Fight with the bulls: will Dynamo take revenge on Krasnodar

The second round of the RPL Paths group stage will be held in the Russian Football Cup this week. The central match will be the confrontation between Dynamo Moscow and Krasnodar. In addition, special attention should be paid to the meetings of Spartak Moscow with Dynamo Makhachkala and Zenit St. Petersburg with Rubin Kazan.

Dynamo (Moscow) – Krasnodar

In recent years, the history of the confrontation between these two teams has become especially rich. In the last rounds of the two previous Russian Championship draws, these clubs played each other at Krasnodar's home stadium. Both times they decided the fate of the gold medals. In 2024, both the Bulls and Dynamo claimed the first place. Moreover, Dynamo was in the lead before the decisive meeting and, in the event of a draw, became the national champion for the first time since 1976. But due to the 0-1 defeat, it missed both Krasnodar and Zenit, which eventually finished first.

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In May of this year, Dynamo, following the results of the trip to the bulls, could at best claim only the third place. While Krasnodar, which was in the lead, just had to win against the blue and white team in order not to miss Zenit to the first place. Murad Musayev's team did just that — a 3-0 victory and the first championship in the club's history.

They have already played each other in the RPL this season. In the third round, Krasnodar snatched a victory at home from Dynamo in the last minutes (1-0). The Bulls are in second place in the championship. But in the Cup we started in the group stage with a home defeat against Samara Krylia Sovetov (1:2).

Dynamo, on the contrary, won a strong-willed victory over Sochi at home (3:2), scoring the winning goal at the end of the meeting. At the same time, things are not going well for Valery Karpin's players in the championship. They won only one match out of the first four. The misfire following the results of Sunday's trip to Sochi turned out to be especially annoying. Dynamo led 1-0, but allowed the opponent to equalize in the end and settled for a 1-1 draw.

"It's going to be an unpredictable match, because, as often happens, we don't know how seriously both teams will rotate their squad for the Cup," Sergei Silkin, former Dynamo head coach, told Izvestia. — Usually, in the group stages, the opponents release reserves. Although, against the background of the large number of injuries at Dynamo, it is unclear who he should release instead of the base. Krasnodar, against this background, has a deeper squad and a more well-coordinated game, but the blue and white are quite capable of gathering for this match and achieving victory.

Spartak – Dynamo (Makhachkala)

Spartak also got into a crisis at the start of the championship. He scored only four points in the first four rounds and is outside the top ten. The talks about the imminent resignation of the red and white head coach Dejan Stankovic are intensifying with each passing week. At the same time, Spartak won the only victory in the current championship over Dynamo Makhachkala — it happened in the first round.

Then the score was minimal (1-0), although the red and white created many more scoring chances, and the referee did not count several goals scored. At the same time, the Dagestan club was extremely inconvenient for Stankovich's team last season. Then Dynamo won the Cup away (1-0) and lost at home (0-1) in the same tournament. And in the championship, it took away points from the red-whites in both meetings — a 1-1 draw at home and a 2-1 victory away.

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Hasanbi Bijiyev's team started the current championship without much extravagance, but they are gaining points regularly. After the failure in the game against Spartak, they do not lose, having scored five points thanks to two draws and one victory, which allows Makhachkala to go higher in the table than the red and white. At the same time, both teams started with victories in the Russian Cup. Spartak won away from Rostov (2:0), and Dynamo won at home from Pari Nizhny Novgorod (1:0).

"As usual, you can expect anything from Spartak," Andrei Chervichenko, the former owner of the red and white team, told Izvestia. — Basically, the game shows that there is confusion and vacillation in the team, and Stankovic does not control the players and cannot place them correctly on the field, he is constantly on edge, he breaks down at the referees, then at other people's players. Even against this background, Spartak has enough class to defeat the Makhachkala team, but given this chaos, the red-whites may lose the next match. Moreover, the Dagestani team is quite combative and is able to take away points from any opponent.

Zenit – Rubin

Zenit also failed the start. He scored five points and is on a par with Dynamo Moscow in the championship, one point ahead of Spartak. Last weekend's defeat against Akhmat (0:1) was especially painful for Sergey Semak's team.

But it is unlikely that the Petersburgers forgot the misfire in Kazan in the second round of the championship, when they led 2-0, but drew with Rubin (2:2). Now they will have to host a club from Tatarstan at home as part of the Russian Cup. Both teams won their matches at the start of the tournament. Zenit prevailed over Akhmat (2:1), and Rubin defeated Orenburg (2:0) at home.

There will also be five more matches in the upcoming round. Akron Togliatti will host CSKA Moscow, Orenburg will meet Akhmat Grozny at home, Lokomotiv Moscow will play with Baltika Kaliningrad at home, Sochi will meet with Krylia Sovetov at home, and Rostov will visit Pari Nizhny Novgorod. Novgorod".