Immediately Semak came onto the pitch to calm his charge.

Stankovic followed suit, getting into an altercation first with Levnikov and then with Semak's assistant Aleksandr Anyukov. It ended with the Serbian specialist and Anyukov receiving a red card each. Semak was given only a yellow card. But, having the right to stay on the line, he followed Stankovic and watched the match with him from the stands.

It should be noted that on the morning of the match day, part of the Zenit squad played a friendly match with Armenian Pyunik (2-0). The second goal was scored by Alexander Sobolev, who scored for the fourth time in six friendlies this winter. But because of the meeting with the Armenians, he didn't play against Spartak in the evening, having watched the match from the stands. However, that didn't stop the Red and White fans from booing their former player, who scandalously defected to their arch-rival at the end of the summer.

The 27-year-old forward himself wrote in his Telegram channel after the game: "A small thing, but nice". At the awarding ceremony, he refused to kiss the Zenit emblem, which he was jokingly forced to do by St. Petersburg midfielder Andrei Mostovoi.

- "Zenit showed that they are very well prepared for the resumption of the championship - shared his opinion with Izvestia former Spartak midfielder Alexander Mostovoi. - True, we must take into account that the Red and Whites played with a sub-optimal lineup. But nevertheless, the St. Petersburgers looked very convincing, especially in the first half. It's not surprising that it led to the breakdown of Stankovic, who is an emotional man. I don't know why Semak ended up leaving him on the coaching bench, but if it's some sign of solidarity, then you can respect him for that. In principle, Stankovic was not the first to start that clash. Semak came on the pitch before him. Perhaps, he thought it was necessary to suspend both of them, and decided to show solidarity with his colleague.

Results of the rest

Six teams participated in the RPL Winter Cup and were divided into two groups. "Zenit" and "Spartak", having taken the first place in the groups, got to the final. The day before the deciding match, the games for third and fifth places took place.

CSKA and Krasnodar, who finished second in their respective groups, fought for bronze. Krasnodar won this match with a score of 2:1. And in the game for fifth place Rostov defeated Dynamo 4-0.

- Such a defeat is very disturbing," former Dynamo head coach Sergei Silkin told Izvestia. - It's hard to say what's going on with the team. Maybe the story with Bittelo's absence at the first training camp, who did not show up at the club's location, tried to leave it, but only thanks to the tough actions of the management they managed to keep him. There is a feeling of some under-concentration at Dynamo, which periodically manifests itself in official matches. I hope the team will draw conclusions from it. Otherwise, there can be unnecessary losses of points in March, right after the resumption of the season, as it happened already in the summer and last spring. Then Marcel Licka's team picked up momentum, but in the end, those misfires kept them from reaching their goals - they lost the gold medal last season and are behind the leaders this season, albeit not by much. At the same time, we must give credit to Krasnodar, which played the tournament with quality and proves that it is ready to continue the fight for the championship in the spring.

Recall, Dynamo is in fourth place in the championship and is four points behind the leaders. CSKA is four points behind the Bilo-Syni and nine points behind Rostov - these teams are on the sixth and seventh lines, respectively. The RPL season will resume in just over two weeks. The first match of the championship in 2025 will take place on February 28.